Oscar Chart Updates: Animated & Documentary Feature
Thursday, December 17, 2020 at 2:45PM by Nathaniel R
The Oscar charts overhaul is upon us. Let's discuss each category. First up a two-fer, Animated Feature and Documentary Feature. In both instances we don't have full eligibility lists yet but we know some of the titles that have qualified or will qualify.
ANIMATED FEATURE
We currently know of 15 features that are eligible or that plan to be. Since the threshold is only 16 films to create a full five-wide nominee field, we've decided to change our previous three-only prediction. (We'd love those odds if we were animated producers. It's so crazy easy to get nominated, statistically speaking, unlike other categories where hundreds of competitors vie for 5 slots. As we've said multiple times if the same percentage rules applied to Best Picture each year we'd have like 80-90 Best Picture nominees each year. Teehee.)
The contest is shaping up to be a battle royale between Pixar's Christmas entry Soul and the wondrously individualistic Cartoon Saloon's Wolfwalkers...
That Irish studio has been nominated each time they've made one of their exquisite hand-drawn movies. They're definitely the David in the battle with a Goliath. History shows that it's very hard to convince Oscar voters that studios beyond the Mouse House exist -- in other words they're rarely rooting for David and handing him stones for his slingshot.
Otherwise though, the nomination contest is a free for all. It's tough to argue that any other animated films this year have a case for themselves on a wide enough scale to make them formidable. Generally Oscar voters will select at least one international feature for this category but it's tough to see which it will be as no international title has a large critical or populist profile yet. Japan's Demon Slayer is an absolute behemoth at the box office in its home country but that rarely matters to Oscar and they've ignored every example of anime of this particular kind (franchise-based) in the past. There's no US release date for Demonslayer but you can watch the television series its based on at Hulu if you're curious.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Last month we hard the list of 80+ films that were already screening for the documentary branch in this category though surely more have been added since. But that gives us a baseline to work from (along with precursor honors like Cinema Eye, IDA, Critics Choice, and DOC NYC Shortlisting to see how well the films are going over with multiple voting bodies. Blend them all together in a pot and you get "consensus" however annoying that word is and however much it sometimes shuts out terrific as yet undiscovered or underappreciated art.
Kristen Johnson's inventive personal Dick Johnson is Dead is doing well with precursors but, even though I absolutely love it (and our 'Doc Corner' guru Glenn, does too), I'm not currently predicting it. I wonder if the more traditionalist members of the doc branch might balk as its playful irreverence with form and its mordant humor.
CHECK OUT THE CHARTS - What do you think has the edge right now in both races?
Reader Comments (12)
Here is an IMDb list I made that predicts how many animated films will be in the race for Best Animated Feature for the 93rd Academy Awards that many help you in case.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls098792178/
Cartoon Saloon are my next-door neighbours... The Butler Gallery in Kilkenny (where Wolfwalkers takes place) is now showing an exhibition devoted to the film. They also have a 360 degree virtual tour on their website if anyone is interested.
https://www.butlergallery.ie/whats-on/wolfwalkers-the-exhibition
"Generally Oscar voters will select at least one international feature for this category but it's tough to see which it will be as no international title has a large critical or populist profile yet."
WOLFWALKERS is from Ireland. That's not "international"?
I feel like WOLFWALKERS is getting a lot of momentum. It could be a SPIRITED AWAY style win -- although, that film was against far weaker Disney fare than SOUL likely will be.
You have a 4/5 crossover with my own predictions for documentary. I would currently be including A THOUSAND CUTS in favour of either BOYS STATE or MLK/FBI. The former feels like it could be a big miss as there is usually one. I just feel like ATC is in the wheelhouse of, say, last year's THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY and I think I have to keep going with it because, like EDGE OF DEMOCRACY, nobody was predicting it and it wasn't winning critics awards, but I was adamant it was going to be their thing. It's my defense and I am sticking with it.
