This article contains IndieWire’s preliminary Best Animated Feature predictions for the 2024 Oscars. We regularly update our predictions throughout awards season and republish previous versions (like this one) for readers to track changes in how the Oscar race has changed. For the latest update on the frontrunners for the 96th Academy Awards, see our 2024 Oscars predictions hub.
The State of the Race
The Best Animated Feature nominees are all very different coming-of-age stories: Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony), Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” (Studio Ghibli/GKids), Pixar’s first love story, “Elemental,” Annapurna Animation/Netflix’s queer breakthrough “Nimona,” and “Robot Dreams” (Neon), the bittersweet bromance from Spanish director Pablo Berger (“Blancanieves”).
Essentially, though, it’s a two-film race between the innovative blockbuster “Across the Spider-Verse” and Miyazaki’s most personal film, “The Boy and the Heron,” which has surged thanks to its Golden Globe win and a slew of critics awards (including NYFCC, LA, and National Board of Review).
“Across the Spider-Verse” (directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson) continues the adventures of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) to forge his own identity as an artistic teen and a superhero anomaly within the multi-verse. Miles gets hurled into several new comic book-inspired dimensions to battle the vengeful Spot (Jason Schwartzman), including Gwen’s watercolor world and the India-inspired Mumbattan. For this, Sony Pictures Imageworks created a slew of new tools for translating more elaborate 2D stylization into 3D with new systems for using pencil, pen and ink, markers, and paintbrushes.
With “The Boy and the Heron,” Miyazaki came out of retirement for the second time after “The Wind Rises” (2013) to make his 12th feature, a semi-autobiographical, hand-drawn fantasy for his grandchildren. It’s about destruction, loss, and rebuilding a better future through imagination, inspired by the novel he adored as a child (“How Do You Live?”). Eleven-year-old Mahito loses his mother in the firebombing of Japan during World War II and relocates to the countryside, where his father marries his sister-in-law. During this troubled state, the boy encounters a talking gray heron that leads him into a parallel universe and a life-altering adventure. The English-language version includes the voice work of Luca Padovan as Mahito, Robert Pattinson as the heron, Christian Bale as the father, Gemma Chan as the stepmother, Willem Dafoe as the Noble Pelican, Mark Hamill as Granduncle, Florence Pugh as Kiriko, Karen Fukuara as Lady Himi, and Dave Bautista as The Parakeet King.
“Elemental” continues the trend of telling semi-autobiographical stories at Pixar with new aesthetics. Director Peter Sohn (“The Good Dinosaur”) was inspired to tell the love story of his parents, who emigrated from Korea in the ’70s and ran a grocery store in the Bronx. Pixar created new tech for the effects-heavy film to make fire and water look and behave convincingly as CG characters and how they eventually overlap. It’s set in Elemental City, where people made of the four elements — earth, air, water, and fire — coexist in a community rife with division. Tough, sharp-witted, fiery Ember (Leah Lewis) develops a friendship with her polar opposite, the laidback, sentimental, and watery Wade (Mamoudou Athie).
“Nimona” (rescued by Annapurna and Netflix after Disney shuttered Blue Sky) is adapted from ND Stevenson’s best-selling LGBTQ graphic novel about the titular, shape-shifting teen (Chloë Grace Moretz) who battles xenophobia in a futuristic medieval world. Nimona teams up with a knight (Riz Ahmed) framed for murder, who must confront his bestie-turned-rival (Eugene Lee Yang). The animation from DNEG (capturing the spirit of the Blue Sky design) has a quirky 2D aesthetic that’s perfect for the tone and setting.
Berger’s animated debut, “Robot Dreams,” is the surprise dark horse entry, winning the Annecy Contrecham Award along with The Animation Is Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize. The 2D film (adapted from the wordless graphic novel by Sara Varon) follows the friendship between a lonely dog and a robot companion in ’80s Manhattan inhabited by animals, and the trauma of suddenly being separated. It’s funny, poignant, and magnificently designed and animated, and transforms Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September” into a joyous anthem.
Nominees are listed below in order of likelihood they will win.
Contenders
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
“The Boy and the Heron”
“Elemental”
“Nimona”
“Robot Dreams”
