The History of the Best Animated Feature Oscar

[@CinephileStudios]

I’ve been loving the variety of studios and animation techniques being represented by this category in recent years. I’m hoping to see Sony snag another Oscar win for Mitchells, even if I personally loved Luca a bit more, and I understand Encanto will bring a tight race. Mitchells is as groundbreaking as Spider-Verse, so I think it’s deserved.

[@mediamaniaable]

If the Best Animated Feature category existed in 2000, the nominees would be: Chicken Run The Emperor’s New Groove The Road to El Dorado Rugrats In Paris: The Movie Titan A.E. Chicken Run would be that year’s winner, of course.

[@iHeartsNostalgiaPit]

Chicken Run was kind of what convinced them to get the category to exist

[@joeymartinez5814]

I know I've (probably) brought this up before, but I just despise it when people say "This movie should've won the Best Animated Feature Oscar then the movie that did win it." I remember this 2 Tumblr users; one of them said "'Monsters, Inc. should've won over 'Shrek'!" while the other said "'Wreck-It Ralph losing to 'Brave' is the equivalent of the Wallace & Gromit movie winning over 'Howl's Moving Castle'!" Speaking of which, the worst one of these is definitely when Pixar's Brave won the 2013 Best Animated Feature Oscar, there was a bunch of people whining and complaining about Wreck-It Ralph and ParaNorman "deserving to win over Brave." (Worst part is that I even took part in that whole debacle; guilty as charged.) This even happenend all over again when Toy Story 4 won the 2020 Best Animated Feature Oscar, which I saw a few tweets saying that "Boo that Toy Story 4 won the Oscar" or (from Tony Goldmark AKA Some Jerk with a Camera) "#KlausWasRobbed". Seriously? People, especially those on Film Twitter and Animation Twitter, need to realize that the judges for the Academy Awards can vote for whoever they want. And when a movie wins, it's because the majority of the judges voted for that specific movie win. You should at least be happy with what movies were nominated and won, even if you would've voted for something different. Anyways, wonderful work as always, Stef. It's always fascinating to hear you talk about the history of a certain subject. 👍🙂

[@joshuagiraffe]

Good video, as always, Stefan! (Now I understand why the category wasn't introduced years earlier.) One thing that personally disgusted me very much was that "The Lego Movie" was not nominated. As a side note, I remember there being a lot of expectation for that film to be a major contender; I'm sure part of that had to do with the film being the big hit that it was, but it's also my understanding that part of it also had to do with no Pixar films being released that year. Just for curiosity's sake, any thoughts?

[@MrCoat]

I would have loved for The LEGO Movie to get nominated, but I personally don't think it not getting in was some grand conspiracy at play, especially when looking at the films that did receive the nomination. Laika and Cartoon Saloon have been nominated for all of their movies, so the voters appear to have a massive affection for those studios. That explains the Boxtrolls and Song of the Sea nods. Studio Ghibli is also well respected, which is why The Tale of the Princess Kaguya got in. How to Train Your Dragon 2 was a popular sequel to a beloved movie and it even won the Annie Award for Best Animate Feature, so animators especially responded to it. And Big Hero 6 eventually won the Oscar, showing how many in the Academy liked it a lot (although before the ceremony, I predicted Dragon 2 to win). That wasn't even the first year a Laika, Cartoon Saloon and Disney animated film were nominated and a Lord and Miller film wasn't as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs had also been widely predicted to get an Oscar nomination, but didn't.

[@cetrata1993]

@@MrCoat I would have switched out boxtrolls for lego movie (boxtrolls was good but laikas weakest film IMO). At least the 5 nominations on there were all at least good. Boss Baby doing well at the 2017 awards circuit still mystifies me a bit (not just because I wasn't a huge fan but that it got mixed reviews everywhere) when the lego batman movie was right there

[@tayloredwards4968]

Is the only part of the Oscars I actually watch.

[@mjhtv5397]

Same.

