2020 Awards Season: Oscar Highlight: Best Feature-Length Animated Film

February 3, 2020

Toy Story 4

Our annual Oscar Prediction contest is underway so 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. Due to a compressed Oscar schedule, and the monthly preview, I have to get all ten Oscar highlight stories done this week, continuing with best Feature-Length Animated Film. We do have a favorite in this category; spoiler warning, it’s the Pixar film. However, we could also have an upset and it wouldn’t be the most shocking twist of Oscar night.

Best Feature-Length Animated Film of the Year

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Tomatometer Score: 90% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globe and PGA
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: Five
Annie Wins: None
Notes: There are five major Awards Season ceremonies that have a combined six awards for feature-length animated films. Four of the five films on this year’s list have at least one win. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is the lone exception. It’s a long shot to win; in fact, it is the longest shot to win.


I Lost My Body
Tomatometer Score: 96% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: None
Previous Major Wins: None
Annie Nominations: Six
Annie Wins: Three
Notes: This film won the Best Independent Feature-Length Film at this year’s Annie awards, which is the less predictive of the two Feature-Length categories, but it is still something. I don’t think it is going to win the Oscar, but if it does, it probably won’t be the biggest shock of the night.

Klaus
Tomatometer Score: 93% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: BAFTA
Previous Major Wins: BAFTA
Annie Nominations: Seven
Annie Wins: Seven
Notes: Every year, the Oscar voters nominate at least one smaller film that the average mainstream moviegoer will have never heard of. This year, we have two of them. Of the two, Klaus has a better chance of winning, in part because of its BAFTA win, but it also won all seven categories it was nominated in at the Annies. That’s huge.

Missing Link
Tomatometer Score: 89% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globe and PGA
Previous Major Wins: Golden Globe
Annie Nominations: Eight
Annie Wins: None
Notes: This film has the weakest reviews on this year’s list and it was shut out at the Annies. That said, it won at the Golden Globes, so it can’t be seen as an underdog at the Oscars. In fact, there are many who think it is the favorite.

Toy Story 4
Tomatometer Score: 97% Positive
Previous Major Nominations: Golden Globes, BAFTA, and PGA
Previous Major Wins: PGA
Annie Nominations: Six
Annie Wins: None
Notes: This film has the best reviews on this year’s list and it won the PGA. On the other hand, it was shut out at the Annies. Back to the original hand, its from Pixar and that studio has won this award so many times that I think a lot of Oscar voters just vote for the Pixar film out of a Pavlovian response.

Conclusion: I think Toy Story 4 will win this category, but both Klaus or Missing Link could win and I would not be surprised.


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Filed under: Awards Season, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Toy Story 4, Missing Link, Klaus, J’ai perdu mon corps