The Oscars (and awards in general) have a big problem with animation. For much of the Oscars' history, animated films have been excluded from nominations, with only animated shorts having their own category. Then, after the Best Animated Feature category was created in 2001, it quickly became dominated by Disney films and children's films in general. It didn't take long for the Academy to consider the entire medium nothing more than an annual celebration of Disney's marketing prowess, and the ass of endless stupid jokes about how boring it is to watch a cartoon with your kids.

True, there have been surprises, such as Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio going home with 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 an 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 wised up this year and realized that animated movies are movies too and are worth considering in multiple categories because they have different production departments that excel at what they do - just like live-action movies.

Of course, it's a small gesture and not at all a sign 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 it's not taken the same way as live-action movies. Just as any live-action film can be nominated for many technical categories in addition to Best Picture, animated films are the result of many different departments doing equally hard and impressive work. Take Memoirs of a Snail. As a stop-motion film, it makes effective use of live sets, with costumes, set decoration and lighting as well as live production. Director of Ultraman: Rising. Shannon Tindle He recently took Variety to task for not including animation directors in their roundtables, and he has a point. Animation directors are still directors, so why aren't they considered as such for awards season?

Fortunately, 2025 changes things a bit. Flow, one of the best movies of the year and one hell of a movie a great disaster moviereceived not only a nomination for the best animated feature film, but also an award for the best international film because the film is primarily a Latvian production. Meanwhile, DreamWorks' Wild Robot won a Best Original Score nod and even a Best Sound nomination. That last one is significant because, along with Best Original Score and Best Original Song, animated films managed to earn Best Sound nods decades before they got their own category, with "Bambi" getting a nomination in 1942.

In a better time frame, we would have animated films competing in every category alongside live-action films. Take the visual effects category. How come only three animated films were recognized in that category, given how VFX-heavy films like Across the Spider-Verse are? Many Pixar films have been nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but why not director?

One of the most curious developments of the last few years when it comes to the Oscars is the decline in nominations for Disney films. 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 allowed smaller films to earn nominations and gain attention.

This year we have not one but two of the nominees coming from small distributors with no real Oscar campaign history. Flow (distributed by Janus Films) and Memoir of a Snail (IFC Films) have neither the manpower nor budget of a major studio like Pixar or DreamWorks, or even the resources and proven track record of a company like GKIDS or Neonsky. However, both films managed to receive Oscar nominations, which is a huge achievement. Things are far from great when it comes to animation and the Oscars, but this is probably the most diverse list of animation nominees in years.