The 2013 Animated Feature Oscar hopefuls
Tuesday, November 5, 2013 at 5:50PM 
Tim here, officially taking over the Film Experience animation beat to share with everybody some news: the final list of 19 features submitted for consideration for the Best Animated Feature Film Academy Award has been announced. There's no guarantee that all 19 will end up qualifying - The Smurfs 2 is on the list, and there seems little reason to assume that it won't follow its predecessor in being disqualified - but as long as 16 make the final cut, we can look forward to 5 nominees in the category. Meaning that every animated feature released in the United States will have a 1 in 3.8 of receiving an Oscar nomination, which are not the most appropriate odds of receiving a prestigious, internationally prominent award.
We'll spend more time in the weeks to come going over all of these titles individually, but I thought it would be a good time to do some immediate sorting. Rather than just dumping the list on y'all, I decided to break it down into groups based on where the film came from and what its prospects might be going forward.
Frozen looks lock'ish
American studio releases with a good chance for a nomination
The Croods (DreamWorks Animation)
Despicable Me 2 (Illumination Entertainment)
Frozen (Walt Disney Animation Studios) - based on the recent wave of warm reviews, it's looking like the biggest lock of them all
Monsters University (Pixar Animation Studios)
American studio releases with little or no chance for a nomination
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (Sony Pictures Animation)
Epic (Blue Sky Studios)
Free Birds (Reel FX Creative Studios, dist. by Relativity Media)
Planes (DisneyToon Studios)
The Smurfs 2 (Sony Pictures Animation)
Turbo (DreamWorks Animation)
High-profile foreign productions with strong distributor backing
Ernest & Celestine (GKIDS)
A Letter to Momo (GKIDS)
The Wind Rises (Studio Ghibli/Disney)
O Apostolo is a stop motion feature from Spain
Foreign productions about which I know nothing
The Fake (South Korean, unknown distributor)
Khumba (dist. by Millennium Entertainment)
The Legend of Sarila (dist. by Phase 4 Films)
O Apóstolo (Spanish, unknown distributor)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Movie - Rebellion (dist. by Aniplex of America)
Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury (Brazilian, unknown distributor)
Reader Comments (12)
'O Apóstolo' is amazing.
My guess for the nomination likeliness of these 19:
1. Frozen
2. The Croods
3. Despicable Me 2
4. Ernest & Celestine
5. The Wind Rises
6. Monsters University (if they're in the mood for Pixar knee jerk reaction syndrome)
7. The Wind Rises
8. Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Movie - Rebellion (If the voter block interested in anime goes for dark and horrifying as opposed to sweet and whimsical. Like NGE is to Gundam, this show kinda is to Sailor Moon. Considering I don't see Metegol on here, I'd bet this survives a bakeoff, if they have one.)
9. O Apostolo
10. The Legend of Sarila
11. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (This would be lower, but the original would offer it at least some cache.)
12. Khumba
13. The Fake
14. Epic
15. Free Birds
16. Turbo (Though if they're going hardcore mainstream it might make it past the bakeoff, I'd doubt it due to it not being a hit and not even having "sequel or tie in to kind of respected material points.")
17. Planes (How the bleep did it even get a theatrical release? We really needed a Cars spin-off that gave Dane Cook a bit of money? There's no way, if they do a bake-off, that this makes it past.)
18. Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury (Why below something like Planes? Well, that title is already screaming "pulpy William Gibson knockoff" and the lack of a known distributor is a further nail in the coffin. I would not be surprised if it gets cut in the bakeoff phase.)
19. The Smurfs 2 (This will probably be outright disqualified.)
There isn't a bakeoff in this category, barring any rule change I've missed. I only know of long lists in Foreign Language, Visual Fx, Doc, and the shorts.
2096 won the Annency award, so I'd guess it has a better chance than Free Birds and Planes at least.
Big question is where is Wolf Children? It played a week in LA. Did FUNi screw up paperwork or something?
@Volvagia: I think your top 6 is pretty clearly it, though I think Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University will be fighting for the last slot.
The rules did change this year, but not to introduce a bake-off. What's going to happen is that the nominees are open to everybody in the branch, not just those who've seen all the qualifying candidates. Which I think makes it way less likely that things like O Apóstolo or Rio 2096 end up even close to the final five.
@volvagia: you've listed the wind rises twice, both times lower than the croods and despicable me 2; surely it's fighting for the win with frozen and everything else is there to make up numbers?
bonobo -- good to hear.
tim -- i'm still upset about that ruling. I LOVE the idea (in all categories) of having to meet some sort of threshold of seeing actual contenders before you're allowed to vote.
par -- yeah, i think Miyazaki's name (and retirement) alone is enough to give it a fighting shot. That said I think it's a little harder to love then most of his output. So i wonder if it can win.
par3182: Oh, oops. That position should be A Letter to Momo. Sorry, they were so close together that I got kind of confused. As for The Croods being above The Wind Rises, I mostly say that in terms of likelihood for a nomination. (The Croods was a massive hit domestically, after all.) Once they're nominated, it probably will be Frozen and The Wind Rises fighting for the win.
Tim: If that's the new rule, bump Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 to position 7 (though no sequence in the original is as good as Up's first ten minutes, neither is there anything as boring, generic and shockingly thematically conflicted as Up's last twenty or so), keep Madoka (known artistically fulfilled property that they can look up and at least feel smart for voting for) at position 8 and move the other "artistic" films (A Letter to Momo, O Apostolo and The Legend of Sarila) to positions 9-11. As for Rio 2096: I stand by what I said. The title alone indicates it probably wouldn't have had a shot under the old rules, and it certainly doesn't under the new ones.
The Wind Rises is really polarizing in Japan so who knows how the Academy will receive it. The subject matter is so out of left field for Miyazaki and it hits on politically adjacent (the film focuses on the man rather than his work) material.
I would love a totally out of left field nomination for a darker anime like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, but I don't see that one being the one to breakthrough. Is the anime readily available in America yet? I don't mean on Hulu or Crunchy Roll, but actually with a US TV release? I think it would take a high profile anime, like an Attack on Titan, getting a critically acclaimed feature film for a manga/TV anime to feature film nominee to get nominated.
A Letter to Momo is more SPIRITED AWAY than the Miyazaki. Perhaps too much so.
I've seen "O Apostolo". Wonderfully weird sorta-kinda horror stop-motion animated feature with a grown-up bent. Might be too weird and dark for the Academy to get a nom though. I personally liked it.
The Croods has a Rise of the Guardians vibe-makes sense on paper, but just can't seal the deal. I expect the Globes to go for it though.
Otherwise, the predicted five seem about right: Pixar, Disney, Studio Ghibli, GKids, and a massive blockbuster sequel. That seems to be the formula here.
Also, mildly off-topic, but since it says November 6th update, any reason you're skipping John Williams for The Book Thief? That seems like the free space in bingo.