Annie Awards and the Oscars

We now have the Annie Awards nominations, but what does these mean for the Oscars? Let’s look at two things – who will be nominated and who will win.

Let’s start by saying that we will off course only be looking at results from 2002 and onwards, as the Oscars did not have a feature animation category before 2002. In some cases we will not be looking at 2002, because the Annie nominees this year did not all qualify for the 2002 Oscars. Some qualified for Oscars in 2001.

Who will get nominated?

The Annie Awards has two Best Picture categories – Best Feature and Best Indie Feature. These two categories have existed since 2016. Four out of those six years, all five Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature has also been nominated in one of the Annie Best Picture categories.

Every year since 2016 at least one of the Best Indie Feature nominees went on to be nominated for an Oscar. But there has never been more than two Best Indie Feature nominees nominated by the Oscars.

Before 2016 Annie Awards only had one Best Picture category, and in 11 out of those 14 years all Oscar nominees were also Annie Best Picture nominees.

So I think we can safely say, that the Annie Awards is a pretty good predictor for the Oscar nominations.

The following films are nominated this year:

Best Feature:

Encanto
Luca
Raya and the Last Dragon
Sing 2
The Mitchells vs. The Machines

Best Indie Feature:

Belle
Flee
Fortune Favors Lady Nikuku
Pompo the Cinephile
The Summit of the Gods

So now we kind of have a shortlist. One thing that could help single out possible nominees is looking at who got the most Annie nominations. Every single year since 2002, the film with the most Annie nominations went on to become Oscar nominated. There have been four instances of two or more films sharing the honor as most nominated Annie movie. In three of those cases, one of the films did not get an Oscar nomination.

This year Raya and the Last Dragon have the most nominations with 10, so that film should be a safe bet with the Oscars.

Since 2003 an average of three Best Director Annie nominated movies have gone on the get a Best Animated Feature nomination at the Oscars.

This year the Annie Best Director nominees are:

Belle
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. The Machine

So if you are doing your predictions these five plus Raya and the Last Dragon would be a good shortlist to go by, as a starting point.

Sponsored content:

Who will win?

Of course we will be able to say more about this, once we get the Annie winners. But right now we can look at a few things.

First of all no Oscar winner has ever come from the Best Indie Feature category. So that narrows it down to the Best Feature nominees. Five out of the past six years the Annie Best Feature winner has gone on to win the Oscar as well.

But, what about the most nominated Annie movie? Isn’t that a favorite? The answer is: not exactly. The most Annie nominated movie has only won the Oscar 55% of the times. But the Oscar winner has never been a film without a single Annie nomination. Happy Feet won in 2007 with only two Annie nominations, which is the record to date. 

So again we are back to the Best Feature nominees. But we will be a lot wiser on February 26, when Annie announces their winners.

Click here to see more Annie Awards stats

Click here to see Oscar animation stats

Click here to see this years full list of Annie Nominations

Sponsored content: