Pixar Leads Animation Noms at 93rd Academy Awards

After being delayed by two months due to the pandemic, the race for the Oscars has officially begun! The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences has revealed all the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards, honouring the best of cinema that occurred during the abnormal year of 2020.

While Netflix’s Mank is the biggest contender of this year with ten nominations, including Best Picture, we’ll be focusing on the animation and visual effects for the sake of this article, in which Pixar ended up as the big animated leader.

Both of Pixar’s 2020 animated films are among the nominations for Best Animated Feature, including Dan Scalon’s Onward and Pete Docter’s Soul. This marks the first time two Pixar films have been nominated for the category in one year. Also in the nominations include Netflix/Pearl’s Over the Moon, Aardman’s A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, and Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers.

Of those nominated animated features, Soul proved to be the standout for this ceremony, as it has also been nominated in two audio categories. One was Best Sound for Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott, and David Parker, while the musical score by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste gained a nomination for Best Original Score. Reznor and Ross also gained an additional nomination in the latter category for Mank.

Furthermore, one of Pixar’s SparkShorts has been nominated in the Best Animated Short for Madeline Sharafian’s 2D-animated Burrow. Netflix also joins the category with Will McCormack and Michael Govier’s If Anything Happens I Love You. The other three international animated shorts nominated include Genius Loci (France), Opera (South Korea), and Yes-People (Iceland).

Two of Disney’s live-action features, including The One and Only Ivan, and the Mulan remake, were chosen to be in the running for Best Visual Effects. The other three films nominated in the category are Paramount’s Love and Monsters, Netflix’s The Midnight Sky, and Warner Bros.’ Tenet.

Below lists the categories which include animated projects with nominees and recipients, including the Best Visual Effects category. The full list of nominations can be viewed here.

Best Animated Feature

• Onward (Dan Scanlon and Kori Rae)
• Over the Moon (Glen Keane, Gennie Rim, and Peilin Chou)
• A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (Richard Phelan, Will Becher, and Paul Kewley)
• Soul (Pete Docter and Dana Murray)
• Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, Paul Young, and Stéphan Roelants)

Best Animated Short Film

• Burrow (Madeline Sharafian and Michael Capbarat)
• Genius Loci (Adrien Mérigeau and Amaury Ovise)
• If Anything Happens I Love You (Will McCormack and Michael Govier)
• Opera (Erick Oh)
• Yes-People (Gísli Darri Halldórsson and Arnar Gunnarsson)

Best Original Score

• Da 5 Bloods (Terence Blanchard)
• Mank (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
• Minari (Emile Mosseri)
• News of the World (James Newton Howard)
• Soul (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste)

Best Sound

• Greyhound (Warren Shaw, Michael Minkler, Beau Borders, and David Wyman)
• Mank (Ren Klyce, Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance, and Drew Kunin)
• News of the World (Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller, and John Pritchett)
• Soul (Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott, and David Parker)
• Sound of Metal (Nicolas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michellee Couttolenc, Carlos Cortés, and Phillip Bladh)

Best Visual Effects

• Love and Monsters (Matt Sloan, Genevieve Camilleri, Matt Everitt, and Brian Cox)
• The Midnight Sky (Matthew Kasmir, Christopher Lawrence, Max Solomon, and David Watkins)
• Mulan [2020] (Sean Faden, Anders Langlands, Seth Maury, and Steve Ingram)
• The One and Only Ivan (Nick Davis, Greg Fisher, Ben Jones, and Santiago Colomo Martinez)
• Tenet (Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley, and Scott Fisher)

The 93rd Academy Awards will take place on April 25, 2021, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The event will broadcast on ABC at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

Let us know in comments on which nominees you’re predicting to win!

Edited by: Kelly Conley