2016 Awards Season: Oscar Highlight: Best Feature-Length Animated Film

February 10, 2017

Zootopia

With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Feature-Length Animated Film. It’s a one-horse race.

Best Feature-Length Animated Film of the Year

Kubo and the Two Strings
Tomatometer Score: 97% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globes, BAFTA, and PGA
Previous Major Wins: None (One Pending)
Annie Nominations: Ten
Annie Wins: Three
Notes: Kubo and the Two Strings became only the second animated film to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, so no matter what happens, it has that to be thankful for. Unfortunately, it won’t convert either of its nominations into wins.

Moana
Tomatometer Score: 95% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globes, BAFTA, and PGA
Previous Major Wins: None (One Pending)
Annie Nominations: Six
Annie Wins: Two
Notes: This is widely seen as the second best Disney animated film of the year. This is great for its box office numbers and will likely help it sell a ton of DVDs / Blu-ray. However, there can be only one Oscar winner, so without any way of standing out, it just won’t win.

My Life as a Zucchini
Tomatometer Score: 100% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globes
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: Three
Annie Wins: None
Notes: Every year, the Oscars pick one or two smaller art-house animated films to give a nomination to. Ones that nearly none of the moviegoing public have heard of. My Life as a Zucchini is a quintessential art-house nomination, it is also the smaller of the two art-house nominees. . It does have 100% positive reviews, but there are only 16 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, so if the next two reviews were negative, it would drop to the bottom of this list. I think it is just too small to win. Not enough of the voters will have even seen it.

The Red Turtle
Tomatometer Score: 94% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: None
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: Five
Annie Wins: One
Notes: Every year, the Oscars pick one or two smaller art-house animated films to give a nomination to. This is the bigger of the two art-house releases, but it isn’t big enough. Voters need to see a film before they can vote for it.

Zootopia
Tomatometer Score: 98% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globes, BAFTA, and PGA
Previous Major Wins: Golden Globes and PGA (One Pending)
Annie Nominations: Eleven
Annie Wins: Six
Notes: This film has earned some of the best reviews of the year. It is the only film on this list to earn a previous win. And it was the big winner at the Annie Awards. If it doesn’t win the Oscar, it will be one of the biggest shocks of the night.

Conclusion: Zootopia is the overwhelming favorite to win and only potential vote-splitting with the other Disney release might cost it the victory.


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Filed under: Awards Season, Moana, Zootopia, Kubo and the Two Strings, La Tortue Rouge, Ma vie de Courgette