‘The Wild Robot’ is the favorite for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. But ‘Flow’ is also in the running

'The Wild Robot'

First of all, I’d like to highlight what a great year 2024 was for animated features, both in terms of box office and quality. We were gifted with big productions like Pixar’s ‘Inside Out 2’, and graceful indie movies like ‘Flow’ and ‘Memoirs of a Snail’—not to mention ‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’, featuring the beloved duo we’ve cherished for years.

Besides ‘Flow’, there were notable achievements in other non-English-speaking countries. The anime-style ‘The Glassworker’ is Pakistan’s first-ever hand-drawn animated feature film. ‘Noah’s Ark’ was a milestone for Brazilian animation, is regarded as the country’s biggest animated feature of all time. As usual, some films were unfairly snubbed. Masterpieces like ‘Transformers One’ and ‘Look Back’ deserved far more recognition, no matter who or what is to blame. Anyway, animation industry gave us plenty of reasons to celebrate.

One of the best films of 2024 was, of course, DreamWorks’ ‘The Wild Robot’, directed by Chris Sanders. Based on the book of the same name by Peter Brown, ‘The Wild Robot’ movie is a massive phenomenon, thanks in great part its thrilling story, stunning visuals and beatiful soundtrack. It entered the top 100 digital animation movies of all time at the US box office. And you know what? Goody! It’s awesome to see an original story become such a big hit among a bunch of remakes. Yeah, we do love remakes, but sometimes we want to watch something original on the big screen, don’t we?

So, it was certain that the honors would come in droves. During the awards season, ‘The Wild Robot’ received countless nominations, and took home numerous wins. At the 52nd Annie Awards, Chris Sanders’ movie dominated, sweeping a superb nine awards, including Best Voice Acting (Lupita Nyong’o, as ‘Roz’), Best Direction, and Best Animated Feature. The movie has three Oscar nominations: Best Animated Feature, Best Original Score (Kris Bowers) and Best Sound.

The 97th Academy Awards are coming and after the Annie Awards, one of the most important honors in the animation industry, people are wondering if ‘The Wild Robot’ is the favorite for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. I would say, “Yes, it is, but not so fast! ‘Flow’ has a great chance, as well.”

'Flow'

It’s encouraging that an indie animated film like ‘Flow’, rendered on the free and open-source software Blender, produced on a low budget of just $3.7 million dollars, could get so far. In 2024, the Latvian film won awards at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, including the Jury Award for Best Feature Film. To mention just a few of its wins, let’s remember that the movie directed by Gints Zilbalodis beat “The Wild Robot” at the 2025 Golden Globes, taking home Best Animated Feature. At the Annie Awards, ‘Flow’ was honored with Best Feature – Independent, and Best Writing – Feature, despite not having any dialogues. What’s more, ‘Flow’ was nominated for Best International Movie, which is a fantastic milestone for an animated film. Anyway, let’s see the BAFTA winners next Sunday, because it’s a strong Oscar precursor.

Despite ALL the Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature deserving the highest honors, it’s impossible not to admit that ‘The Wild Robot’, in first place, and ‘Flow’, close behind, are the biggest favorites. I bet ‘Roz’ will grab that Academy Award trophy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cute black kitty did it instead. Either win would make me happy — after all, we animation fans are the real winners.