The Year in Film: 2016

Best traffic jam ever.

My Top 20:

1. La La Land
2. Arrival
3. The Handmaiden
4. Manchester by the Sea
5. Moonlight
6. Silence
7. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
8. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
9. Zootopia
10. Moana
11. Finding Dory
12. The Salesman
13. Nocturnal Animals
14. Fences
15. Hell or High Water
16. Julieta
17. Kubo and the Two Strings
18. A Monster Calls
19. 20th Century Women
20. Sing Street

note:  All 20 films are ****.  There were several high ***.5 films that I wish could have made the list – Captain America: Civil War, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Hail Caesar! and Passengers were among my considered choices.  There are only a handful of films that earned any award nominations that I haven’t seen yet (I Daniel Blake, Certain Woman, Allied, Your Name, King’s Choice) so I don’t think this list will be changing (depending on Your Name, perhaps), unlike the last several years, when this list was written more closely after the Oscars.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Animated Film – 2004

The gang’s all here. And hey, look, Frozone found his super suit!

The 77th annual Academy Awards, for the film year 2004.  The nominations were announced on 25 January 2005 and the awards were held on 27 February 2005.

Best Animated Film:  The Incredibles

• Shrek 2
• Shark Tale

Most Surprising Omission: The Polar Express

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Rank (out of 16) Among Best Animated Film Years:  #8

Oscar Score:  76.9

Alternate Oscar Score:  91.8

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1959

Karin: Hush, hush! The actor is tuning up his lute. The Grave Gentleman bids us dance. He wants us to take each other’s hands and form a chain. He himself will lead us, and the actor will bring up the rear. Away from the dawn we shall go with measured tread, away to the dark lands while the rain caresses our faces. (tr. Randolph Goodman and Leif Sjoberg)

My Top 10:

1. The Seventh Seal
2. Some Like It Hot
3. The Diary of Anne Frank
4. Anatomy of a Murder
5. Ordet
6. Compulsion
7. Pather Panchali
8. Sleeping Beauty
9. Tiger Bay
10. Aparajito

Note:  There are 16 films on my list.  Two of them are listed below, as they were Consensus nominees (Ben Hur – #11, Room at the Top – #14).  The other four are all the way down at the bottom.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Animated Film – 2003

Sweeeet.

The 76th annual Academy Awards, for the film year 2003.  The nominations were announced on 27 January 2004 and the awards were held on February 29, 2004.

Best Animated Film:  Finding Nemo

• The Triplets of Belleville
• Brother Bear

Most Surprising Omission: Tokyo Godfathers

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  Tokyo Godfathers

Rank (out of 16) Among Best Animated Film Years:  #3

Oscar Score:  91.9

Alternate Oscar Score:  73.3

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Animated Film – 2002

Miyazaki’s amazing vision still stands as the best winner in the history of this category.

The 75th annual Academy Awards, for the film year 2002.  The nominations were announced on February 11, 2003 and the awards were held on March 23, 2003.

Best Animated Film:  Spirited Away

• Lilo and Stitch
• Ice Age
• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
• Treasure Planet

Most Surprising Omission: n/a

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  n/a

Rank (out of 16) Among Best Picture Years:  #14

Oscar Score:  100

Alternate Oscar Score:  96.4

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Animated Film – 2001

And in the morning, I’m making waffles!

The 74th annual Academy Awards for the film year 2001.  The nominations were announced on February 12, 2002 and the awards were held on March 24, 2002.

Best Animated Film:  Shrek

• Monsters Inc.
• Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

Most Surprising Omission: Waking Life

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  n/a

Rank (out of 15) Among Best Best Animated Film Years:  #11

Oscar Score:  100

Alternate Oscar Score:  100

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Animated Film – Introduction

Back in 2009, I wrote a series of posts about each of the categories that have awards at the Oscars.  I organized it by category because almost all things written about the Oscars group them by years and never discussed the categories as a whole.  In 2010, I went back to that series and added the 2009 nominees to the original posts (you can find that original post here, but this post supersedes everything in it).  Once I concluded that series (it ran every day from the day of the nominations to the day of the Oscars) I would go on to write a series about all the films ever nominated for Best Picture, writing a review of every nominee because it didn’t seem like anyone had ever done that.  When that ended (in early 2013), I went on to other things, including beginning my Nighthawk Awards, my list of my own personal awards from each year.  I have been doing that series for four years now and am rapidly approaching the end (if I did as many years in 2017 as I did in 2016, I would finish it this year).  So, partially in an effort to put off the end of that series, I am starting this series.  This is essentially the same as the Best Picture series, except with the category of Best Animated Film.  So now, just before I post each Nighthawk Awards, starting with 2001, I will do a separate piece on the nominees for Best Animated Film.  This post is going up after the 2000 post because that was when the Academy finally decided to create this category, probably inspired, in part by the run of great animated films from previous years like Toy Story 2, Princess Mononoke, South Park, The Iron Giant and Chicken Run.  Also, with the rise of Pixar, the greater American visibility of Ghibli and new films from Aardman and DreamWorks, there were a lot more animated films out there and they wouldn’t just be giving the award to Disney every year (well, they would be mostly giving the award to Pixar, who was first distributed, then later, owned by Disney, so they actually were pretty much giving it to Disney almost every year), so it was time for the award.