How the 2025 Oscars made animation history

The Oscars (and award ceremonies in general) have a major animation problem. For most of the Oscars' history, animated films have been excluded from the nominations, with only animated shorts having their own category. After winning Best Animated Feature in 2001, it was quickly dominated by Disney films and children's films overall. It didn't take long for the Academy to view the entire medium as essentially nothing more than an annual celebration of Disney's marketing prowess and endless dumb jokes about how boring it is to watch a cartoon with the kids.

Of course, there have been surprises, like Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio taking home the win in 2022, or when Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron won last year. However, the award has historically been fairly predictable: a simple battle between the big American studios and the award given simply to the highest-grossing animated film of that year.

Fortunately, the 2025 Oscars seem to be doing something right — despite the many mistakes. The Academy came to its senses this year and realized that animated films are films too, and that they should be considered in multiple categories because they have different production departments that excel at their work — just like live-action films.

This is, of course, a small gesture and does not at all indicate that the ceremony will be different in the years to come. But for this year at least, it's a refreshing change.

It's been more than 20 years since the Academy introduced the Best Animated Feature category, but the medium is still an afterthought which does not receive the same attention as live-action films. Just as any live-action film can be nominated in many technical categories in addition to Best Picture, animated films are the result of the equally hard and impressive work of many different departments. Take “Memoirs of a Snail”. As a stop-motion film, it uses effective live-action sets with costumes, sets and lighting just like a live-action production. Director of Ultraman: Rising Shannon Tindle recently took Variety to task for not including animation directors in their roundtable discussions, and he has a point. Animators are still directors, so why aren't they considered as such come awards season?

Fortunately, 2025 changes things a bit. Flow is one of the best movies of the year and one hell of a movie great disaster moviewon not only the Best Animated Film nomination, but also the Best International Film nomination, as the film is mainly produced in Latvia. Meanwhile, DreamWorks' “The Wild Robot” won Best Original Score and was even nominated for Best Sound. That last one is significant because, along with Best Original Score and Best Original Song, animated films have managed to win Best Sound awards decades before they won their own category, with “Bambi” receiving a nomination in 1942.

In a better timeline, we would have animated films competing in every category alongside live-action films. Select a visual effects category. Given how VFX-heavy films like Across the Spider-Verse are, why have only three animated films been recognized in this category? Many Pixar films have been nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but why not director?

One of the most curious developments in the last couple of years when it comes to the Oscars is the decline in the number of Disney films in the nominations. This is the fourth year in a row where no Disney animated film has received a Best Animated Feature nomination (granted, Pixar films are still nominated, but it's technically a separate studio). This has allowed smaller films to earn nominations and gain the limelight.

This year we have not one, but two nominees from small distributors with no real Oscar campaign history. Flow (distributed by Janus Films) and Memoir of a Snail (IFC Films) don't have the manpower or budget of a major studio like Pixar or DreamWorks, or even the resources and proven track record of a company like GKIDS or Neon. Despite this, both films managed to get Oscar nominations, which is a huge achievement. Things aren't great when it comes to animation and the Oscars, but this might be the most diverse list of animated film nominees in years.