2021 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED FEATURE (December)

Not much change this month with so much up in the air in terms of in a category that is dependent on the number of official eligible submissions.

While a nearly three-year old stop motion film named The Wolf House picked up an animated feature win from Boston, the first group to announce this season, because the film was previously released on MUBI, it is ineligible this year.

Pixar’s Soul and Apple’s Wolfwalkers will likely be locked in battle all the way to the end but after Toy Story 4‘s win last season I’m not going to count out the animation studio’s dominance with voters.

Two new entries this month with Funimation’s Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugan Train and Bombay Rose, one of Netflix’s many possibilities.

Here are my ranked 2021 Oscar predictions in Animated Feature for December.

Green – moves up; Red – moves down; Blue – new entry this month

1. Soul (Pixar)
Pete Docter, Dana Murray

2. Wolfwalkers (Apple TV+/Cartoon Saloon/GKIDS)
Stéphan Roelants, Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, Paul Young, Nora Twomey

3. Over the Moon (Netflix)
Glen Keane, Peilin Chou, Gennie Rim

4. Earwig and the Witch (Studio Ghibli)
Gorô Miyazaki

5. Onward (Pixar)
Dan Scanlon, Kori Rae

6. A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (Netflix)
Richard Phelan, Will Becher

7. Trolls: World Tour (Universal Pictures)
Walt Dohm and Gina Shay

8. The Croods: A New Age (Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Animation)
Mark Swift, Joel Crawford

9. The Croods: A New Age (Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Animation)
Mark Swift, Joel Crawford

10. Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train (Funimation)
Haruo Sotozaki

Other Contenders (alphabetical by film)

Bombay Rose (Netflix)
Gitanjali Rao

Brightheart (TriCoast Worldwide)
Weifeng Deng, Astrid Wang, Yunfei Wang, Brett Zharig

Lupin III: The First (GKIDS)
Takashi Yamazaki, Takeshi Ito, Naoaki Kitajima, Koji Nozaki

On-Gaku: Our Sound (GKIDS)
Kenji Iwaisawa

Ride Your Wave (GKIDS)
Masaaki Yuasa

Rumble (Paramount Pictures)
Hamish Grieve, Mark Bakshi, Brad Booker

Scoob! (Warner Bros)
Tony Cervone, Pam Coats, Allison Abbate

A Whisker Away (Netflix)
Satô Jun’ichi, Shibayama Tomotaka

Wish Dragon (Sony Pictures)
Chris Appelhans, Chris Bremble, Aron Warner, Jackie Chan, Qi Jianhong

Image of Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugan Train courtesy of Aniplex