Oscar Blitz 2026 – Animated Feature

Thirty-five. There were 35 movies up for consideration for the Animated Feature Oscar this year, the most there’s ever been. Every year, I endeavor to clear the lot, because unfortunately there’s still no shortlist for the category, and every year I come up just a bit short. For the 2025 cycle, I took in 31. Of the remaining four, three were unavailable, and the fourth I just didn’t care to see. I would have watched it if I could complete the task, but from the instant I saw the trailer my instant thought was, “No.” I mean, when it’s a film adaptation of a Netflix TV show, and Netflix itself won’t even put it out – instead farming it out to Universal – what does that say about the quality of the product?

But Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie wasn’t the only confounding moment in the competition. We saw more feature-length arcs for anime stories submitted than ever before. We saw a French film dubbed into English with actors affecting Welsh accents to translate the idea of a Parisian dialect versus one from Marseille. There were three bible-based films, two from the same studio, but they only submitted one of them, leaving The King of Kings behind for reasons I can’t comprehend, other than it sucked (but it’s not like the other religious propaganda films were any better). Solid products like Hola Frida also weren’t put forth, and the international megahit Ne Zha 2 was omitted, even though the first film was not only entered in this category, it was also China’s International Feature candidate. Hell, given the success of the recent films in the Predator franchise, it’s incomprehensible that Predator: Killer of Killers didn’t enter the fray.

I mention all these confusing absences because there were so many films that were submitted, but were just plain awful. I watched 116 features for the 2025 canon, far fewer than I usually do, but it should be noted that my bottom six are all animated, as well as nine of the bottom 10 (congrats, F1, I guess). And yet, of those bottom-feeding bits of cinematic garbage, only the utterly unwatchable Sneaks was ultimately left off. By contrast, only seven animated films made it into the A and A- ranks out of 36 total, and only one of them ended up being nominated. This has been an historically weak year for the format, and the winner is so obvious that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Academy just dispensed with the category as the first of the night, like they did six years ago when Toy Story 4 won in a collective “whatever” from the voting body.

I sincerely hope this is an aberration, because the medium has grown by leaps and bounds, with highly creative projects finally getting the recognition they deserve, rather than just defaulting to whatever the most pleasant-looking children’s film ends up being. We’re dealing with heavier themes, pushing the limits of the art styles, and seeing stories that become more and more unique with each passing year. This time around, it’s a collective shrug where the winner is just the one that captured the zeitgeist at the right moment, and it likely won’t have a lasting legacy once the novelty wears off. Oh well, it is what it is, I suppose. Can’t win them all.

This year’s nominees for Animated Feature are…

Arco – Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry, Sophie Mas, and Natalie Portman

Arco is a beautiful film from beginning to end, but you do have to wonder if it would have ever seen the light of day without Natalie Portman’s involvement. In fact, she brought a lot of clout to the production by ensuring that a high-profile American cast was used for the English dub, including Will Ferrell, Flea, Andy Samberg, and Mark Ruffalo. There are a lot of foreign films that get to the top of the list simply because of Hollywood ties. Thankfully, Arco can definitely stand on its own merits.

Taking inspiration from anime art styles, the film is awash in bright colors, expressive characters, and innovative ideas. A Jetsons-like future where humans live above ground in houses in the sky, flight suits that create rainbows, jewels that let you travel through time, interactive 3D classrooms led by robot teachers, there are just so many intriguing concepts here. It’s a lovely and safe family story, but there’s also some sly messaging and cautions about our reliance on technology, especially unto our own environmental destruction.

Our heroine, Iris, is lonely because she’s basically being raised by machinery (having the robot nanny Mikki be voiced by a distorted blend of Portman and Ruffalo, who voice her individual parents, is a genius touch). She’s growing up in a world where the more advanced our tools become, the more detached we are from reality and other people. Sound familiar? It’s a stunning world from a visual standpoint, but there’s a melancholy that hangs over it as a possible – and as the film argues, likely – outcome from our current headlong rush into unregulated AI and the removal of tech guardrails.

My favorite part of the film, however, is the ending. Far too often in family films, we see children act out in annoying and dangerous ways, but suffer no consequences. Given how safely Arco plays it for most of the runtime, I figured it would be the same. Then we got a genuine shock when it came to our time-traveling title character and the fallout from his headstrong carelessness. It blew me away, not just because it served as a nice parallel for the hopeful future that Iris helps to bring about, but because it was just so ballsy to even throw this particular curve, one that makes absolute sense from a thematic and narrative perspective. As much as I love some modern fare from Disney and Pixar, like Frozen II and Soul, they definitely copped out on their endings, trying to shoehorn a happy resolution that ultimately robs the characters’ sacrifices of their impact. While uneven and borderline pandering at times, Arco most definitely nailed the final moments.

