Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
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Weird
It is looking very likely that Pixar’s Inside Out will win the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the Academy Awards on Sunday. Which would make it 8 wins for Pixar in the 15 years the category has existed. That’s a pretty good track record. In general, the Pixar winners have been the class of the category over the years, but would a Pixar film rank as the very best the category ever produced?
Let’s take a look…
Rango (2011)
We should probably stress that none of these Best Animated Feature winners are BAD, really. The category has had a better track record in that regard than Best Picture, for example. But does anybody really think about Rango anymore? Its competition that year was no great shakes (Puss in Boots? Kung Fu Panda 2?), so it was a worthy winner. Just not a terribly lasting one.
'Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit' (2005)
I have no desire to anger the Nick Park partisans here, but JUST MAYBE Wallace & Gromit are better suited to shorts than features? At feature length, what begins as cute becomes somewhat meandering and trying. This is a cute movie, but good enough to beat Henry Selick and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride or Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle as it did? Eh.
[Where to stream Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit]
'Happy Feet' (2006)
If George Miller doesn’t win Best Director for Mad Max: Fury Road this year, he can at least sit back and be happy that he directed the strangest Best Animated Feature winner of all time.
'Brave' (2012)
The story of Brave is more the story of failed promise, more than anything else. The heralded tale of Pixar’s first female protagonist gets mired in princess cliches before it devolves into a tale about silly bears that might have worked for a Disney short in the 1960s.
'Frozen' (2013)
Frozen gets a lot of crap for how inescapable it was once it became a veritable phenomenon. But for all its flaws (and it’s got ’em), Frozen is also a movie with a handful of impeccable songs and a story that feels genuinely transgressive and even hostile to fairy-tale orthodoxy. Which is nice.
'Shrek' (2001)
Shrek is another movie whose stock has plummeted in recent years after severely diminishing returns in its third and fourth sequels. This was a movie with an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score and probably came closer to a Best Picture nomination than any of us realize.
'Big Hero 6' (2014)
Last year’s winner is probably still to recent to properly evaluate, but it’s a movie that has its moments and was certainly a crowd-pleaser.
'Up' (2009)
The first animated movie since Beauty and the Beast to score a Best Picture nomination got Pete Docter his first Oscar (after losing to Shrek with Monsters, Inc.). Its opening scene continues to be justly celebrated, and while the rest of the movie can’t quite match it, it’s a high mark that keeps it floating above lesser competition.
'WALL-E' (2008)
This was the film whose exclusion from the Best Picture field in 2008 helped lead to the expansion of the Best Picture field the next year. Critics were beside themselves for this one, which is understandable since this was a movie that appeared to love the movies as much as they did. It’s tough for a movie this lauded not to feel at least a little overrated, and as time has gone by and Pixar starts to feel a little less bulletproof, maybe we can all admit that the second half of the movie is a little rough?
'Toy Story 3' (2010)
This is another one where the initial yelps of critical praise were so loud that there can’t help but be some backlash. Toy Story 3 is a very good movie, with a wonderful sense of its own existence as a franchise, and which utilizes that familiarity to tell a story with even more of an emotional impact. It’s just not the Citizen Kane of computer animation. Still very good!
'The Incredibles' (2004)
It’s interesting to think of how this movie would be received if it had been made during the superhero craze and not just before it really boomed. There is so much creativity at play in Brad Bird’s film, while still holding on to a family story that seems almost quaint in its simplicity.
'Ratatouille' (2007)
Brad Bird’s second win came for a film that was somehow even better than The Incredibles, a tale of a rat in a French kitchen who proved that anyone can cook, no matter how human or … not.
'Finding Nemo' (2003)
Still the best of the Pixar movies, a gorgeously animated, deftly funny, and openly heartfelt story of a fish with a gimpy fin and his neurotic but dedicated dad.
'Spirited Away' (2002)
Sorry, Pixar. Can’t have #1 when Hiyao Miyazaki and the Studio Ghibli folks managed to win for this most sweeping, magical, gorgeous, pick-your-superlative film.
