Academy Award For Best Animated Feature

The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is an Academy Award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for the best animated feature film. An animated feature is defined by the academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique, a significant number of the major characters are animated, and animation figures in no less than 75 percent of the running time. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was first awarded in 2002 for films released in 2001.

For much of the Academy Awards' history, the AMPAS was resistant to the idea of a regular award for animated features, considering there were simply too few produced to justify such consideration. Instead, the Academy occasionally bestowed special Oscars for exceptional productions, usually for Walt Disney Pictures, such as Academy Honorary Award for ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' in 1938, and the Special Achievement Academy Award for the live action/animated hybrid ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' in 1989 and ''Toy Story'' in 1996. In fact, prior to the award's creation, only one animated film was nominated for Best Picture: 1991's ''Beauty and the Beast'', also by Disney.

By 2001, the rise of sustained competitors to Disney in the feature animated film market, such as DreamWorks Animation (founded by former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg), created an increase of film releases of significant annual number enough for AMPAS to reconsider. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was first given out at the 74th Academy Awards, held on March 24, 2002.

Winners and nominees

When the category was first instated, the nomination went to the person(s) most involved in creating the film. This could be the producer, the director, or both. For the 76th Academy Awards in 2003, only the director(s) of the film received the nomination. For the 86th Academy Awards ten years later, this was amended to include one producer and up to two directors. For the 91st Academy Awards, this was amended once again to include up to four individuals, one of whom must be a director and one of whom must be a producer; an exception to this is that " the case of a TWO-PERSON TEAM with shared and equal director or producer credit, an additional statuette may be awarded."

The Academy included a rule that stated that the award would not be presented in a year in which fewer than eight eligible films opened in theaters. In regards of the Academy, it allows for all members to make voting for animated films more acceptable.

At the same year, the Academy enacted a new rule regarding the motion capture technique employed in films such as ''A Christmas Carol'' (2009) and ''The Adventures of Tintin'' (2011), directed by Academy Award for Best Director winners Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg respectively, and how they might not be eligible in this category in the future. The new rule now reads "An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time." This rule was possibly made to prevent nominations of live-action films that rely heavily on motion capture, such as ''Avatar'' (2009).

Only three films (most are live-action/animation hybrid) have been disqualified for not meeting the 75 percent of animation threshold under submission. With exceptions, it was unclear whether '' Marcel the Shell with Shoes On'' would be eligible for the award at the 95th Academy Awards due to being a stop-motion animated film with the use of live-action elements. Director Dean Fleischer Camp said that he and A24 had to submit documentation in order to prove the film had enough animation to meet the award's minimum requirements. The AMPAS officially deemed the film eligible for consideration in the Animated Feature category and was eventually nominated for said category.

2000s

2010s

2020s

Multiple wins and nominations

Nominees

Studios

Notes

Franchises

Superlatives

Age

Length

International films

A number of non-English-language or non-dialogue films have been nominated or won. Almost all non-English language films on this list have also been released with English-language dubbing. Winners are highlighted in bold below.

Japanese nominees

Studio Ghibli

* ''Spirited Away

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases