2024 Oscars cliffhanger: Will we see a 4th animated film nominated for Best Picture this year?

Jacob Sarkisian
·5 min read
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Animated flicks don’t get the justice they deserve when it comes to the Academy Awards. So often, animated movies are some of the most original, memorable, and well-told stories of the entire year yet they are, more often than not, confined to the category of Best Animated Picture.

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” “Fantasia,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “The Lion King,” “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” “WALL-E,” “Shrek,” and last year’s Best Animated Picture winner, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” are just a handful of all-time classic movies that aren’t great animated movies, they are great movies period. Despite this, however, we have only had three animated movies in Oscars history that have been nominated for Best Picture.

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“Beauty and the Beast” was the first animated movie to do so, landing a Best Picture bid in 1991. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, “Beauty and the Beast” was nominated for six Oscars: Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Original Score, and thrice for Best Original Song for “Be Our Guest,” “Belle,” and “Beauty and the Beast.” The movie won Best Original Score (for Alan Menken) and Best Original Song for “Beauty and the Beast” (for Menken and Howard Ashman). The movie lost Best Sound to “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” while Best Picture went to “The Silence of the Lambs.” The other Best Picture nominees that year were “Bugsy,” “JFK,” and “The Prince of Tides.” The Best Picture nomination for “Beauty and the Beast” was even more notable as it came before the inception of the Best Animated Feature category, which was created in 2002.

The second animated film to be nominated for Best Picture was “Up,” which was nominated in 2010 alongside “Avatar,” “The Blind Side,” “District 9,” “An Education,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Precious,” “A Serious Man,” “Up in the Air,” and Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker.” “Up,” which was directed by Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson, also won two Oscars — Best Original Score for Michael Giacchino and Best Animated Feature. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay (for Doctor, Peterson, and Tom McCarthy) and Best Sound Editing.

The third, final, and most recent animated film to land a Best Picture nomination was another Pixar flick — “Toy Story 3,” which was directed by Lee Unkrich. This film was nominated for Best Picture the year after “Up” in 2011, where it was nominated alongside “Black Swan,” “The Fighter,” “Inception,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “127 Hours,” “The Social Network,” “True Grit,” “Winter’s Bone,” and Best Picture winner “The King’s Speech.” “Toy Story 3” won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (for Randy Newman for “We Belong Together”). It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay (for Unkrich, Andrew Stanton, John Lasseter, and Michael Arndt) and Best Sound Editing.

So, those are the three history makers, although the likes of “The Lion King,” “Finding Nemo,” “Ratatouille,” “WALL-E,” and “Shrek” surely came close to joining them. But that’s the past. Let’s look ahead to the future.

Could we see a fourth animated flick join this trio at the upcoming Oscars? This year has been a good year for animated movies. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” grossed over a billion dollars while “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” received rapturous reviews.” Pixar has an entry this year with “Elemental” while Disney has their upcoming “Wish” to look out for. Other animated pictures this year also include “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” Studio Ghibli’s “How Do You Live?” (titled “The Boy and the Heron” in some territories), and Aardman’s “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.”

This is a strong line-up this year with several major studios competing with films — Pixar, Sony Animation, Disney, Studio Ghibli, Aardman, and Illumination are all in the mix. It’ll certainly be an interesting race to see which of these movies will land Best Animated Feature nominations, but could any land a Best Picture nomination?

Currently, we are predicting that the following titles will be nominated for Best Picture: “Oppenheimer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Past Lives,” “Barbie,” “The Color Purple,” “The Holdovers,” “Maestro,” “Poor Things,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” and “The Zone of Interest.” No animated pictures in that lineup, then. However, “Across the Spider-Verse” is just outside of our predicted 10 and looks to be a good competitor this year.

The first film, “Into the Spider-Verse,” won Best Animated Feature in 2019, so there is a decent history there. “Across the Spider-Verse” has arguably been even better received, so could it go one step further? Other than that, “Elemental” and “Wish” are on our odds list but they are a long way off as things stand.

So, at the moment, it looks like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Up,” and “Toy Story 3” will remain the only animated films nominated for Best Picture. For now…

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