Elio – Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina, and Mary Alice Drumm

Elio turned out to be a major disappointment. Oh I don’t mean that the movie was bad. It was quite good, in fact. No, the “disappointment” was Disney and Pixar’s utter failure to properly market the film, especially after it was teased and delayed several times. With almost no promotion, the film was considered a box office flop (making $154 million against a budget somewhere between $150-$200 million), and it was quickly tossed aside for the horrid Lilo & Stitch remake, which made over a billion, solidifying the company’s commitment to continued IP milking with reboots, remakes, and sequels, the ambitious Elio losing a game that was rigged against it from the beginning.

This sort of interference from the House of Mouse is, sadly, nothing new, and it even infects the movie itself. Originally, the titular Elio was meant to be a queer-coded character, enhancing his sense of isolation and not belonging, and his aunt Olga was going to be his divorced mother. Disney then intervened to focus Elio’s insecurities more on being neurodivergent, and made Olga an aunt for the sole purpose of killing Elio’s parents offscreen, because God forbid a child have an adventure or personality in a stable household. Given how much audiences hate that cliché, it’s a wonder why the suits would insist on it. At least, it would be a wonder if there was any intention of setting this film up to succeed.

It does have some flaws, like a basic “Liar Revealed” plot when it comes to Elio being swept up and mistaken as the leader of “Uh-Earth,” but you can see where the creators got to have their way and tell the story they wanted, and in those moments, the movie is almost magical. The inspiration of Carl Sagan, the scope of the animation, the honor of the warrior race, the fact that said warriors would sacrifice everything to ensure the safety and happiness of their child, that’s the kind of stuff that’s made Pixar the industry leader for the last 30 years, and yet its parent company basically tried to torpedo any originality or creativity.

The biggest victory of the project seems to be in the fact that its Easter Eggs are far more subtle than other Disney fare (as we’ll see in just a bit). I have two personal favorites. The first is an interactive museum exhibit on the Voyager spacecraft narrated by Kate Mulgrew (i.e. Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager). The other is the fact that the goofy side character who helps save the day is named Melmac (same as ALF’s home planet). If you end up noticing these references, it enhances your enjoyment by a giddy degree. If you don’t, your experience isn’t affected. It’s a welcome change from the usual Disney mantra of “IF YOU DIDN’T WATCH EVERY SINGLE MARVEL SHOW AND PAY OUT THE ASS FOR THE PRIVILEGE THEN YOU DON’T GET TO UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON IN THIS MOVIE! GIVE US ALL THE MONEY!”

It won’t win, and sadly it will likely be a forgotten gem in the Pixar library, but Elio is a fine film, one that deserved so much better than it got. Maybe that’s why Disney keeps killing parents. All they know now is how to abuse their own children.

KPop Demon Hunters – Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, and Michelle L.M. Wong

Sometimes you just have to admit when you’re beat. I know the movie is super popular. In fact, it’s the most popular film in Netflix history. I know I’m in a tiny minority that just doesn’t like it. It’s going to win. It’s taken the world by storm. By continuing to point out its flaws, I know I’m being dismissed as a “hater” as I piss into the wind. But come on, admit it. This isn’t that good.

I have warmed to it a bit. I still don’t like it, but I understand why so many others do. The animation is colorful and expressive. The songs are decently written, and if you’re a fan of K-pop (or just pop music in general) they probably sound awesome to you. The three leads are incredibly charming, fleshed out characters. Some of the action scenes are really well orchestrated. There’s probably a generation of young girls claiming “Golden” as their personal anthem of self-realization. I get it. Genuinely.

I think my problem is that I’ve just seen too many movies, and I’ve learned over the years to think more critically. I don’t mean that in a bad faith sense where I’m looking for things to complain about. I mean that I’ve trained my brain over the last 20-plus years to look at things in a greater context, to not just take them at face value, to try to dig deeper and see what I can find. And the problem with KPop Demon Hunters is, there’s just no depth to it. If all you’re looking for is mindless entertainment, this will deliver every step of the way. But if you spend even a few minutes thinking about it beyond surface-level fun, it just falls apart, and sadly, that’s just how I’m wired.

I’ll give you a prime example, the Saja Boys and their instant demonic hit, “Soda Pop.” This song is completely asinine, and it’s designed to be that way. It’s just generic pop that’s been around since at least the mid-90s (Britney Spears even has a song with that title on her debut album, and it’s just as substantive). The entire scene around it shows the evil boy band basically hypnotizing the crowd with their nothing lyrics, turning the fickle followers into potential victims in their soul-eating plan, and Mira and Zoey immediately surrender all their agency and credibility when they start drooling over abs. Despite the Saja Boys being their enemy, and despite admitting that the song is basically stupid, Mira and Zoey start reluctantly dancing along, calling the track “infectious.” Now think about that for just one second. Why is the song infectious? When you watched the film and heard the tune, was that your reaction? Or did you wait for the movie to tell you what to think? When I heard that line, my only reaction was, “No, it’s not, unless you mean in the sense that I currently want to vomit.” That scene is a microcosm of the way the movie manipulates the viewer into accepting it, and I’ve spent my life filtering that bullshit out.

