2021 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED FEATURE (January)

It was off my radar for far too long but No. 7 Cherry Lane from director Yonfan (Prince of Tears, Color Blossoms) makes a big debut this month, in the top 5. The film won the screenplay prize at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival.

No.7 Cherry Lane is a 125-minute, hand-drawn 2D animation feature set in Hong Kong’s “Little Shanghai” neighborhood of North Point during the turbulent anti-colonial riots of the 1960s. Using pencil on rice paper and colored to the most imaginative tones, scores of animators had to render all the caricatures in 3D before hand-drawing them in 2D.

Lupin III: The First, which was a surprise winner from the Hawaii Film Critics Society, moves up into the top 10.

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

1. Soul (Disney/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. Onward (Pixar)
Dan Scanlon, Kori Rae

5. No. 7 Cherry Lane (Far Sun Films)
Yonfan, Monica Chau

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

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

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

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Other Contenders (alphabetical by film)

Bombay Rose (Netflix)
Gitanjali Rao

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

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

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

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

Image courtesy of the Venice International Film Festival