Best Animated Features Predictions – IndieWire

Nomination voting will take place January 11-16, 2024, and the official Oscar nominations will be announced on January 23, 2024. The final vote will take place February 22-27, 2024. And finally, the 96th Academy Awards will air on Sunday, March 10 and will air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT. We update our predictions throughout awards season. So keep checking back with IndieWire for all of our 2024 Oscar picks.

The state of the race

It’s looking like a three-way Oscar race between Sony’s blockbuster “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” Hayao Miyazaki’s recap film “The Boy and the Heron” (GKids) and Disney’s 100th Anniversary Tribute: “Wish.” Other Oscar contenders include Pixar’s “Elementary”, “Chicken: Run: Dawn of the Nugget” (Aardman/Netflix), “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (Illumination/Universal), “Nimona” (Netflix/Annapurna), “The Peasants” (Sony Pictures Classics), the Polish international entry (from the Oscar-nominated team that made “Loving Vincent”), Pablo Berger’s acclaimed 2D animated film debut, “Robot dreams” (NEON), Makoto Shinkai’s catastrophe fantasy ““Suzume” (Crunchyroll), “Migration” (Illumination/Universal) from Oscar-nominated director Benjamin Renner (“Ernest & Celestine”), “Trolls Band Together” (DreamWorks/Universal) and “They Shot the Piano Player” (Sony Pictures Classics) . ), the bossa nova documentary from Oscar-nominated directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (“Chico & Rita”).

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has emerged as an early Oscar favorite this year: The sequel has surpassed its Oscar-winning predecessor at the box office ($381 million domestic and $689 million worldwide ) and on top of that extensive history and major animated technical innovations. producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller and new Directors Joaquim Dos Santos (“The Legend of Korra”), Kemp Powers (“Soul” co-director) and Justin K. Thompson (“Into the Spider-Verse” production designer) cast Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and Spider-Gwen in the air (Hailee Steinfeld) in several new ones Dimensions to Battle Spot (Jason Schwartzman), including Gwen’s watercolor world and the Indian-inspired Mumbattan. And to this end, Sony Pictures Imageworks has developed innovative tools for translating more elaborate 2D stylizations into 3D with new systems for the use of pencil, pen and ink, markers and brushes.

With The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki came out of retirement again to make the semi-autobiographical, hand-drawn film for his grandson, inspired by the novel he loved as a child, How Do You Live? The eponymous teenager loses his mother in the firebombing of Japan in World War II and moves to the country where his father marries his sister-in-law. In this restless state, the boy meets a talking blue heron who takes him to a parallel universe and a life-changing adventure. Many of Mayazaki’s familiar tropes are imaginatively woven into a beautiful and wistful summary statement about mortality and art.

Coinciding with Disney’s 100th anniversary is “Wish,” the origin story of the wishing star introduced in “Pinocchio” and later seen in “Peter Pan,” “Lady and the Tramp” and “The Princess and the Frog.” Written by Chief Creative Officer Jennifer Lee (“Frozen”), produced by Peter Del Vecho (“Frozen”) and directed by Chris Buck (“Frozen”) and Fawn Veerasunthorn (story director for “Raya and the Last Dragon”). The musical fantasy is set in the medieval kingdom of Rosas, where wishes magically come true (ruled by King Magnifico, voiced by Chris Pine). When eternal optimist Asha (Ariana DeBose) turns to the sky in a moment of need and makes a wish, her request is answered by a cosmic force – a small ball of limitless energy called the Star. Alan Tudyk voices her buddy, a goat in pajamas. Production designer Michael Giaimo (“Frozen”) was responsible for the 2D watercolor style inspired by early Disney fairy tales, with CG artists creating the new look. Grammy-nominated Julia Michaels has composed seven original songs.

Pixar’s “Elemental” was a box office flop domestically ($154 million), but it grossed more than $490 million worldwide and rebounded to become Disney+’s most-watched film premiere of the year. There could still be a nomination. The studio’s first romantic comedy is technically innovative and continues the trend of telling semi-autobiographical stories. Director Peter Sohn (“The Good Dinosaur”) was inspired to tell the love story of his parents, who emigrated from Korea in the 1970s and ran a grocery store in the Bronx. Pixar has developed new technology for the effects-heavy film to make Fire and Water look and behave convincingly like CG characters and how they overlap. It is set in Elemental City, where people made up of the four elements earth, air, water and fire live together in a community full of divisions. The tough, sharp and fiery Ember (Leah Lewis) develops a friendship with her counterpart, the laid-back, sentimental and watery Wade (Mamoudou Athie).