This extends to other elements that, if this were the only movie you’ve ever watched, would be just fine, but we’ve seen and heard them all before. The action animation is awesome, but it’s clear Sony ordered the crew to use the same art style as the Spider-Verse movies, which they also own, because they know it’s cool and popular. “Golden” is a good song, but as I half-joked when I broke down Original Song two weeks ago, it’s a discount “Let it Go,” and the emotional heft is lost when you realize that Elsa was singing about breaking free of her self-torment, while Rumi is still primarily focused on being a celebrity. A celebrity who slays demons in badass style, yes, but a celebrity nonetheless. The budding romance with Jinu is abandoned for no reason like several other story threads, and we never explore the possibility that Rumi’s half-demon nature could have sprung from a loving relationship between her human mother and demon father. We’re just meant to think “demons = evil” and leave it at that, so she has to be ashamed of her body (let me just attest that, given the size of the Rule 34 collections for all three members of HUNTR/X, they have nothing to fear about body shaming; don’t ask me how I know, I just know).

These are the reasons I just couldn’t get into the film. That said, I gave it another try, which is how I’ve been able to come around on certain points. I don’t hate this movie, but I still don’t care for it. I recognize its value, but it’s just not valuable to me. If I had another chance to watch it for the first time, especially after seeing so many worse animated entries from last year, I’d probably tick the final grade up to at least a C instead of the D I gave it on first look. I’ve made peace with the film, but I stand by my critiques. The most uplifting thing I can say is, given its success, there’s sure to be a sequel, and I hope they iron out the obvious flaws, because I wanted to like this flick. I just didn’t, and maybe that’s just because I’m too different.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain – Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, Nidia Santiago, and Henri Magalon

See, this is what I’m talking about when I fawn over the animation medium as a means to push the boundaries of storytelling. It was all I could do to prevent myself from straight up BAWLING as I watched this sweet yet profound tale of self-awareness and pure love. As others have pointed out, it’s one of the best “coming-of-age” movies in recent years, even though the protagonist is only two years old.

Similar to Arco, this is a French film with a heavy anime influence, but the similarities end there. Rather than being a goofy sci-fi adventure, this is a journey about trust, family, and the wonder of discovering the world around you. The opening act, where young Amélie narrates her infancy as if she is a mute god to be worshipped by all life around her, is the most creative and fascinating depiction I’ve ever seen of a baby learning object permanence. Her unbridled joy and curiosity is endearing in the extreme. I’d even say it’s infectious, you know, if that word weren’t already reserved for shitty pop songs.

Of course, the crux of the film is in how the child forms her first relationships and deals with her first hardships. The introduction of her grandmother from Belgium, the ecstasy of tasting white chocolate, and trying to conceptualize her loss after she dies, is genuinely touching, not just because it’s the first time Amélie has experienced death, but because we also see how others process grief through her knee-high perspective. We watch her dad weep uncontrollably as he prepares to go home for the funeral, and we see Amélie attempt to understand what this means beyond a future lack of candy. It’s the beginnings of a sense of empathy that we’re seeing develop almost in real time, the genesis of emotional intelligence. It made me think of how my nephew spoke matter-of-factly about my mom’s death, and how he hugged me, knowing that I had lost something significant, but he barely understood. I had to wipe my eyes repeatedly.

Then there’s Nishio. We all have that first guide in our lives, that one person who introduces us to the wider world and helps us understand our place in it, hopefully with love and patience. Nishio serves that role, forming a rapport with Amélie that carries the euphoria and wonderment at the heart of the film. It also helps speak to the larger issues at play, because Amélie knows nothing of Japan’s history, especially recently with Europe and World War II, and she has no concept of a what a servant is, even though her vegetative beginnings have her imagining everyone coming to pay tribute at her feet. The two grow close because Nishio shows Amélie so many beautiful things, and because Amélie shows Nishio that goodness and innocence not only still exists, but should be fostered in a way that helps everyone heal. She’s dealt with so much in her own relatively short life, but she finds in Amélie a second chance at happiness, because things like bitterness, resentment, and bias are learned behaviors. They have to be taught. In a nation still mending itself from war, Amélie represents a chance to start anew, moving forward with good faith, positivity, empathy, and acceptance. The platonic love they share is one of the most pure in recent memory.

