2018 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED FEATURE (November)

This year, voting for Animated Feature makes a big change – everyone in the Academy can vote for nominees. This category, like Foreign Language Film and Documentary Feature, have always been made up of small committees that are able to formulate the eventual nominees but this year it’s all in. What does that mean for smaller and foreign animated films that often benefited from a purely animator vote? Does that mean we’ll get all sequels and studio releases? One thing that’s often kept this category in balance is how generally anti-sequel (or prequel) it’s been. Finding Dory was the highest grossing animated film of 2016 but did it get nominated? Nope. Monsters University? Nada. And Dory came from an Oscar-winning original. Interestingly, non-Disney/Pixar animated films have had better luck with their sequels. Despicable Me and its sequel were nominated. Shrek won and its sequel was nominated. Toy Story 3 sort of defies this but not really since the animated category didn’t exist when the first two films came out.

So what does this year look like? At the moment, Coco (from Disney/Pixar) is a pretty clear frontrunner. But The Breadwinner has been burning up film festivals across the world and could be a very formidable contender here. Loving Vincent is doing gangbuster box office in its arthouse release and Mary and the Witch’s Flower is starting to move up the chart.

We have two Lego movies this year – The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie. The former was a critical and box office hit, the latter not so much. It’s an odd gambit to release both of these films in the same year, especially when the original, The Lego Movie, was famously snubbed in this category.

For a wonderfully in-depth look at animated contenders this year, click on over to the coverage from our own Mina Takla. Mina breaks down the contenders, their chances and the race itself with clarity and succinctness.

Here are the official 2018 Oscar Predictions in Animated Feature for November from the Gold Rush Gang. Keep an eye on all of the Gold Rush Gang’s 2018 Oscar predictions updated LIVE throughout the month.

Green – moves up from last month
Red – moves down from last month
Blue – debut/new entry

OTHER CONTENDERS
Animal Crackers
The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales
Birdboy: The Forgotten Children
Blazing Samurai
Captain Underpants
Cars 3
Despicable Me 3
The Emoji Movie
The Girl Without Hands
Lu Over the Wall
My Little Pony: The Movie
Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature
Rock Dog
Smurfs: The Lost Village
The Son of Bigfoot
The Star
A Stork’s Journey