2021 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED FEATURE (November)

A pretty immovable top 3 once again but new this month is the Studio Ghibli offering Earwig and the Witch form Gorô Miyazaki, son of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, himself an Oscar winner for Spirited Away, the second year of the category’s inception.

This year could find itself with all original films in the final lineup. While there are some sequels and existing IPs about, like the sequels to The Croods, Trolls and Shaun the Sheep that could break up the party, overall the contenders are fresher, newer material.

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

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

1. Soul (Pixar)
Pete Docter, Dana Murray

2. Wolfwalkers (Apple TV+/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. The Croods: A New Age (Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Animation)
Mark Swift, Joel Crawford

8. Trolls: World Tour (Universal Pictures)
Walt Dohm, Gina Shay

9. The Willoughbys (Netflix)
Kris Pearn, Brenda Gilbert, Luke Carroll

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

Other Contenders

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

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

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

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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