No Surprises Among This Year’s Animated Feature Nominees As Predictable Front-Runners Dominate

This year’s awards race came sharply into focus today, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled the nominees for March’s 98th annual Academy Awards.

The leading candidate in this year’s animated feature race remains Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation’s KPop Demon Hunters. The film scored nominations today for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for “Golden.” At the Golden Globe Awards earlier this month, the film won both prizes and stands as a strong favorite to repeat that feat at the Oscars.

Regrettably, KPop Demon Hunters’ Best Song nomination was the only recognition for any animated film outside of the feature and shorts categories. The Academy has shown, once again, that it does not rank animated filmmaking on par with live-action, after last year felt like it may be moving in the right direction.

The biggest roadblock standing in KPDH‘s way is surely Zootopia 2, the highest-grossing MPA animated feature of all time, which is still tearing it up at the box office. With stellar reviews, a tremendous global fanbase, and Disney’s best-in-class production pipeline giving it the polished sheen of Hollywood perfection, it is not a film to be overlooked in this year’s race and is a more than deserving nominee.

Last year, Flow made history by defying industry expectations and toppling major studio contenders. This year’s international indie hopefuls aiming to repeat that upset are Ugo Bienvenue’s Arco and Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han’s Little Amélie or the Character of Rain. Both French titles enjoyed stellar festival and awards runs. Arco debuted to rapturous acclaim at Cannes Film Festival before winning last year’s Cristal for Animated Feature at Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Little Amélie claimed Annecy’s Audience Award. Both films were Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominees and earned multiple Annie Award nominations. Whether either has the buzz or momentum to pull off a surprise Oscar win remains to be seen, but they face far stronger U.S. studio competition than Flow did last year.

Eighty percent of this year’s Animated Feature lineup felt eminently predictable (so much so that we’d already written everything above this before today’s announcement), with KPop Demon Hunters, Zootopia 2, Arco, and Little Amélie appearing as nominees at nearly every major awards stop of the season. The Academy’s fifth slot, however, felt genuinely open. Still, given the organization’s long-standing tendency to ignore anything but the highest-profile films outside the U.S. studio system, Elio’s inclusion was perhaps inevitable.

The Academy has proven time and again that it views animation primarily as a medium for children. Challenging arthouse films are routinely passed over in favor of bright, bouncy offerings from major Hollywood studios. This is not to say that Elio is a bad film, but any argument that it ranks among the five best films of 2025 would struggle to withstand serious scrutiny. It underperformed at the box office, failed to generate meaningful cultural impact, and offered little in the way of innovation.

Among the most difficult categories to predict in any given year is Animated Short, and this cycle was no exception. That said, it was one of the strongest shortlists in years. Changes to qualification and voting procedures appear to have had a positive impact on the final lineup, and nearly any combination of five titles from the 15-film shortlist would have felt deserving.

Butterfly is the latest short from indie legend Florence Miailhe and marks her first Oscar nomination. Forevergreen is the debut directorial effort from longtime Disney veterans Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears. Previous nominees with Madame Tutli-Putli, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s The Girl Who Cried Pearls once again underscores their and the National Film Board of Canada’s outsized influence on international animation. Retirement Plan is a standout debut from Irish director John Kelly. Two-time Oscar nominee Konstantin Bronzit earns his third nod with Three Sisters, rounding out the field.

The 98th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 15, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and televised live on ABC in the U.S., streamed live on Hulu, and aired live in more than 200 territories worldwide.

2026 Animation and VFX Oscar Nominees

Animated Feature

• Arco, Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry, Sophie Mas, and Natalie Portman
• Elio, Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina, and Mary Alice Drumm
• KPop Demon Hunters, Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, and Michelle L.M. Wong
• Little Amelie, Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, Nidia Santiago, and Henri Magalon
• Zootopia 2, Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Yvett Merino

Animated Short

• Butterfly, Florence Miailhe and Ron Dyens
• Forevergreen, Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears
• The Girl Who Cried Pearls, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
• Retirement Plan, John Kelly and Andrew Freedman
• The Three Sisters, Konstantin Bronzit

Visual Effects

• Avatar: Fire and Ash, Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett
• F1, Ryan Tudhope, Nicolas Chevallier, Robert Harrington, and Keith Dawson
• Jurassic World Rebirth, David Vickery, Stephen Aplin, Charmaine Chan, and Neil Corbould
• The Lost Bus, Charlie Noble, David Zaretti, Russell Bowen, and Brandon K. McLaughlin
• Sinners, Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter, and Donnie Dean

Song

• “Dear Me,” from Diane Warren: Relentless; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
• “Golden,” from KPop Demon Hunters; Music and Lyric by EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seon and Teddy Park
• “I Lie to You,” from Sinners; Music and Lyric by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Goransson
• “Sweet Dreams of Joy,” from Viva Verdi!; Music and Lyric by Nicholas Pike
• “Train Dreams,” from Train Dreams; Music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner; Lyric by Nick Cave