Since their inception, Pixar and Disney have ruled the Oscars, taking almost every award in the last twenty years without allowing other studios to compete for it.
The Oscar Award for Best Animated Film is a category that has been included in the gala quite recently, especially if we take into account the long history of the Oscar Awards, whose first edition dates back to 1929.
It was Disney who began to enter the awards winning statuettes when there was not even a category as such for animated films, but even so nothing prevented him from obtaining recognition for the films of: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fancy (1940) y Dumbo (1941).
Toy Story (1995) by Pixar became the last film to win at the Oscars before the award for Oscars existed. Best Animated Filma decade before Disney took over the studio.
The birth of the first animation Oscars
In 2001 the situation became unsustainable, the animation film he could no longer find himself in the background, ignored by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencesso in the 74th edition of the Oscar Awards animation finally came into play, and it did so without the presence of Disneyalthough yes Pixarwhich was nominated for SA monsters
Even so, the first winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Film It was not a Disney film or a Pixar film, but Shrek of DreamWorks Animationwithout that setting any precedent.
From 2001 to the present there have been a total of 22 editions of the Oscars, 11 of which bear the Pixar seal as winners, and four that of Walt Disney.
The rest of the winners are so fragmented between the different studios that saying the number that each one takes would even be offensive… One, in the case of the majority, two for the lucky one from DreamWorks who had the good fortune to make one Shrek 2 (2004).
Every year hundreds of animated feature films come onto the market, and only a few manage to get nominated in the most recognized film awards worldwide. The following films are the only ones that have been saved in these 22 years of Disney/Pixar monopoly on the Oscars:
Spirited Away (2001) Studio Ghibli, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Vegetables (2005) Aardman, Happy Feet (2006) Warner Bros., Range (2011) from Nickelodeon Movies, Ernest & Celestine (2012) The ShipownersSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Sony Pictures Animation and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) from Netflix.
Which film should win the animation Oscar in 2024?
The 96th edition of the Oscar Awards It appears slightly hopeful. Disney's vague effort to celebrate its centenary with Wish has not entered the nominations, but one, although technically correct, insipid Pixar's latest bet with Elemental has.
I doubt it will win because it faces much more powerful titles that could make some less favored studios at the Academy Awards add a new achievement to their very poor lists.
Spider-Man: Crossing the Multiverse has many chances to repeat the success of A new universe in 2018. The film once again opted for an innovative filming technique animation that dared to combine even more styles than its predecessor to offer us a most interesting visual cocktail.
A popular superhero universe and a striking staging seem to be all the necessary ingredients for a victory.
Studio Ghibli has gone through the Oscar Awards on five occasions and has only obtained one statuette. Perhaps the complex The Boy and the Heron, which seems like a farewell letter from its director, is the necessary impulse to make it Hayao Miyazaki rise with a new Oscarperhaps almost symbolic, but that would also help to give prestige to the Japanese animated film.
He Spanish cinemawhich will be present in a couple of categories of the gala with The Snow Society of Juan Antonio Bayonaalso fights for the animation statuette with Robot Dreams, the first work of Pablo Berger who already triumphed in the Goya 2024.
But since it is a slow, dramatic and wordless story, it seems too mainstream to obtain the title, considering the winners from previous years. Has the Academy changed so much in such a short time that we are surprised?
Lastly, Nimona, my personal favorite. This production of Netflix It has gone through an ordeal to get to where it is, and the most curious thing is that it was even owned by Disney at a certain point in its development, although I doubt that this will work in its favor at this point and that the Academy is going to grant Netflix the grace to give him a new statuette for the second consecutive year.
Based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson, Nimona It also uses unconventional three-dimensional animation.
Although its strong point is found in a story that delves into the trans reality with metaphors as overwhelming as the transformation of its protagonist into a pink rhinoceros, making this could become the first animated film with an LGTB+ theme to win the Oscar for Best Animated Film, also far from the influence of Pixar and Disney.