Credit: Sony, Disney, ParamountThis year has been another great year for animated films, and that’s bad news for Disney.
Commenters online have been talking about the high-quality animated movies this year and how Disney may lose out on yet another Oscar win for the second year in a row. Disney and Pixar have been industry favorites for decades when it comes to the animated feature category. In the 21 years of the category’s history, Disney or Pixar has won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature 15 times. In 2022, the award went to Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, who developed the movie with Netflix Animation and won over other well-received films, including Pixar’s Turning Red.
This year the competition for the best-animated feature is very stiff. Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has dominated the box office since its release and is already set to make over $650 million as of this writing. Other strong contenders include Netflix’s Nimona, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken, and the upcoming Seth Rogan-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Overseas, fans of Japanese animation have raved over Suzume, whose director made the highly acclaimed Your Name in 2016, and expectations are high for Hayao Miyazaki’s upcoming film The Boy and the Heron, both of which are also strong candidates for the Oscars this year.
However, Disney and Pixar both have a chance of reclaiming the title with Wish and Elemental. Pixar may have been disappointed with Elemental’s performance upon release considering it had the second-lowest box office debut just above the original Toy Story (1995). However, since then the movie has gone on to become Disney’s highest-grossing animated film since Frozen 2 (2019). Wish is still months away so viewers will have to wait until November to see if Disney’s newest movie is better than the competition.
The current state of animation seems to be entering a new golden age. Many point to groundbreaking animation styling from movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Puss and Boots: The Last Wish (2022). Boundaries are being pushed and animation studios are constantly looking for new ways for animation to feel fresh and exciting rather than just “realistic”. This feeling seems to be extending globally as animation from every corner of the world seeks to present itself in new and unique ways.
Miyazaki, a household name in animation even for those not from Japan, is releasing his newest movie The Boy and the Heron with no marketing or information besides a single poster; allowing the film to speak for itself with no prior bias from the viewer. While Disney has always been a pillar in the animation community it may need to take a close look at itself before it is left behind in the story books of years past.
What do you think about the stiff competition in animation this year? Let us know who your top picks are in the comments below!