The directing couple DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman follow their milestone “Loving Vincent” with “The Peasants”. It is a more ambitious drama based on Nobel Prize winner Wladislaw Reymont’s early 20th-century novel about life in a rural Polish village. They once again utilize their groundbreaking rotoscope technique, which involves filming actors in live action and then creating 40,000 oil paintings that are placed over the photographic images and animated in stunning and immersive ways.

Berger’s (“Blancanieves”) “Robot Dreams,” an adaptation of Sara Varon’s award-winning graphic novel, is a bittersweet buddy comedy that follows the friendship between a lonely dog ​​and a robot companion in an ’80s New York City inhabited by human animals don’t speak, and what happens if they are suddenly separated. It’s funny, poignant, and gorgeously designed and animated, turning Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September” into a joyful anthem.

“Dawn of the Nugget,” the sequel to the most successful stop-motion film in history, begins a few years later with a happy ending for Rocky (Zachary Levi, replacing Mel Gibson), Ginger (Thandiwe Newton). , who succeeds Julia Sawalha, and daughter Molly (Bella Ramsey) are interrupted and they are forced to break back into the farm to save their chicken friends. Directed by Sam Fell (“ParaNorman”) from a screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick, John O’Farrell and Rachel Tunnard, the producers are Steve Pegram (“Arthur Christmas”) and Leyla Hobart.

“Nimona,” rescued by Annaopurna Animation and Netflix after Disney shuttered Blue Sky following the Fox acquisition, is a queer breakthrough to overcome xenophobia in a futuristic medieval world. Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane (“Spies in Disguise”) and based on ND Stevenson’s best-selling LGBTQ graphic novel, it follows a knight (Riz Ahmed) who is framed for a murder that is related to the character of the same name changing team joins together. and also features a same-sex love story between the knight and his best rival (Eugene Lee Yang). The animation of DNEG has a strange 2D aesthetic that fits the tone and environment perfectly.

The punky reboot of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Nickelodeon/Paramount) was a surprise summer hit ($191 million domestic and $485 million worldwide. Director Jeff Rowe (co-director of “The Mitchells vs “The Machines”) used rough sketching through CG to portray the Turtles’ youthful passions and imperfections. It’s about the heroic aspirations of Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Donatello (Micah Abbey), and Raphael (Brady Noon) and want to be accepted by people.

As for the rest: Makoto Shinkai’s ““Suzume” marks his finest and most ambitious fantasy romance to date, in which a small-town teenager travels fearfully across Japan with a mysterious companion trapped in a magic chair to save their country from a catastrophic disaster (inspired by the Great Earthquake in eastern Japan). “Migration”, an exquisite film about a family of ducks who learn to leave their comfort zone. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” the Nintendo video game adaptation, was a nostalgic blockbuster hit ($1.36 billion worldwide, $574.9 million domestic), but the story left something to be desired. Still, it could make a name for itself with troubled Brooklyn plumbers Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) teaming up with badass Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) to take on the fire-breaking, egotistical Koopa Bowser (Jack Black ) to stop. . “Trolls Band Together” (DreamWorks/Universal) gets more psychedelic and universe-expanding with a tribute to boy bands and family bands as Justin Timberlake’s Branch reconnects with his estranged brothers, who are kidnapped by sibling pop star villains Velvet (Amy Schumer). ) and veneers (Andrew Rannells).

In “They Shot the Piano Player,” Trueba and Mariscal explore the origins of bossa nova in this documentary about a New York music journalist who sets out to find the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of young Brazilian piano virtuoso Tenorio Jr. “Trolls.” “Band Together,” the third release, is a psychedelic homage to boy bands and family bands, with Justin Timberlake’s Branch taking center stage as he defends his estranged brothers from sibling pop star villains Velvet (Amy Schumer) and Veneer (Andrew Rannells). ) to rescue.

Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; No film will be considered a frontrunner until we see it.

Frontrunner

“Elementary”
“Nimona”
“Robot dreams”
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
“The Boy and the Heron”

Competitors

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
“Migration”
“Suzume”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
“The farmers”
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie”
“They shot the piano player”
“Trolls band together”
“Wish”