^{Credit: KPop Demon Hunters (Netflix, Sony Pictures Animation)}

In June 2025, Netflix released the first trailer for In Your Dreams, which wouldn’t be released until November. Netflix clearly wanted to build early buzz for what they thought would be their Best Animated Feature frontrunner. On paper, In Your Dreams made sense as an Oscar player. It was in the vein of Pixar, which remains the most awarded studio in the category’s history, despite losing the past four years. In Your Dreams also had a Pixar alumnus in director Alex Woo, a Student Academy Award winner. Woo even gave his first feature a shout-out when he presented at the Student Academy Awards later that year. While In Your Dreams would be released to positive reviews and solid streaming numbers, it ultimately didn’t attain an Oscar nomination.

Ironically, the same month that the trailer for In Your Dreams dropped, KPop Demon Hunters premiered on Netflix. Where Netflix released the In Your Dreams trailer almost six months in advance, the KPop Demon Hunters trailer hit YouTube in May, barely giving it a month to generate buzz. The film, which Sony Pictures Animation produced and would be distributed through Netflix per a deal made in 2021, seemed destined to fade into the streaming void. Not only did KPop Demon Hunters become an organic hit through word of mouth, but it broke numerous Billboard records, became the most-watched Netflix original ever (movie or TV show), and cemented its place as the Best Animated Feature frontrunner.

If the success of KPop Demon Hunters proves anything, it’s that Hollywood knows nothing. Sony’s management has tried to downplay the misguided decision to not only grant Netflix the film rights, but also merchandising rights and most of the music rights. Sony Pictures Chairman Tom Rothman claims he has no regrets about this decision, believing that KPop Demon Hunters wouldn’t have been as successful with a traditional theater run. Evidence suggests otherwise, as Netflix gave the film a brief theatrical release in August, making almost $20 million despite still being available to stream. Recently, Sony theatrically released GOAT, an original animated film that grossed over $100 million globally in two weeks. If GOAT can do those numbers, KPop Demon Hunters could’ve as well.

One might argue that the success of KPop Demon Hunters helped GOAT. One could also argue that KPop Demon Hunters wouldn’t have lit the box office on fire during its opening weekend. An opening weekend isn’t everything, however. Just as KPop Demon Hunters found its audience on Netflix through word of mouth alone, the same can be applied to theatrical viewership. 2025 gave us Sinners, another film about people fighting demonic creatures with music. Sinners was a big swing, not to mention an original one, that wasn’t guaranteed profitability. Yet, Sinners made almost $400 million on a roughly $100 budget, about what it cost to make KPop Demon Hunters. Considering that Sinners was an R-rated movie that kids couldn’t get into, KPop Demon Hunters could’ve made even more at the box office with the lucrative family demographic, not to mention the legion of K-pop and Eastern animation fans worldwide who would’ve bought a ticket.

Sony may deny it, but they goofed big time, leaving Netflix to reap the benefits. Of course, as Simon Abrams of The AV Club put it, “Netflix fell backwards into KPop Demon Hunters' success.” Netflix wasn’t prepared for the film to become a phenomenon, meaning there was minimal merchandise upon release, although that’s being rectified. Netflix also suddenly realized that they had a genuine awards player for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for the chart-dominating “Golden.” The streamer scrambled to qualify KPop Demon Hunters for Oscar consideration, among other awards. They missed the window at BAFTA, though, which deemed KPop Demon Hunters ineligible due to Netflix’s streaming-first model. BAFTA nonetheless allowed “Golden” to be performed on that year’s telecast.

The important thing is that KPop Demon Hunters still met the Oscar requirements… in Best Animated Feature and Song. Its theatrical engagement still didn’t qualify it to compete for Best Picture. Some will say that KPop Demon Hunters was never going to get a Best Picture nomination, especially since only three animated films have ever achieved that honor. There’s only a handful of animated films that’ve completely captured the zeitgeist like KPop Demon Hunters has, however. If the film received a wider theatrical release, became a box office sensation, and had the full power of the Netflix machine behind its awards campaign, maybe, just maybe, it would’ve become the fourth film to do so.

While Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and Train Dreams would ultimately be Netflix’s Best Picture players, KPop Demon Hunters still got more Oscar nominations than A House of Dynamite, Jay Kelly, Ballad of a Small Player, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, The Electric State, or any of Netflix’s other animated offerings this year. KPop Demon Hunters is still the frontrunner to win two Oscars, meaning it’ll probably be the night’s biggest winner that isn’t in Best Picture. Even as the film topped Billboard and Netflix charts over the summer, many questioned if the Academy would actually award a film called KPop Demon Hunters. Some believed that another film would steal its thunder by the time awards season got going. As a consensus Oscar five formed, though, it became apparent that KPop Demon Hunters wasn’t just out in front. It was unstoppable.

After bombing financially, Pixar’s Elio made an Oscar comeback. While it was nice to see this underappreciated film get a little love over award season, Elio has won nothing… and I mean nothing. On IMDb, Elio currently has 47 nominations total, but no wins. The film received no awards from regional critics groups. It got nominated for ten Annie Awards, tying KPop Demon Hunters for the year’s most bids. Where Demon Hunters swept, though, Elio goose egged. Although Pixar is still a strong enough force in the Academy to score an annual nomination, they haven’t won since 2020’s Soul. Elio isn’t going to break this dry spell, the nomination being its win. (Update: Elio has now won a Satellite Award). 

After Flow went from Cannes to a Best Animated Feature win, some wondered if Arco or Little Amélie or the Character of Rain could follow the same trajectory. The problem is that Flow was the only indie underdog in the conversation. Granted, Flow was nominated against Memoir of a Snail, but the industry universally rallied behind the little cat movie. Arco and Little Amélie split the indie vote. Arco won at the National Board of Review, but Little Amélie took the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award. At BAFTA, Little Amélie was nominated for Best Animated Film while Arco got into Best Children's & Family Film. Neither film won.

It would’ve been interesting to see them compete against each other at the Annies for Best Feature — Independent. Since Little Amélie was submitted in the other Animated Feature category, though, Arco easily won. The most telling sign that neither was winning the Oscar came when the PGA Awards nominations were announced. Arco and Little Amélie both got left out. Since PGA introduced a category for animation in 2005, they’ve at least nominated every eventual Oscar winner. It was especially surprising that PGA didn’t go for Arco, considering that it had a high-profile producer in Natalie Portman. A win for Arco would make Portman the only person with an acting Oscar and a Best Animated Feature Oscar. That became increasingly unlikely after PGA.

One thing that might benefit Arco and Little Amélie is a new rule that requires Academy members to watch every nominee in a specific category to vote for it. In the past, some voters might’ve slept on the indie animated features, only watching the mainstream nominees. While this rule may help get more eyes on indie and international animation, it’s not like no Academy members were doing their homework. Last year, Flow won over Hollywood pictures like The Wild Robot and Inside Out 2. The year before that, The Boy and the Heron beat Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Even going back to the early days of Best Animated Feature, Spirited Away won over four big-budget U.S. productions.

Some have also questioned how many Academy members will actually follow this new rule. With the Academy Screening Room app, members could theoretically have a movie playing in the background while they’re doing chores around the house. They could even go into another room while a movie plays, which would technically count as it being watched. Even if they do commit to truly watching every nominee, many voters still might prefer KPop Demon Hunters. If Arco or Little Amélie were win competitive, one of them would’ve taken home the Globe or BAFTA.

