We continue our category-by-category analysis of this year’s Oscar races with the Best Animated Feature award. Below are a few interesting facts, our predictions and alternates, and a list of our favorite and least favorite winners in this category.

Trivia: Five Facts

• Animated Feature is the youngest category at the Oscars, having been created in 2001. The first winner was Shrek.
• This is the only Oscar category where the quantity of eligible submissions is the predominant determining factor of the number of films that can be nominated. If there are from 8 to 15 submissions, there will be a maximum of 3 nominations. If there are more than 16, there will be 5 nominations. Only twice in the category’s history have there been five-nominee fields (2002 and this year, 2009). They use a rated voting system to determine how many nominees there will be. They may also recommend only a single award be given or no award given based on the quality of submitted achievements.
• 9 Oscar statuettes have been given out for Best Animated Feature (one each year except 2005 when Nick Park and Steve Box shared the prize).
• Pixar has only lost this award twice in 6 outings (Monsters Inc. lost to Shrek in 2001 and Cars lost to Happy Feet in 2006).
• Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird are the only multi-Oscar winners in this category. Stanton received awards for Finding Nemo in 2003 and WALL-E in 2008. Bird won the award in 2004 for The Incredibles and 2007 for Ratatouille.

Predictions

• Coraline
• Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Secret of Kells
• Up (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)

KEY: (Winner Prediction) (Alternate Winner)

The Commentary

Wesley Lovell – How can you predict a race with so many top-tier candidates? Fairly easily when one of them is a Best Picture nominee. That might encourage others to vote Fantastic Mr. Fox as best, but in the end, this is Pixar’s category to win simply because so many older voters will be emotionally invested in the story of an elderly man whose lost his wife living on in her memory. Especially when the main competition are highly youth-centric films that don’t really speak to those voters.
Peter J. Patrick – The obvious front-runner will win. Fantastic Mr. Fox could pull an upset, but it isn’t likely.
Tripp Burton – The Pixar run should continue this year, especially with Up garnering the second-ever animated Best Picture nomination. It is a heart-breaking box office bonanza that is hard to resist. If it does get resisted, it would go to critic’s favorite The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Wes Andersen’s film doesn’t play as well to the masses, though, and this category belongs to Pixar.

Our Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. Spirited Away (Spirited Away is a mesmerizing film about friendship, adventure and love from Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki and for it to have won against more populist, mainstream films is a testament to the quality of the film and the legendary filmmaker.)
2. WALL-E (WALL-E is one of Pixar’s best and of all the ones that have won this award, it’s hard to pick one I favor more and while I could have just as easily handed my second spot to Ratatouille or Finding Nemo, WALL-E is the kind of film that celebrates and reinvents movies.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. Spirited Away (Having finally actually sat down and watched Spirited Away a few weeks ago, I found it to be a work of genius that I should have taken the time to see years ago.)
2. WALL-E (WALL-E was instantly watchable and instantly memorable. )

Tripp Burton

1. Spirited Away (Quite possibly the greatest animated film of all time, Hayao Miyazaki’s elegaic masterpiece was something of a surprise win, but a most welcome surprise at that.)
2. WALL-E (It was my hands down favorite film of last year, and unfortunately only walked away with this one award.)

Wes Huizar

1. WALL-E
2. Spirited Away

Our Least Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. Happy Feet (And while I enjoy Shrek for what it is, it cannot hold a candle to all but one winner of this category: Happy Feet. Easily the worst selection this category has seen, Happy Feet is the Spider-Man of the animation world. It’s an enjoyable film that says nothing important that isn’t cloyingly obvious. While it beat out one of Pixar’s least valiant efforts, Cars was still the better film.)
2. Shrek (When you hoist the first Shrek film up against Pixar’s vast repertoire, it pales in comparison and with so few non-Pixar films taking this trophy, I’m hard pressed to pick a film for this second position.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. Shrek (I watched these with my nephews some years back. I found them mildly entertaining, but that’s about it.)
2. Happy Feet (see above)

Tripp Burton

1. Shrek (This was an enjoyable enough film, but it was hard to watch Pixar/Disney lose the first ever award in the category (especially when they had the much deeper, much funnier and much more clever Monsters, Inc. in competition))
2. Finding Nemo (My least favorite of the “major” Pixar films pales in comparison to the wonderful French film The Triplets of Belleville, which was a whirlwind of an animated experience.)

Wes Huizar

1. Shrek
2. Happy Feet