One of the most highly anticipated Oscars each year is the award for Best Animated Feature. Animated movies often go underappreciated, written off as content made for children. Their spotlight at the biggest awards ceremony in film gives them the chance to share prestige with live action movies and stand on equal ground with them.

Historically, Disney has dominated the category. With their recent critical and commercial struggles, however, it seems unlikely that they'll be taking home the award this year. This leaves two clear candidates most deserving of this year's Best Animated Feature award: Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, and Studio Ghbili's The Boy and The Heron.

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The History of Best Animated Feature Winners

The existence of the Best Animated Feature Oscar is contentious to begin with. Some believe that having a separate category for animation is demeaning. The argument is that it implies animated movies are not as legitimate as live action movies, and categorizing them separately only prevents them from being nominated for Best Picture. The counterargument is that animated films would likely go ignored by the Academy without their own category, and the existence of Best Animated Feature guarantees that animated movies will be acknowledged.

Before the creation of the Best Animated Feature category, animated movies were largely excluded from the Oscars all together. Only a single animated film was ever nominated for Best Picture before animation received its own category, that being Disney's Beauty and the Beast at the 1991 ceremony.

As more animation studios began to rival Disney in size and consistency, the volume of animated films on the market increased. As such, ignoring animated movies became more difficult. DreamWorks campaigned heavily for Shrek to receive a Best Picture nomination, but this never happened. Shrek instead became the first ever recipient of the Best Animated Feature award, winning against Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Monster's Inc.

After Shrek took the first ever Best Animated Feature award, Studio Ghibli would go on to win the next year with Spirited Away. Beginning with the 2003 Oscars, however, Finding Nemo would win Best Animated Feature and begin Disney's reign of Oscars dominance. As of 2023, there have been twenty-two Best Animated Feature awards given out. Counting victories given to both Pixar and Disney Animation, Disney has won fifteen of them.

In spite of Disney's historic dominance, they aren't really in the conversation to win this year. Disney has been in a rut lately, critically and financially. 2023's Wish was no exception, with the movie failing to live up to expectations. It was a commercial and critical failure, written off as a by-the-numbers movie with underwhelming music and poor animation. After making so little impact, it seems unlikely it has any chance of taking home Best Animated Feature.

Across the Spiderverse vs The Boy and The Heron: Who Will Win?

With Disney lacking a strong entry for 2023, the front runners for the award are Studio Ghibli's The Boy and The Heron and Sony Animation's Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse. Both films were box office successes, but more importantly, they are critically beloved and have been lauded as some of the best movies of the year.

Across the Spiderverse is a sequel to the groundbreaking Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, a movie that ushered in a new era of exciting and revolutionary animation styles across multiple studios. The Boy and The Heron is a strong and moving entry for Studio Ghibli's legacy. While it will not be Hayao Miyazaki's final movie, as was originally speculated, it is nonetheless an extraordinarily personal movie from the legendary director.

Both studios have a precedent of Best Animated Feature wins. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse won the award in 2018, breaking a six-year streak of Disney wins. Spirited Away won the award in 2002, and several of Studio Ghibli's other films have been nominated. These include The Wind Rises, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There, and The Red Turtle.

Across the Spiderverse holds the broader appeal. Upon release, it became the highest rated movie in Letterboxd's history. Much of this can be owed to the movie's accessibility. For all of its artistry and deeper themes, it is, at its core, a superhero movie that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. It is the more visually innovative film, pushing the stunning, stylized animation of the Into the Spiderverse even further.

The Boy and The Heron, in contrast, is not as welcoming a movie. The film's themes and meaning are complicated. Many viewers will not understand what's happening in the movie right away, possibly causing them to have trouble connecting. This nuanced nature,, in combination with its darker setting of wartime Japan, makes it less of an easy watch.

However, this complex nature is what makes The Boy and The Heron the more mature film. It is a layered, reflective work that leaves more for viewers to discover upon rewatches. Compared to Spiderverse, The Boy and The Heron is more appealing to an adult audience, with its focus on ideas such as war, death, loss, and lack of direction. While animated movies aimed at children have never had a hard time winning Best Animated Feature, The Boy and The Heron is the type of movie the Oscars tend to appreciate more broadly, and proves the medium isn't just for kids.

While still a phenomenal movie, Across the Spiderverse lacks the maturity and artistic focus of The Boy and The Heron. While its predecessor featured various different versions of Spider-Man, Across the Spiderverse really leans into the idea of its spider society. There are so many different Spider-People, including some live action characters, and they begin to feel less like important characters and more like a sea of comic book cameos. The film also feels undeniably incomplete, ending with a rather abrupt 'to be continued.'

The two films seem evenly matched. They are both gorgeous-looking animated movies, one more nuanced and less accessible, one more welcoming but perhaps less impressive overall. Recently, The Boy and The Heron strode ahead in the eyes of many by winning the 2023 Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. This could potentially be a factor moving forwards, especially since Into the Spiderverse won the Golden Globe as well as the Oscar in 2018.

At this moment, it looks like The Boy and The Heron might have a slight edge over Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse. That said, until the 2023 Oscars take place, there will be no way to know for sure which film will be announced as the year's Best Animated Feature.

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