BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film

• 1. Introduction

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  The BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film has been handed out, in one form or another, since 1955 - making it one of the oldest animation honours in cinema. Long before the Academy Awards had a dedicated animated feature category, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts was already recognising the art form. The category began as a single prize covering both short films and features alike. Over the decades it split into two, vanished from the ceremony entirely, and then returned in a new form focused solely on feature-length work. What drove those changes? Who has dominated the winner's podium? And which films arrived as nominees but left empty-handed despite near-universal acclaim? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

• 2. A Category Born in the 1950s

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  When BAFTA inaugurated the animated film category at its 1955 ceremony, the field of nominees was genuinely international. Films from Canada, the United States, Hungary, and the United Kingdom competed side by side. Richard Williams, who would later become one of animation's most celebrated figures, appeared as both director and producer on The Little Island - a UK production that earned a nomination in the early years of the prize. Norman McLaren, the Canadian master of experimental filmmaking, received recognition for works including Blinkity Blank and, with Evelyn Lambart, Short and Suite.

  John Halas was among the most persistent presences in this era, with his UK studio racking up nominations across the 1950s and 1960s. Animal Farm, which Halas co-directed with Joy Batchelor and was produced jointly as a United Kingdom and United States project, featured in the competition. Walt Disney's studio was there too, with Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wilfred Jackson credited on Lady and the Tramp as nominees.

  One Hundred and One Dalmatians appeared in the 1960s nominations, giving Disney another entry in the competition. Ernest Pintoff, an American filmmaker, was nominated for The Interview, The Critic, and other works across multiple years, making him one of the decade's most recognisable names in the category. Czech filmmaker Jiri Trnka's The Hand and Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica's Dom also received nominations, reflecting how broadly BAFTA cast its net in seeking out animation from around the world.

• 3. The Gap and the Split

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  After running continuously from 1955, the original animated film category awarded its final prize at the 1982 ceremony. The 1970s saw the category become increasingly irregular, with years recorded simply as "Not awarded" - a sign that the field of eligible films was either too sparse or too difficult to judge in a single combined category.

  Michel Ocelot, whose Three Inventors received recognition in the 1980s, and Bob Godfrey, a British animator who received multiple nominations across decades starting with Henry 9 'til 5 in the early 1970s, were among the last recipients under the original format. Sheldon Cohen's The Sweater, representing Canada, was another late nominee from this period.

  The split into two tracks - one for short animation and one for features - eventually led to the longer prize being suspended. The short animation category filled the gap during those years. It was not until the 2007 ceremony that the Best Animated Film prize returned, now restricted to features only. Happy Feet, directed by George Miller alongside Warren Coleman and Judy Morris, took the first award in the re-inaugurated category, with Cars, Flushed Away, Ratatouille, Shrek the Third, and The Simpsons Movie among the nominees in that early post-revival period.

• 4. Pixar's Remarkable Record

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  No studio has come close to matching Pixar's performance at this award. Pixar has accumulated 8 wins from 19 nominations since the category's re-inauguration in 2007. The films carrying those wins span the studio's output from Cars, Ratatouille, and WALL-E through to Inside Out 2 and Elio.

  Pete Docter directed multiple winning films for the studio, with Up, Inside Out, and Soul all taking the prize. Andrew Stanton directed WALL-E and received nominations for other productions. Lee Unkrich directed Toy Story 3 and Coco, both of which won. The pattern shows that BAFTA voters have consistently responded to Pixar's output across more than fifteen years of competition.

  WALL-E faced competition from Persepolis, directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, and from Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir in the same era - both internationally acclaimed films from France and Iran, and Israel respectively. That Pixar won against such competition speaks to the consistency of its recognition, even as the field grew more diverse. Toy Story 4, directed by Josh Cooley, gave the franchise its third BAFTA win across the re-introduced category's history.

• 5. The Studios That Chase But Don't Win

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  DreamWorks Animation holds the most unusual distinction in the award's modern history: five nominations and zero wins. Flushed Away, Shrek the Third, How to Train Your Dragon, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and The Wild Robot were all nominated without any converting to a victory.

  Illumination, the studio behind the Despicable Me franchise, has three nominations - Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, and Minions - and no wins. Disney's animated output separate from its Pixar subsidiary has done considerably better, earning three wins from seven nominations across Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, Frozen 2, Encanto, and Zootopia 2.

  Aardman Animations, the British studio responsible for Wallace and Gromit, holds one win from six nominations. Their nominated films include Shaun the Sheep Movie, Arthur Christmas, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl alongside their earlier Flushed Away credit. Laika, the American stop-motion studio, has one win from four nominations, covering Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings. Netflix holds two wins from two nominations, with Klaus and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, both taking the prize.

• 6. International Voices at the Podium

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  While American studios have dominated the winner's list since 2007, the nomination pool has made consistent space for international filmmakers. Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir, from France-Iran and Israel respectively, were early signals of that openness. Loving Vincent, the Polish-British film directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, was nominated alongside My Life as a Courgette from Switzerland and France.

  Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Flee, a Danish-American documentary in animated form, received a nomination in the 2020s. Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis and produced by Matiss Kaza in Latvia, was nominated in the same period - marking the first Latvian film to appear in the category. Studio Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron, directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Toshio Suzuki, received one nomination from Japan.

  Cartoon Saloon, the Irish studio, won the prize for Wolfwalkers, directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart. That film was produced across the United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxembourg, and France - a collaboration that reflects how international co-production has become a defining feature of ambitious animation outside the major Hollywood studios. Little Amelie or the Character of Rain, a French-Belgian co-production directed by Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, appeared among the most recent nominees.

• 7. Spider-Man's Double Distinction

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  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman with Phil Lord as producer, won the BAFTA for Best Animated Film. Its follow-up, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, was nominated in the 2020s with Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Amy Pascal, Avi Arad, and Christina Steinberg among its producers.

  Kemp Powers is notable for appearing as a director on both films - the only individual in the re-introduced category's history to direct two separate nominated entries in the Spider-Verse series. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have accumulated credits as producers across multiple nominated films from different studios, including The Lego Movie, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and both Spider-Verse entries.

  The Mitchells vs. the Machines, produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with Kurt Albrecht, was nominated in the same ceremony year as Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On - a cluster of films that illustrates how diverse the field became in the early 2020s. Inside Out 2, directed by Kelsey Mann and produced by Mark Nielsen, was nominated alongside Flow, The Wild Robot, and Zootopia 2 in the most recent completed competition cycles, keeping Pixar at the front of the contest into the mid-2020s.