^{Best Animated Feature contenders for the 98th Academy Awards.}

Thirty-five films have been submitted for Best Animated Feature consideration at the 98th Academy Awards. At least four are safe for nominations. KPop Demon Hunters’ mainstream success across streaming, music, and even a brief theatrical window has leaked over to the awards circuit, winning Best Animated Film at the New York Film Critics Circle. It was also the runner-up at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, although Little Amélie or the Character of Rain came out on top. Arco won at the National Board of Review, arguably making this a three-way race as of now. Secure in fourth place is Zootopia 2, which, despite not winning much so far, is a universal crowd-pleaser akin to last year’s Inside Out 2. While it’d be shocking if any of those four films weren’t nominated at the Oscars, that fifth spot could go in numerous directions.

^{Credit: Elio (Pixar, Walt Disney Motion Pictures) & In Your Dreams (Netflix)}

Is This Elio vs. In Your Dreams?

The aforementioned four films were all nominated at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards alongside Pixar’s Elio and Netflix’s In Your Dreams. Where those organizations made room for six nominees, the Oscars only have five slots. If the race comes down to Elio and In Your Dreams, which is in a better position? Many will say Elio since it was nominated at the Golden Globes, whereas In Your Dreams wasn’t. There’s also the so-called “Pixar mafia” to consider. Even with Pixar’s voting bloc on its side, Elio has significant hurdles to overcome. It was a box office failure, its troubled production sparked some negative press, and while reviews were good, they weren’t up to Pixar’s impossibly high standards. That said, the past few Pixar films haven’t quite met that bar.

Pixar isn’t the dominant force in Best Animated Feature like it was throughout the 2000s. Although Inside Out 2, Elemental, Turning Red, and Luca were all nominated, a Pixar film hasn’t won since Soul almost five years ago. While Pixar is usually safe for a nomination, six couldn’t even reach that bar: Cars 2, Monsters University, The Good Dinosaur, Finding Dory, Cars 3, and Lightyear. Then again, most of those were sequels/prequels/spinoffs, which the Oscars usually don’t go for unless they come close to matching the original. The Good Dinosaur was the only original one in that bunch. That said, The Good Dinosaur shares a few parallels to Elio. Both were box office disappointments that nonetheless got nominations at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice. Come Oscar nominations morning, though, The Good Dinosaur’s awards prospects went extinct.

The same year The Good Dinosaur went overlooked, Pixar had another Oscar player that ultimately won: Inside Out. Pixar doesn’t have a second film to fall back on this year, although Disney does. Disney will try to get as many of their films nominated as possible, but if only one can break through, Zootopia 2 will be the priority. While In Your Dreams isn’t a Pixar film, it does come from a Pixar alumnus. Alex Woo worked on several Pixar films before making his feature directorial debut with In Your Dreams. Despite being at a rival studio now, Woo still likely has friends at Pixar who might vote for him.

One could also imagine voters wanting to support a theatrically released animated film, even one that didn’t perform especially well. Whether it was due to Disney’s underwhelming advertising or audiences being trained to only see franchise films in theaters, Elio deserved to do better. A nomination for Elio would not only support the film, but the theatrical experience that’s in jeopardy as Netflix pursues its purchase of Warner Bros. Elio director Domee Shi, herself a past Oscar winner for Boa, recently participated in a Hollywood Reporter animation roundtable with several others, including Woo. When asked about getting original ideas greenlit at big studios, Shi said, “It’s hard. Elio got massacred at the box office even though audiences who saw it loved it. The question is how to push original theatrical films through all the noise.” Nominating an original theatrical film for an Oscar could be one way.

This might give Elio an advantage over In Your Dreams, which only had a limited theatrical run to qualify for Oscar consideration. Before Netflix knew what they had with KPop Demon Hunters, they were positioning In Your Dreams as their ticket to Best Animated Feature. They released the trailer for In Your Dreams months in advance, whereas KPop Demon Hunters saw minimal advertising leading up to its release. Woo was also a presenter at this year’s Student Academy Awards, where he mentioned that In Your Dreams was coming to Netflix. Woo himself is a Student Academy Award winner for his 2004 film, Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher. The reviews for In Your Dreams have been about on par with Elio. With one being a Pixar film and the other having the DNA of a Pixar film, could they cancel each other out? If that were to happen, what could come up the middle?

^{Credit: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie - Infinity Castle (Crunchyroll)}

Can Eastern Animation Get Some Love?

In September, Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini announced that they would be pushing Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie - Infinity Castle for Oscar consideration. At the time, it might’ve seemed like a pipe dream for anime fans. Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment went all in on a campaign, though, holding FYC screenings in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and New York over the past few weeks. The film scored a nomination at the Astra Film Awards, getting nominated over Elio. While Demon Slayer missed at Critics’ Choice, the film showed its strength at the Golden Globes, getting nominated over In Your Dreams. The Globes previously nominated the Japanese animated films Inu-Oh and Suzume, although neither got nominated at the Oscars.

