Disney has never gone three years without taking home the Best Animated Feature award since the Oscar was instituted in 2001, a disappointing streak that could make history this year. Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion dark fantasy Pinocchio and Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron dominated the last two years, putting the House of Mouse in a two-year drought. And since Moana 2 failed to make the cut despite crossing $1 billion at the global box office, Disney can only lean on its subsidiary lodestone Pixar with Inside Out 2 (which also crossed $1 billion internationally) for some saving grace. Will Joy trump Anxiety, or will Embarrassment commandeer the console?
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Inside Out 2 is rightfully nominated and could win, but Dreamworks’ The Wild Robot and Latvian film Flow have been the big winners from the smaller awarding bodies and the Golden Globes. Either of the latter would create the first-ever three-year dry spell for Disney in a category that the distributor has historically dominated. Other animated films nominated for the award include: Madman Entertainment’s Memoir of a Snail and Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.
It’s worth noting the last time Disney Animation Studios took home an Oscar was for Encanto (2022); preceded by Pixar Studios with a trifecta of wins courtesy of Soul (2020), Toy Story 4 (2021), and Coco (2018). In fact, with the exception of winners like Zootopia, Big Hero 6, and Frozen, it’s Pixar that has claimed the most golden statuettes for the Mouse House total. Regardless, it’s their parent company that needs the win to stay on the right side of history.
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So Who’s Off to the Races?
Inside Out 2
The sequel to the 2015 original sees Riley, now a 13-year-old teenager, grapple with new emotions as she’s finally settled into her new town of San Fransisco, after leaving her childhood behind in Minnesota. Up in Headquarters, however, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust are met with new emotion Anxiety, who comes with a lot of baggage, and she isn’t alone either. As of summer 2024, Inside Out 2 became the highest-grossing animated film of all time, surpassing Frozen 2 which held the record until 2019.
Wild Robot
Directed by Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon), and based on the novel by Peter Brown, Wild Robot sees its main character Roz shipwrecked on a remote island and has to adjust to its new environment. Roz quickly forms a maternalย bondย with an orphaned gosling while establishing relationships with the nativeย animals. The film debuted in October with a perfect 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and currently maintains an impressive 98% aurdience rating.
Flow
Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis’s mute animation centers on Cat who is a reclusive feline, and when his homeย is destroyed by a greatย flood, he seeks safety on a boat inhabitedย by other species. Together they must learn to co-exist despite every animal’sย differences. Its dialogue-free storytelling heightens the senses, enabling you to feel each of the character’s emotions all the more deeply and really brings home the message that life goes on, and you must go with the Flow.
Memoir of a Snail
Grace Pudel is a book-loving, snail-collecting misfit who suffers a series of setbacks after being separated from her twin brother Gilbert. Despite her difficulties, Grace gains inspiration and optimism when she forms a friendship with an eccentric elderly woman named Pinky. From Academy Award-winning writer and filmmaker Adam Elliot, the Oscar nominee serves a heartbreaking and humorous tale of an outsider discovering her confidence and silver linings among the chaos of everyday life.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
In this British claymation action comedy, Gromit’s fearย that Wallace is growing overly reliant on his inventions is validated when Wallace creates a “smart” gnome that appears to develop sentient abilities.ย When a vindictive figure from the past emerges as the mastermind, Gromit must combat nefarious forces and save his master, or else Wallace may never againย be able to invent. The feature is directed by Merlin Crossingham and Nick Park has also scored a flawless 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Hosted by Conan O’Brien, the 2025 Academy Awards ceremony will be broadcast on ABC-TV on Sunday, March 2nd.