Here's a list of titles, that have also been submitted to the academy, but are missing from your November list:
Assassins
Beastie Boys story
Belly of the beast
Belushi
Billie
Black boys
Bloody nose, empty pockets
Coming clean
Desert One
Dissident
Donut King
Escape from extinction
Everybody flies
F11 and be there
Fireball
Giving voice
Gordon Lightfoot: if you could read my mind
Harry Chapin: when in doubt do something
I am Greta
Indian space dreams
Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll president
Kiss the ground
Life is deadly (Vivero che rischio)
Love child
Power of movement
Reason I jump
River tales
Searching for mr.Rugoff
Softie
Through the night
Totally under control
Us kids
Way I see it
WBCN and the American revolution
We don't deserve dogs
And here's a list of 46 short docs, submitted to the academy so far, that I know of:
Abortion helpline, This is Lisa
Akashinga-the brave ones
All cats are grey in the dark
Ashes to ashes
Asteroid hunters
Blackfeet boxing
Blue boy
Broken orchestra
Crescendo: on how not to remain quiet with Michael Fabiano
Dear Father…
Dope years: story of Latasha Harlins
Far from home
Flesh
Flower punk
How to fall in love in a pandemic
Hunger ward
Hyers sisters' dream ja legacy
Hysterical girl
I want to make a film about women
Into America's wild
John Was trying to contact aliens
Life & Larry Brown
Like no other
Linda and the Mockingbirds
Love song for Latasha
Making waves
Marie
Messania's story
Mommy's nightmare
No crying at the dinner table
One thousand stories: the making of a mural
Pluck
Puberty
Small world
Speed cubers
Take me to prom
Terror and hope
Then comes the evening
To calm the pig inside
Toilets: freedom at 70
Undocumented lawyer
Unfinished lives
Unforgivable
Valerie
Weight of all the beauty
Youth
I’m going to be pretty sad if Onward misses a nomination here - it got unfairly buried in all the hubbub of the onset of Covid but it’s actually a very heartfelt effort that’s a lot of fun to boot. I definitely prefer it to Over the Moon and possibly to Wolfwalkers as well.
Kris -- where are you getting those lists? that's interesting to see thanks.
Teppo 2 -- yes, i dont think it's top tier Pixar but i also liked it quite a lot. That said Pixar has been sooooo rewarded (50% of all the oscars in this category) that it's hard to be too upset if one of their movies loses steam here or there.
I got them from an academy member.who is the doc branch.
Sure, but I’m still big on judging by the individual merits of each film as they stand. I also don’t really begrudge any of their nominations, although there are a couple wins I’d take away (Brave, Toy Story 4) and a couple I’d give them the award for instead (Monsters Inc., Cars). And, Cartoon Saloon should’ve won for Song of the Sea.
Keep an eye out for Ashes to Ashes, Hunger Ward, and Then Comes the Evening in Best Documentary Short. I love the first two and suspect that Hunger Ward may be our winner since it's about kids suffering from the famine in Yemen and kids in peril is a perennial favorite topic for AMPAS. I found the third extremely boring but seem to be alone in this regard and it is definitely beautifully composed.
Marona's Fantastic Tale is not on your animated feature list.
Another bunch of submitted feature docs to the Academy... This must be a new record (sorry for not any misspellings in titles):
Ysuf Hawkins: Storm over Brooklyn
#Unfit-The psychology of Donald Trump
(in) visiblr portraits
17 Blocks
40 years a prisoner
76 days
9/11 kids
9 to 5 - the story of a movement
Americas forgotten
American sector
American selfie: One nation shoots itself
Antidote
Art of political murder
Babenco: Tell me when I die
Beautiful something left behind
Booksellers
Born to be
Bulletproof
Chuck Berry - the original king of rock 'n' roll
City dream
City hall
Coup 53
Creen - america's only Rock 'n' roll magazine
Crock of gold - a few rounds with Shane McGowan
Curve
Days of cannibalism
Dear Santa
Diana Kennedy - Nothing fancy
Dope is death
Down a dark Stairwell
Downstream to Kinshasa
Earth is blue as orange
Finding YingYing
First vote
Forbidden reel
Freak power- the ballot or the bomb
Freedia got a gun
Gunda
Human nature
I am not alone
I owe you a letter about Brazil
iHuman
Influence
Irradiated
Kings of Capitol Hill
La Madrina-The savage life of Lorine Padilla
Landfall
Last blockbuster
Last call for tomorrow
Lessons of love
Letter
Libelu - down with the dictatorship
Lift like a girl
Lost course
Lost in face
Made you look - a true story about fake art
Man in the arena
Martin Margiela in his own words
Mighty Ira
MLK/FBI
Monster inside me
Mother to earth - The untold story of earth bound
Mr.Soul!
Music got me here
My darling Supermarket
My people: The jews of Greece
My psychedelic love story
My Rembrandt
Napoli Eden
Narciso Em ferias
Nasrin
New corporation
Notturno
Once upon a time in Venezuela
Ottolenghi and the cakes of Versailles
Pandemic - away from the motherland
Phenomenon
Pray
Reunited
Self portrait
Sky blossom
Some kind of heaven
Soros
State of Texas vs. Melissa
Stray
Strip down, rise up
System K
This is not a movie
Thousand cuts
Transhood
Walrus and the whistle blower
White noise
Wim Wenders Desperado
With drawn arms
Women in blue
Yusuf Hawkins: Storm over Brooklyn
Zappa