On Sunday March 15th, the 25th Best Animated Feature Academy Award will be handed out. That’s right, the Oscars has been honoring animated films in their own category for a quarter century. It all began on March 24th, 2002, with “Shrek” taking home the inaugural Best Animated Feature Oscar. I got to see that Academy Award in person when I visited The Academy Museum in Los Angeles in Spring 2022. “Shrek” is one of two Dreamworks Animation titles to receive the award. The other was 2005’s “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”, a co-production with beloved stop-motion studio Aardman. The competition for “Shrek”: Paramount and Nickelodeon’s “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius” and Disney/Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.”

Following an honor for Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” in 2003, Pixar earned its first Animated Feature Oscar with “Finding Nemo” in 2004, and then “The Incredibles” in 2005. Pixar would go on to win in this category nine more times, for “Ratatouille”, “WALL-E”, “Up”, “Toy Story 3”, “Brave”, “Inside Out”, “Coco”, “Toy Story 4” and most recently “Soul”, in 2021. Pixar’s Pete Docter is the director with the most wins, with three. “Happy Feet”, from Warner Bros. and “Babe” & “Mad Max” director George Miller, pulled-off a bit of an upset over “Cars”, claiming victory in 2007. But “Happy Feet” also won the BAFTA earlier that awards season. The British version of the Oscars is celebrating 20 years of its Best Animated Film category. Its 2026 nominees will be announced this Tuesday, Jan. 27.

Gore Verbinski’s “Rango” was the Oscars category recipient in 2012, nearly a year to the day after the adventure dramedy from Paramount and Nickelodeon opened in theaters. Walt Disney Animation Studios scored its first win with phenomenon “Frozen” in 2014, followed by “Big Hero 6” the next year, “Zootopia” two years after that, and “Encanto” in 2022. After previous nominations for “Surf’s Up” and Aardman collab “The Pirates! Band of Misfits”, Sony Pictures Animation finally earned an Animated Feature Oscar in 2019 for “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (here’s the video of that win):

Netflix won the gold with “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” in 2023. Miyazaki received his second Oscar in this category two years ago for “The Boy and the Heron” (made by Studio Ghibli and distributed in North America by GKIDS). And last year, the cat tale “Flow” from the country of Latvia, director Gints Zilbalodis, and distributors Sideshow and Janus Films, beat heavyweights from Pixar (“Inside Out 2”), DreamWorks (“The Wild Robot”), Aardman (“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”) and Australia (“Memoir of a Snail”).

So what will happen this year? The frontrunner is “KPop Demon Hunters”, which would give Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix their second win each in this category. “KDH” won at the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globe Awards earlier this month, and it’s a major Annie Awards contender. But due to theatrical release guidelines in their rules, the BAFTAs determined it was not eligible for its Best Animated Film category. Still, with an additional nom in Best Original Song for “Golden”, “KPop Demon Hunters” is in pole position for the Oscar. But the other nominees are very much in play — Disney’s “Zootopia 2”, GKIDS’ “Little Amelie or The Character of Rain”, Pixar’s “Elio” and NEON’s “Arco”, which earned producer Natalie Portman her fourth career Oscar nomination. She won Best Actress for “Black Swan” in 2011 and was an acting nominee for “Closer” in 2005 and “Jackie” in 2017.

It was great speaking with Portman and Bienvenu for Animation Scoop last fall, as well as “KPop Demon Hunters” directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans over the summer. Those interviews, as well as “Zootopia 2”, “Little Amelie” and “Elio” interview coverage, can be found on the Animation Scoop website and social platforms.

Good luck to all the nominees of the 25th Best Animated Feature Academy Award!