2025 Best Animated Feature Nominees Ranked
Tomorrow are the 2025 Oscars and I was lucky enough to watch all of the movies nominated for Best Animated Feature. How do I rank these movies? Let’s get started!
5. Memoir of A Snail:I knew nothing about this movie going into it. I didn’t realize this when I started, but it’s rated-R. There’s some interesting ideas in here. You can see where this could have been a very interesting movie. But this movie I didn’t like and I didn’t get what they were going for. It’s basically about this woman telling her life story. It’s narrated by the character. 95% of the words you hear is narration, but not the characters talking. This movie is so not on my wavelength, I didn’t get it at all. To me this felt like b-grade Tim Burton. It felt like a Tim Burton that we’d seen before. Of the misunderstood weirdo that feels disconnected with everybody else. We’ve seen Burton do that story, it feels so familiar at its core. The R-rating felt weird, I don’t think it needed to be rated-R. It feels like the only reason why it was rated-R was to subvert expectations and get a laugh out of you. But instead of doing that, it felt out of place and was just disgusting. There’s multiple masterbation and sperm jokes in the movie, one of them involves snails doing it. There’s broken bones and limbs being cut off all throughout the movie. I don’t get why this movie was rated-R. I feel like you could have removed all of the R-rated material from this movie and the story would be the exact same. It’s also a very bleak and dark movie, all throughout the movie it’s bleak and there’s no happy emotions or hopefulness in this movie. You’re watching a movie that’s depressing and it makes you feel depressed. Even though it’s only 90 minutes long, it dragged on for me. Obviously, some people love this movie. I saw it on so many people’s best of the year lists. I can respect what the director was going for, but this 100% not a movie for me. I don’t know the context in which I’d rewatch this movie.
4. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: There’s a pretty big gap between Memoir of a Snail and this movie. I’m not really a Wallace and Gromit fan. I saw Curse of the Rare-Rabbit over 10 years ago. I went into this movie with not a lot of expectations. Overall, I thought this movie was good enough. I didn’t dislike this movie like Memoir of a Snail, but it also wasn’t fantastic like some of the films higher up on this list. This movie was pretty charming and has a lot of the wit you’d expect from Wallace and Gromit. There’s a lot of cleverness to the jokes whether it’s characters names or words on signs. There’s more cleverness to the jokes of the movie then most American animated movies. It is a mystery investigation film, those types of films are ones that I tend to enjoy. There’s a fun mystery with the penguin and him escaping jail that provides a fun adventure for Wallace and Gromit to get up to all sorts of hijinks. It is a claymation animated movie, even though right there it is very unique and different. There’s not a lot of American produced claymation movies, this one being claymation makes it stand out. In terms of the plot of it all, it’s not the most complex plot. I didn’t expect that given that it was an animated movie for children. But the positives of the movie do come from the humor and the animation style, the plot kind of holds it back. I don’t know if I fully blame the movie for it since it is a kids movie. Also, since it is a British film there’s a lot of British humor. Therefore, some of the jokes went right over my head. Overall, I thought this was a fun and charming movie. I was never bored watching it.
3. Flow: This is another movie that I knew nothing about. I saw it before it got the Oscar nomination, but it did win The Golden Globe. What’s interesting about this movie is that it’s basically a silent film. It’s following a group of animals trying to get home after a flood happens, and you’re following these animals but there’s no talking. The only “talking sounds” that are made are the sounds that animals make. The environments around him also make sound. But there’s no talking in this movie whatsoever. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a silent film before and it wasn’t interesting watching one in the modern era. Especially since it’s animated it adds this extra level of creativity to the entire thing. While the animals don’t talk whatsoever, it manages to have humor. Where there’s certain character traits or quirks about the characters. Even the way they look at other characters or sounds they make and provide a chuckle from you. When people say that Hollywood is out of ideas and there’s no original movies anymore, I think that’s false. You watch something like Flow and it’s original that it’s very much unlike anything you’ve seen before. Even the animation has this painting vibe to it, it looks like somebody took a paintbrush and made an animated movie out of it. This is a movie that I greatly appreciate and I can't understand why it’s nominated. It’s certainly one of the better animated movies of 2024. It’s the type of movie that I can respect and appreciate, but I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again. I’m very positive about it in terms of the creativity of it, but not on an entertainment level.
2. Inside Out 2: The original Inside Out is one of Pixar’s best movies of the 2010s. The concept of this franchise I think lends itself very nice for a sequel. There’s ways in which you can do Inside Out 3, 4, 5, etc and tell Riley’s life through these movies. I went in excited to check this movie out and I think it’s Pixar’s best movie since Toy Story 4. It delivered a classic Pixar experience that I felt the 2020s Pixar movies had been liking. It was able to take these complex ideas about anxiety and the struggles of growing up but making it relatable. It’s a movie that kids can watch and understand and connect with Riley. But it’s also useful for parents and learning how they can connect with their kids. It does all of this by basically applying the Mean Girls template to this movie. Because it does that, it gives Riley a more prominent character arc in the movie. You care more about the journey that she’s on and you want her to do the right thing. I used it as a way to describe this movie and that’s so true. There’s not many movies out there that I would describe as being useful. This movie is and therefore it’s special. The emotions that I felt watching this movie are emotions that I felt back in the golden era of Pixar. Pixar’s overall quality hasn't been great over the last several years, that’s a big positive when I watch this movie. I saw the movie two times in theaters in about a span of a week and it worked for me both times. I was laughing when I was supposed to be laughing and feeling emotional when I was supposed to be. In any other year, this would be 2024’s best animated movie. But there’s one movie that tops it.
1. The Wild Robot: This was my favorite movie of last year and that shocked me. I went into this movie expecting it to be very good, all of the early buzz was fantastic. I did not expect myself to love this movie as much as I did. This is one of the best animated movies of all time. I don’t think I’ve loved an animated movie this much since The LEGO Movie, which is now 11 years old. I’m not somebody who cries in a movie, I’m not that kind of person. I had tears running down my face while watching this movie. I think it just watched it at the right point in time. It’s about learning to let go both as a child and as a parent. As somebody who’s currently in college, I’ve reached that point in time where I’ve left the nest and on my own. That’s the arc and journey of the lead characters. While the stories are very different, it reminded me a lot of Finding Nemo. It’s a movie that kids can watch and get one thing out of it. But parents can watch and get something totally different out of it. But no matter how old you are, there’s something in there for you to watch and enjoy. This movie’s score is pretty fantastic, I’m so happy that it got nominated at the Oscars. I know it’s probably not going to win, I would love it though. If this movie won two Oscars, I would be thrilled. The score feels big and epic, where so many of the emotions that you feel are from this powerful and memorable score that swells the emotions. It makes every scene better because of it. Once again, flawless and jaw dropping animation. I think this animation is better than the Spiderverse movies. This is clearly my pick to win the OScar for animated feature, it should have gotten a Best Picture nomination. When it’s my #1 of 2024, it’s easily my #1 for this ranking.
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