And of course, it’s all set against this marvelous and colorful art style that emphasizes imagination and awe. Amélie’s big, bold eyes are seeing the world for the first time, and the animation wants us to see it as she does. Everything is new. Everything is wonderful. Everything offers secrets and mysteries to uncover. There are no limits. This is what life should be. Yes, there will be sadness. Yes, bad things will happen that just aren’t fair. But as Little Amélie shows us, while a little rain must fall for all of us, if we look to the basic good in life, it will be enriching. KPop Demon Hunters may dominate for now, but this is the one that I’ll be watching over and over, and hopefully one day introducing to my own children.

Zootopia 2 – Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Yvett Merino

If anyone has a chance at upsetting HUNTR/X, it’s Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. The first Zootopia film took home the Oscar nine years ago, and so far Zootopia 2 is the only film to win an Animated Feature contest other than the presumed favorite, taking home the BAFTA last week in a three-film field in which KPop Demon Hunters wasn’t even nominated. I’m not holding my breath, but it is possible.

That said, just like its predecessor, it doesn’t deserve to win. I liked the film just fine, but as is often the problem with modern Disney sequels, it’s just a repeat of a lot of the plot points from the last film. We’re still dealing with a story based on racism and gentrification, which is a good thing, but other than the inclusion of reptiles, it’s no different than the basic “predators vs prey” dynamic of the first picture. Nick and Judy still aren’t trusted by their peers (at least with Nick there’s the fact that he was a former criminal, but Judy’s more than proven herself). We still have an overload of references and sight gags that feel like they were scooped out of the septic tank connected to the Simpsons writers room. Hell, they even admit it when they repeat the double-cross “surprise” villain trick in the third act. I’m sure they think it’s clever writing, but really it’s just lazy.

Then, sadly, there’s the addition of Nibbles, a distinctly unfunny character voiced by a very funny lady who deserves better, Fortune Feimster. She’s the latest in a disturbing trend of conspiracy theorists who turn out to be heroes, which is just dangerously false. She’s not the only lame add-on, however, as the voice cast is stuffed beyond the saturation point with celebrity cameos that literally no kid would recognize. And yet, with all this excess meta material, you somehow have Patrick Warburton in the film, and he doesn’t talk to a squirrel.

There are some great things about this movie, mind you. I love how the film expands the world of the titular metropolis. The dynamic between Nick and Judy continues to be a highlight the more they focus on it, leaving us genuinely wondering if their love is platonic, familial, or romantic (there are hints within about the offspring such a pairing might generate, a furry maelstrom I don’t think Disney’s prepared to address). While some of the humor is decidedly dumb, a lot of the jokes land quite well. Gary De’Snake is the one new member of the crew that’s 100% awesome. Shakira’s new Gazelle bop, “Zoo,” was criminally not even shortlisted for Original Song.

This is a good film, very solid, as modern Disney sequels go. It doesn’t feel nearly as rushed and slapdash as Moana 2 did. But in the end, it’s just good, not great, and definitely not Oscar-worthy.

***

Okay, I’ve said my piece. We all know who’s winning, and you know I very much do NOT agree with it. But that’s the beauty of film. Sometimes something comes along that just takes over the culture. It didn’t do that for me, but so many other films have, and a lot of those didn’t have the same affect on others. I get it. The Oscars will never be a referendum on my personal tastes, nor should it. In a year as down as last year was for the art form, in the end I’m happy that something resonated for so many people, even if I wasn’t one of them. It keeps the conversation going, and it keeps the medium in the public interest.

My Rankings:
1) Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
2) Elio
3) Arco
4) Zootopia 2
5) KPop Demon Hunters

Who do you think should win? Vote now in the poll below!

Now, as I said, I almost made it through the entire list of accepted films in the category for last year. There were 35 in total, and I saw 31. Here now are my complete rankings for the field:

1) Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
2) Scarlet
3) Dog of God
4) Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle
5) A Magnificent Life
6) Night of the Zoopocalypse
7) The Legend of Hei II
8) Elio
9) Arco
10) Black Butterflies
11) Dog Man
12) Lost in Starlight
13) Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
14) Endless Cookie
15) The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
16) Zootopia 2
17) 100 Meters
18) Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing
19) Stitch Head
20) Boys Go to Jupiter
21) In Your Dreams
22) Light of the World
23) Mahavatar Narsimha
24) David
25) The Bad Guys 2
26) KPop Demon Hunters
27) Out of the Nest
28) The Twits
29) Fixed
30) All Operators Are Currently Unavailable
31) Dragon Heart: Adventures Beyond this World

Unseen:
ChaO
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie
Olivia & Las Nubes
Slide

Up next, it’s lights, camera, camera, camera, camera, camera! It’s Cinematography!

Join the conversation in the comments below! How many animated films did you see last year? Am I indeed just a “hater” for not liking the demon hunters? Has animation every made you cry? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!