[@iHeartsNostalgiaPit]

nah it should have started in 1997 considering that you also had Cats Don't Dance and Anastasia out there wasn't there a rule that states continuations of tv series wouldn't be nominated in the Best Animated Feature category (someone on the Wild Thornberries movie video pointed this out to me saying that since it was a continuation it wouldn't be nominated for best animated feature (which is why the simpsons movie didn't get nominated)

[@MrCoat]

There is no Academy rule that states that animated movies based on television shows can't be nominated for Best Animated Feature. All of them that have met the eligibility requirements (a one week run in a movie theatre in Los Angeles or New York) were allowed to compete. Even "Regular Show: The Movie" was included in the eligibility list in 2015, because Warner Bros/Cartoon Network played it for a week in a movie theatre before it aired on television. It is true that they don't seem to get nominated, with the Shaun the Sheep Movie being the one exception. But I think that's more because those movies tend to be aimed towards the fans of the show rather than newcomers, like presumably most choosing the nominees in the category would be. The Maggie Simpson short "The Longest Daycare" did get nominated for Best Animated Short, though, so I think it's possible The Simpsons Movie was in fourth or fifth place in 2007 (there were only three nominees that year).

[@MrWarners14]

There’s been controversy over the years that Academy voters don’t even watch the animated movies they’re supposed to consider for the Oscar. There’s been reports of a lot of voters abstaining from voting for mostly ridiculous reasons, some of which are shockingly bigoted and even racist. It creates a feeling that the Academy doesn’t take the category truly seriously, especially when they call animation live on TV a “genre” which it isn’t. It a medium filled with genres like any medium. Plenty of professional animators have been criticising the Academy for being so unprofessional at this. I don’t even watch the Oscars anymore because of the blatant disrespect they often do to a lot of the animated movies. I wish you talked about this, Mr. Coat because this has been a serious problem that’s been happening for years.

[@thecinematicbandicoot7280]

Completely agree. It's very unprofessional that the same voters who can stomach movies that range from 2-3 hours, can't digest films half that length and only vote for the animated films they take their kids to. I actually pull the opposite and watch all the nominated animated films before all the live-action films.

[@joeymartinez5814]

Honestly, I think this whole "Oscar voters don't care about animated movies" is ridiculous. The reason why is because those reports only contain small samples of voters. From what I've heard, there are over 8000 Academy voters. The large majority of them are actors, but there are also directors, producers, writers, sound designers, editors, musical composers and even animators who vote for the Oscars. Even Brad Bird is an Oscar voter. They are also of varying ages, though most of them are in the 50+ range. They're not even allowed to reveal who they voted for, which is why all of those small samples of voters in every one of those articles are anonymous. And last I checked, even Stefan thinks these things are ridiculous. Proof: web.archive.org/web/20150531014442/www.thatfellowinthecoat.com/animatwindrises.php (look for Mr. Coat's comment), twitter.com/MisterCoat/status/1095792629311254542

[@MrCoat]

Those anonymous ballots make me wince every year. One problem with the Oscars in general is that voters aren't required to watch all of the nominees and they just go by an honour system. You do have voters, like Edgar Wright and Lee Unkrich, who have publicly commented on this and reveal they personally only vote in a given category when they've watched every single one of the nominated films. So it's good there are some members of the Academy who take the responsibility of voting for the Oscars seriously. I know if I was in the Academy, I would do the same as Wright and Unkrich. Although it's not unique to the animated feature category. Voters have admitted they don't watch all of the documentaries and foreign films, either. Siskel and Ebert used to be very critical of the process involved in nominating the documentaries. There are around 10,000 members of the Academy and that means you're going to get a lot of ignorant opinions in such a large group, unfortunately. I find the best way to counteract the biases and choices of the Oscars is to create your own fantasy Oscar history in your own head. In my alternate Oscar universe, "Beauty and the Beast" did win Best Picture and "WALL-E" took home all of the awards it was nominated, not just Animated Feature.

[@cetrata1993]

@@MrCoat And as you alluded to in the video, just a nomination these days gets people to check the film's out. Secret of the Kells not winning didn't stop it from having a cult following and giving the studio funding for more money.

[@Sandlot1992]

Impressive Video!

[@georgerobertson7010]

Can you please do a tribute to Histeria? I need more than just my opinion on the show

[@MrGabeanator]

in my opinion beauty and beast paved the way for the best animated feature Oscar in fact i already made fanfiction lists for the 90s

[@SihirbazTsar55]

1:31 Iron Giant should have won Best Picture in 2000 - it is way better than American Beauty.

[@liambiniares3182]

I've always thought the idea of award shows are dumb. But I still infuriates me that the Academy doesn't seem to view animation as nothing more that "kids movies".

[@jar1543]

Unless it's Spider-verse.

[@ladraff9702]

Oscar is a tv show created to give awards to Disney. Funny how it is aired in abc and abc is owned by Disney