Best Animated Feature: Ranking Every Oscar Nominee
Nominated works in the Animated Feature category are hit-or-miss when it comes to the Academy. You either get a real sense of world cinema that you may have missed out completely on (A Boy and the World, The Red Turtle), or you get drivel (Ferdinand, or the dreaded The Boss Baby). This year is a bit of a mixed bag, which range from a just okay family film, to stronger mainstream works, and even an arthouse gem to boot. We’re judging these works as finished, full works, but we’re also taking the artistic style into consideration (since this is an animated category after all).
Here are your nominees for Best Animated Feature, ranked from worst to best.
Biggest Snub: Weathering With You
With all of the hype surrounding this fantastical romantic adventure film, we thought Weathering With You would have had a shot here. The prismatic colours are gorgeous, and the use of conjured weather renders this film at least a visually majestic thrill. The Academy sometimes gives anime films a fair shake, but they’re usually attached to Studio Ghibli. Otherwise, it’s a medium the Oscars have neglected from time and time again. Even non-fans are raving about Weathering With You. It would have made this year’s category a little bit stronger, and lean towards one of the Academy’s better years.
5. Missing Link
Look. Missing Link was sweet and meant well, but it felt like a bit of a drag. Aside from the brilliant animation that Laika is known for, the film feels a little too reliant on traveling around, fun but barely challenged relationships, and a whimsy that feels as though wonder was aimed for instead. Missing Link is far from bad, but it’s still possibly Laika’s weakest effort thus far, and the Academy is applauding the outstanding stop-motion animation that the studio has bested for the last decade or so. There are many fans of this film, but sadly we’re not really in that category. It’s a decent film.
Our review of Missing Link
4. Klaus
For the most part, Klaus is a little safe and predictable, but the imagination is what saves this Netflix feature. Behind the typical jokes and the pedestrian narrative, you have a reimagining of the common Christmas story in a way that doesn’t quite feel attempted before. It’s the boldest aspect of the film, outside of the 2D animation merged with CGI lighting effects. At its worst, Klaus is alright. At its best, you’re looking at a potential holiday special for years to come, as Klaus is sure to warm enough hearts.
Our review of Klaus
3. How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World
While the weakest entry in the How to Train your Dragon series (only barely), this adorable-yet-ferocious finale is exactly what the franchise needed. Combining a final call for dragons to coexist with vikings, plus a romantic side plot for Toothless (as a signifier that even dragons have to move on), The Hidden World is at least a considerable effort to finish a beloved story in every best way possible. There’s fun, beauty, heart, but there’s also, most refreshingly, some risks taken. Dreamworks could have milked this cow for ten more years, but they said “enough” in the most sensible way possible, and the fans of this series were rewarded (and taken seriously).
Our review of How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World
2. Toy Story 4
Many of us were repulsed by the very idea that Toy Story was to continue with one more film after the blistering (and mature) finale of 3. Well, here came Toy Story 4, and it’s surprisingly necessary. Now, with a new owner, the toys are feeling more like singular objects than ever before. If Andy could give them away, whose toys are they really? With the inclusion of ephemeral objects turned into playthings (Forky), plushes handed out as prizes (Ducky and Bunny), and even pawned artifacts (the anticipated return of Bo Peep), Toy Story 4 is a fable of identity and existential confusion, using the toys we have come to love for two decades (and some new faces are here too). Not necessarily the strongest film in the saga (3 takes the cake for us), but a wonderful entry nonetheless.
Our review of Toy Story 4
1. I Lost My Body
Sometimes, this category can dig up absolute marvels of cinema that would otherwise go overlooked. This year, I Lost My Body is that work. What an ethereal experience from start to finish. We follow two paths: a rundown delivery boy down on his luck, and a severed hand trying to find its original owner. Both tales lead towards each other, much like the amputated hand and its host. I Lost My Body is gloomy, but exhilarating as a work of art. With such a bizarre concept, and a somewhat fragmented way of telling the story, this astonishment is part-nightmarish-fable and part-straightforward-romance. Like a fever dream, I Lost My Body exists in front of you, as if your eyes have glazed over, and it drills right into the very pit of your soul.
Our review of I Lost My Body
Who we want to win: Honestly, I Lost My Body would be refreshing, since a non-family film has never won this award (barely any non-Disney or Pixar works have, for that matter). Since that’s likely not the case, we’re going with old faithful: Toy Story 4.
Who we think will win: This would have been a contest had Frozen II got in. However, it didn’t. This is most probably another checkmark for Disney and Pixar. It’s Toy Story 4 time, as could be predicted since last summer.
Tune in tomorrow for our next Academy Award category! We’re reviewing every single nominee.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.