Best Animated Feature

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, winner 2018.

The Best Animated Feature Oscar is an Academy Award of Merit presented to the best overall motion picture of the year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The Best Animated Feature category was officially included as an annual award for the first time for the 2001 film year (with the first winner being Shrek). Animated films can be nominated for other categories but have rarely been so: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010) are the only animated films ever to be nominated for Best Picture, while Waltz with Bashir (2008) is the only animated picture ever nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (though it failed to earn a nomination in the Best Animated Feature category).

Eligibility and rules

Until 2011, the award category had to be activated by the Awards Board each year, whereas now it is a standard category. The award is given only if there are at least eight animated feature films (with a theatrical release in Los Angeles). For the purposes of the award, only films over 40 minutes long are considered to be feature films. If there are 16 or more films submitted for the category, the winner is voted from a shortlist of five films (which has thus far happened only in 2002 and 2009, and will happen again in the upcoming 2011 ceremony), otherwise there will only be three films on the shortlist.

Winners and nominees

Computer-animated films have been the big winners in this category, with eight wins in the ten-year history of the award. The only exceptions were in 2002 and 2005, with winners Spirited Away, a traditionally animated anime film, and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, a stop-motion animation film. Both non-CG films were also not produced in the United States; Spirited Away came from Japan (it is also the only film not in the English language to win the award) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit came from Britain.

Pixar Animation Studios has been the most successful organization in the history of Best Animated Feature. All eight feature films made by Pixar between 2001 and 2010 were nominated for the award and only two lost (Monsters Inc. lost to Shrek, and Cars lost to Happy Feet); Pixar's 2011 film, Cars 2 was the first to receive no nomination in the category.

2000s

74th Academy Awards (2001)

Winner

Shrek — Aron Warner

Nominees

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius — Steve Oedekerk, John A. Davis

Monsters, Inc. — Peter Docter, John Lasseter

75th Academy Awards (2002)

Winner

Spirited Away — Hayao Miyazaki

Nominees

Ice Age — Chris Wedge

Lilo & Stitch — Chris Sanders

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron — Jeffrey Katzenberg

Treasure Planet — Ron Clements

76th Academy Awards (2003)

Winner

Finding Nemo — Andrew Stanton

Nominees

Brother Bear — Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker

The Triplets of Belleville — Sylvain Chomet

77th Academy Awards (2004)

Winner

The Incredibles — Brad Bird

Nominees

Shark Tale — Bill Damaschke

Shrek 2 — Andrew Adamson

78th Academy Awards (2005)

Winner

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit — Nick Park, Steve Box

Nominees

Howl's Moving Castle — Hayao Miyazaki

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride — Mike Johnson, Tim Burton

79th Academy Awards (2006)

Winner

Happy Feet — George Miller

Nominees

Cars — John Lasseter

Monster House — Gil Kenan

80th Academy Awards (2007)

Winner

Ratatouille — Brad Bird

Nominees

Persepolis — Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud

Surf's Up — Ash Brannon, Chris Buck

81st Academy Awards (2008)

Winner

WALL-E — Andrew Stanton

Nominees

Bolt — Chris Williams, Byron Howard

Kung Fu Panda — John Stevenson, Mark Osborne

82nd Academy Awards (2009)

Winner

Up — Pete Docter

Nominees

Coraline — Henry Selick

Fantastic Mr. Fox — Wes Anderson

The Princess and the Frog — John Musker, Ron Clements

The Secret of Kells — Tomm Moore

2010s

83rd Academy Awards (2010)

Winner

Toy Story 3 — Lee Unkrich

Nominees

How to Train Your Dragon — Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois

The Illusionist — Sylvain Chomet

84th Academy Awards (2011)

Winner

Rango — Gore Verbinski

Nominees

A Cat in Paris — Alain Gagnol, Jean-Loup Felicioli

Chico & Rita — Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal

Kung Fu Panda 2 — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Puss in Boots — Chris Miller

85th Academy Awards (2012)

Winner

Brave — Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

Nominees

Frankenweenie — Tim Burton

ParaNorman — Sam Fell, Chris Butler

The Pirates! Band of Misfits — Peter Lord

Wreck-It-Ralph — Rich Moore

86th Academy Awards (2013)

Winner

Frozen — Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho

Nominees

The Croods — Chris Sanders, Kirk De Micco, Kristine Belson

Despicable Me 2 — Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, Chris Meledandri

Ernest & Celestine — Benjamin Renner, Didier Brunner

The Wind Rises — Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki

87th Academy Awards (2014)

Winner

Big Hero 6 — Don Hall, Chris Williams, Roy Conli

Nominees

The Boxtrolls — Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable, Travis Knight

How to Train Your Dragon 2 — Dean DeBlois, Bonnie Arnold

Song of the Sea — Tomm Moore, Paul Young

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya — Isao Takahata, Yoshiaki Nishimura

88th Academy Awards (2015)

Winner

Inside Out — Pete Docter, Jonas Rivera

Nominees

Anomalisa — Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson, Rosa Tran

Boy & the World — Alê Abreu

Shaun the Sheep Movie — Mark Burton, Richard Starzak

When Marnie Was There — Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Yoshiaki Nishimura

89th Academy Awards (2016)

Winner

Zootopia — Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Clark Spencer

Nominees

Kubo and the Two Strings — Travis Knight, Arianne Sutner

Moana — John Musker, Ron Clements, Osnat Shurer

My Life as a Zucchini — Claude Barras, Max Karli

The Red Turtle — Michael Dudok de Wit, Toshio Suzuki

90th Academy Awards (2017)

Winner

Coco — Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson

Nominees

The Boss Baby — Tom McGrath, Ramsey Naito

The Breadwinner — Nora Twomey, Anthony Leo

Ferdinand — Carlos Saldanha

Loving Vincent — Dorota Kabiela, Hugh Welchman, Ivan Mactaggart

91st Academy Awards (2018)

Winner

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Nominees

Incredibles 2 — Brad Bird, John Walker, Nicole Paradis Grindle

Isle of Dogs — Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson

Mirai — Mamoru Hosoda, Yuichiro Saito

Ralph Breaks the Internet — Rich Moore, Phil Johnston, Clark Spencer

Special Awards

Prior to the creation of the Best Animated Feature category in 2001, the Academy granted three special awards for achievements relating to feature-length animated films. In each case, the film that prompted the special recognition was either produced in part or distributed by the Walt Disney Company or one of its subsidiaries. The awards were as follows:

11th Academy Awards, 1938

Special Award "To Walt Disney for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon."

61st Academy Awards, 1988

Special Achievement Award "To Richard Williams for the animation direction of Who Framed Roger Rabbit."

68th Academy Awards, 1995

Special Achievement Award "To John Lasseter, for his inspired leadership of the Pixar Toy Story team, resulting in the first feature-length computer-animated film."