Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film

• 1. Introduction

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  The Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film went to Cars at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007. It was the first time the ceremony had carved out a category just for animated films since the Golden Globes began. Nominations for the award are announced every January, with the ceremony following later the same month. A set of eligibility rules would soon decide which films could compete for this new prize, and which films had to be kept out of the night's other big categories entirely.

• 2. One Category Only

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  English-language films competing in this category may only be nominated in one Golden Globe feature category. That single rule bars them from Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, and from Best Motion Picture, Drama. Foreign-language films are treated differently. A movie nominated for Best Foreign Language Film can also be nominated for Best Animated Feature. Those two Best Motion Picture prizes are the only Golden Globe awards it is barred from. This overlap has caused real confusion among viewers. Many assumed animated films were being snubbed by the Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy race. Animated films have won or been nominated in that category before. In reality, since 2006, they have simply not been eligible for it. Until 2023, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association enforced that rule. Dick Clark Productions then took over as organizer and amended it, after controversy over votes being split and films being snubbed between categories. Animated films can now be nominated for Comedy or Drama and for Best Animated Feature in the same year. That dual eligibility was already granted to Best Foreign Language Film. The newly created Cinematic and Box Office Achievement award carries the same allowance.

• 3. Doubling The Field

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  On the 17th of November 2009, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced it would expand the field for Best Animated Feature Film. Starting at the 67th Golden Globe Awards, five films would be nominated instead of three. The new rules also set eligibility requirements. A qualifying film had to run at least 70 minutes and contain no more than 25% live action footage. Two safeguards protected the category's size. If fewer than eight animated films qualified in a given year, no award would be given at all. Those films would instead become eligible for Best Picture. If fewer than twelve animated films qualified, the nominations would shrink back down to three.

• 4. The Studio Breakdown

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  Pixar Animation Studios accounts for 9 wins from 19 nominations, more than any other studio in the award's history. Walt Disney Animation Studios trails with 3 wins from 15 nominations, giving the two Disney-owned studios a combined dominance of the category. Sony Pictures Animation has won twice from 7 nominations, first with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and later with KPop Demon Hunters, made alongside Netflix. DreamWorks Animation tells a different story. Despite 13 nominations, more than every studio besides Pixar and Disney, it has won only once, for How to Train Your Dragon 2. Laika, the stop-motion studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, has 1 win and 4 nominations, taking its sole trophy for Missing Link. Netflix has 1 win from 3 nominations, including Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, made with the stop-motion studios ShadowMachine and the Jim Henson Company. Studio Ghibli reached the ballot only once, for The Boy and the Heron, and turned that single nomination straight into a win. No other studio in the breakdown can claim that feat.

• 5. Nominated, Never Winning

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  Illumination Entertainment has reached 4 nominations without ever winning, a tally that includes Despicable Me, its sequel Despicable Me 2, and Sing. Aardman Animations comes in with 3 nominations and the same result, zero wins. Several other studios sit at 2 nominations apiece without a trophy. That group includes Blue Sky Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures, Cartoon Saloon, the Indian Paintbrush and American Empirical Pictures pairing, and Melusine Productions. Cartoon Saloon's nominations include Wolfwalkers, made alongside Melusine Productions, which explains why both studios share the same 2-nomination, 0-win record. Nickelodeon Movies has fared better with far fewer chances. From only 2 nominations, the studio has 1 win, earned through The Adventures of Tintin. Sacrebleu Productions tells a similar story of a small studio landing big. Its lone win came with Flow, after an earlier nomination for My Sunny Maad.