The New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) has picked the stop-motion/live-action hybrid film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On as the year’s best animated feature.
Over the past 21 years, only two animated features picked by the NYFCC have missed out on an eventual Oscar nomination, Waking Life and The Lego Movie, giving a major boost to Marcel the Shell with Shoes On’s campaign. Other recent NYFCC winners include The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021), Wolfwalker (2020), and I Lost My Body (2019).
Earlier, there were questions about whether even Marcel would be allowed to compete – in other words, if the film had enough animation in it to qualify for the category – but the Academy announced last month that the film does meet its standards for an animated film. And just yesterday, the Academy officially confirmed that Marcel is indeed in the race for best animated feature.