This Might Be the Most Exciting Year for Best Animated Features at the Oscars

As a film enthusiast who has spent countless hours immersed in the magical worlds of animation, I find myself captivated by the diversity and creativity that this year’s offerings promise. The fusion of genres and styles in these upcoming animated films is truly exhilarating.

Despite all the Oscar discussions that typically circulate during the Toronto International Film Festival, you’ll seldom engage in intense debates about the Best Animated Feature category. Typically, Disney and Pixar, two major players at the Oscars in animation, don’t participate in these festivals, which leaves the animated films from Venice, Toronto, Telluride, and New York feeling somewhat like underdogs. Last year, for instance, when Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” opened the festival as the TIFF gala, there was minimal discussion about the Oscar race. This was mainly because there wasn’t much of a competition. Miyazaki’s film eventually outshone the well-received but somewhat disappointing “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse“, and that was that.

2024 could prove to be an extraordinary year for the Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars, as TIFF finds itself right in the thick of it all. The upcoming world premiere of DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” on Sunday sets up a fierce competition with Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” which has been a strong contender since its impressive $300 million opening weekend. What makes this matchup particularly intriguing is that both films are generating Oscar buzz not only in the animation category but also in the Best Picture race.

The Wild Robot is directed by Chris Sanders, who’s known for directing Disney’s almost cult-classic film Lilo & Stitch, and later, DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon. The latter could have potentially won an Oscar if it hadn’t premiered the same year as Toy Story 3. His latest project features a robot (voiced by Academy Award-winning Lupita Nyong’o) who finds itself stranded on an island populated by forest creatures. Since Universal showed footage at CinemaCon in April, there’s been quite the buzz around it, with some suggesting it could contend for a Best Picture nomination.

Discussing the possibility of “The Wild Robot” being nominated for Best Picture might be jumping the gun, as the movie needs to achieve success with audiences first. However, it’s not the only animated film generating buzz this year. “Inside Out 2” is predicted by four awards experts on Gold Derby as a potential Best Picture nominee, having broken a $1.6 billion box-office record for animated films. Given the struggles faced by animated blockbusters last year, with failures like Disney’s “Elemental” and “Wish”, it’s no wonder that “Inside Out 2” is receiving the same kind of gratitude as “Top Gun: Maverick” (a Best Picture nominee) did two years ago. It’s rare for two animated films to be considered potential Best Picture contenders in the same year, but exceptions do happen.

Apart from “The Wild Robot”, two other potential award-winning animated features at TIFF include “Flow” by Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis. This film is a silent story about a resilient little cat enduring a flood that might be the apocalypse, who then teams up with a dog, capybara, lemur, and cane-bird to survive. As it’s also Latvia’s entry for the Best International Feature Oscar, it has several paths to a nomination. The film combines elements of “The Land Before Time” and “The Impossible”, and Zilbalodis skillfully maintains an air of mystery about the time and location, keeping viewers on their toes. It’s a sophisticated movie with a straightforward message of cross-cultural collaboration that, due to its lack of dialogue, avoids sentimentality.

Simultaneously, documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville has animated his Pharrell Williams biography, “Piece by Piece”, in the style of “The Lego Movie”. This unexpected concept could certainly pique the interest of awards voters. Notably, Neville won an Oscar for 2013’s “20 Feet from Stardom” and Pharrell Williams has been nominated twice – for the song “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2” and as a producer on “Hidden Figures”. With such a prestigious background, this project seems perfectly poised to captivate the attention of Academy voters.

Beyond Toronto, the Oscar race becomes increasingly intense, and one film poised to stir up competition is “Moana 2”. The original “Moana” grossed over $600 million worldwide, so its sequel, releasing during Thanksgiving weekend, could have a significant impact on the Animated Feature category due to its potential for massive box-office success. While box-office numbers don’t always dictate Oscar wins, as with “Inside Out 2”, there’s an air of excitement in Hollywood about Disney making a comeback to blockbuster territory.

In December, we’ll see even more prestigious animated productions grace both large and small screens. After a gap of 19 years since their Best Animated Feature win for “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”, four-time Oscar winner Nick Park brings us another adventure featuring Wallace & Gromit. Titled “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl“, it will be available on Netflix on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, with a history of dominating the Oscars, “The Lord of the Rings” series has always been worth watching. This makes me particularly excited for Warner Bros.’s release of director Kenji Kamiyama’s “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim“, an anime prequel taking place before Peter Jackson’s trilogy. Featuring the voices of Brian Cox and Miranda Otto, with the latter reprising her role as Éowyn from the original films, “The War of the Rohirrim” is scheduled for a theater release on December 13.

Currently, we have seven strong animated movies vying for Best Animated Feature, each one capable of taking the lead on its own. Additionally, there are a couple of dark horse contenders yet to be released this year, such as “Memoir of a Snail” by Australian animator Adam Elliot, whose work “Harvie Krumpet” won the Animated Short Oscar in 2003. Also, don’t forget to watch for “The Colors Within”, distributed by GKIDS, a company known for placing nine Best Animated Feature nominees over the past ten years, including “The Tale of Princess Kaguya”, “Wolfwalkers”, and last year’s winner, “The Boy and the Heron”.

For a long time, TIFF has been known as the festival where notable movies like “American Beauty,” “Whale Rider,” and “Silver Linings Playbook” first gained recognition and eventually won Oscars. This year, following the success of Oscar-winner “The Boy and the Heron” and Oscar-contender “The Wild Robot,” TIFF could potentially establish itself as a significant platform for animated films aiming to compete with industry giants like Disney and Pixar.

2024-09-07 19:54

This Might Be the Most Exciting Year for Best Animated Features at the Oscars

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