The closest thing KPop Demon Hunters has to a competitor is Zootopia 2. The acclaimed sequel grossed over a billion dollars, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 2025. #1 was Ne Zha 2, which wasn’t submitted at the Oscars. Like its Oscar-winning predecessor, Zootopia 2 also carries a socially relevant message during divisive times. Host Alan Cumming referenced the film’s timely themes in his BAFTA monologue, saying, “I’ll watch a nice animated film to relax me and cheer myself up. Do you know the plot of Zootropolis 2? Lies, corrupt leaders, poisoning, and persecution of a race. Too soon, Disney.”

Zootopia 2 won the BAFTA for Best Animated Film, one of the only awards that the first film lost. The British Film Academy created a category for animated features in 2006, with every Oscar winner at least getting a BAFTA nomination. Considering that KPop Demon Hunters wasn’t eligible at BAFTA, though, it might not matter this year. KPop Demon Hunters won at the Golden Globes, the Critics’ Choice Awards, PGA, the Annies, the New York Film Critics Circle, and more than thirty other awards. Of the televised awards, Zootopia 2 has BAFTA, and, let’s be honest, if KPop Demon Hunters had been eligible, it probably would’ve won that, too. Zootopia 2 also won the NAACP Image Award over KPop Demon Hunters, although there isn’t much correlation between that show and the Oscars.

Even if KPop Demon Hunters weren’t standing in its way, Zootopia 2 has the disadvantage of being a sequel. Toy Story 3 and 4 remain the only sequels that have won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Time will only tell if Toy Story 5 continues this trend. For now, Zootopia 2 is in the same league as Incredibles 2, Inside Out 2, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Shrek 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, How to Train Your Dragon 2  + The Hidden World, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Despicable Me 2, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Good enough to be nominated, but when given the choice between a sequel and an original film, voters favored the new toy.

This is yet another reason why awards groups have championed KPop Demon Hunters. It wasn’t just a completely original film in an IP-driven market, but it was a huge swing that paid off big time. It’s the kind of animated film that people are excited to vote for. The film has even received recognition from unexpected places. James Cameron isn’t a fan of Netflix or what it’s doing to the theatrical model, although he reportedly liked KPop Demon Hunters. Supposedly, Leonardo DiCaprio was talking about KPop Demon Hunters at the Golden Globes with Teyana Taylor (and maybe one other person?) Little Amélie also has its famous fans, such as Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. KPop Demon Hunters is currently the only nominee getting a Criterion Collection release, however.

Although many rejoiced to hear that KPop Demon Hunters would be getting a Criterion release, not to mention a physical one, some on social media questioned if it was “prestige” enough for such recognition. 1) Michael Bay has two movies in the Criterion Collection. If he’s prestigious enough for Criterion, so is KPop Demon Hunters. 2) The Criterion Collection isn’t exclusively for Fellini and Bergman. It’s for movies that’ve left a cultural impact, and few defined 2025 like KPop Demon Hunters. 3) KPop Demon Hunters is currently the frontrunner to win not one, but two Academy Awards. It doesn’t get much more prestige than that.

There’s still an outside chance that “Golden” will lose Best Original Song to “I Lied to You” from Sinners, but it would be perhaps the biggest upset of the night. The Best Animated Feature race is pretty much set in stone, however. If I told you several months ago that a film called KPop Demon Hunters would be an Oscar player, you likely would’ve said, “In your dreams.” The dream has become a reality for Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, and producer Michelle L.M. Wong.

Kang and Wong seem poised to become the category’s first female Asian winners. KPop Demon Hunters would be the category’s fourth winner from a female co-director after Shrek, Brave, and Frozen. Assuming “Golden” pulls it off as well, KPop Demon Hunters would be the first non-Disney/Pixar animated feature to win multiple Oscars. “Golden” would also be the second song from a non-Disney/Pixar animated feature to win, the first being “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt. KPop Demon Hunters seems unstoppable on all fronts, with nowhere to go but up, up, up.

Nick Spake is the Author of Bright & Shiny: A History of Animation at Award Shows Volumes 1, 2, and 3. Available Now!