Box office could help Demon Slayer’s Oscar prospects. 2025 hasn’t been the best year for American animated films in terms of revenue. Even films that performed respectfully, like DreamWorks’ The Bad Guys 2 and Dog Man, couldn’t pass the $100 million mark domestically. Meanwhile, Demon Slayer became the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time, with more than $130 million of its intake coming from the States. While not as big, Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc opened #1 at the U.S. box office. In a year where KPop Demon Hunters might be the frontrunner, maybe a Demon Slayer movie getting nominated isn’t unfathomable. Exactly how many demon-related movies is the Academy open to nominating, though?

While Demon Slayer has already come further than many expected, it still needs to overcome three biases at the Oscars:

1) Unless your film is produced at Studio Ghibli, the Oscars rarely take anime seriously.

2) The Academy shies away from hard-R animated features, although adult-oriented animation has performed better in the Best Animated Short category.

3) It’s based on an anime series that requires viewers to do their homework.

Maybe there are some Demon Slayer fans in the Academy, but there hasn’t been much crossover between Oscar voters and the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. Beyond anime, the Academy generally frowns upon movies with the word “movie” in the title, Shaun the Sheep notwithstanding. 2025 gave us several original anime features, however. There was a time when it looked like Mamoru Hosoda’s Scarlet could be an Oscar frontrunner. For a period, it even led KPop Demon Hunters in the odds on Gold Derby. Then people saw it. While reviews weren’t bad, Scarlet wasn’t the epic masterpiece people hoped for. Hosoda, despite being a living animation legend, has only received one nomination for Mirai. If Summer Wars, The Boy and the Beast, and Belle couldn’t get Hosoda into the Oscars, why would Scarlet?

GKIDS has a few Eastern animated films in contention with ChaO, Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing, The Legend of Hei 2, and 100 Meters. Little Amélie has been GKIDS’ priority, though, with their other films not getting the push they’d need to break through. Han Ji-won directed another underrated animated feature with the sci-fi love story Lost in Starlight. While the South Korean film has a prominent platform through Netflix, it hasn’t received nearly as much awards buzz as KPop Demon Hunters or even In Your Dreams. Lost in Starlight still has a better shot than some of Netflix’s other offerings, like The Twits or Genndy Tartakovsky’s Fixed, which may have better luck at the Emmys if they wind up submitting there, too. Being streaming films, they can technically double-dip.

Being the highest-grossing animated feature of all time, Ne Zha 2 could’ve been a force here, but for reasons that remain somewhat vague, it wasn’t submitted here. Of course, voters don’t always go for blockbusters in this category.

^{Credit: Endless Cookie (Obscured, Mongrel Media, Scythia Films)}

Will There Be an Out of Left-Field Indie or International Player?

Every once in a while, an independent or international animated feature is announced on Oscar nominations morning that catches people off guard. The Secret of Kells, A Cat in Paris, Chico and Rita, Boy and the World, and My Life as a Zucchini are a few examples. While Arco and Little Amélie seem to be this year’s designated indie/international nominees, could there be a third? David Baute’s Black Butterflies won Best Animated film at the Goya Awards, and is being campaigned to groups like ASIFA-Hollywood, which votes on the Annies. At this year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, Julian Glander’s Boys Go to Jupiter was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award. Seth and Peter Scriver’s Endless Cookie was nominated for Best Documentary. The Toronto Film Critics Association also named Endless Cookie Best Animated Feature. Being a Canadian film, though, it might’ve had a home team advantage. Following the success of Flow, Latvia has also submitted Dog of God as their Best International Feature Film entry, although it wasn’t shortlisted.

Sylvain Chomet has four Oscar nominations under his belt. His first was for the short The Old Lady and the Pigeons. He scored two more for The Triplets of Belleville, one in Best Animated Feature and the other for co-writing the song “Belleville Rendez-Vous.” His most recent nomination was for The Illusionist nearly a decade and a half ago. His third feature, A Magnificent Life, premiered at Cannes to enormous hype. Yet, Arco and Little Amélie both eclipsed A Magnificent Life, which, while still well-received, was seen as Chomet’s weakest film. Like Scarlet, A Magnificent Life is being distributed through Sony Pictures Classics. Between Sony’s reputation for campaigning and the respect that Chomet’s name carries, A Magnificent Life could still surprise with an Oscar nomination. Without much precursor love, though, it’s a long shot.

The State of the Race:

There are still a few precursor awards that we can look to before the Oscar nominations are announced on January 22. The Annie Award nominations will be unveiled on January 5. Although BAFTA will announce their nominations after the Oscars, they will reveal their longlists on January 9. The PGA will share their nominations on the same day. While I’ll wait until those organizations reveal their nominees before making any final judgment, the fifth slot is currently a three-way battle with Elio out in front, followed by In Your Dreams and Demon Slayer. Endless Cookie and A Magnificent Life could be dark horses. As for personal preference, Lost in Starlight would get my vote if I had an Oscar ballot. Here’s hoping it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Nick Spake is the Author of Bright & Shiny: A History of Animation at Award Shows Volumes 1 and 2. Available Now!