Precursor: 30th Annie Awards Nominations (2021)

With ASIFA Hollywood, you can often tell the dominant feature by how many nominations they receive. That puts three three Disney & Pixar efforts ahead of everyone else with The Mitchells vs. the Machines performing worse than expected and Flee doing better. Could this foreshadow the documentary Flee making the final Oscar list? It’s entirely possible, with the closest “major league” competitor being Vivo, signs point towards that possibility. Sing 2 is both helped and harmed here. It made it onto the list of best features of the year over Vivo, but then pulled in no other nominations, a rare and humiliating rebuke. Ditto for Vivo, but in reverse.

Nominations Tallies

(9) Encanto, Raya and the Last Dragon
(8) Luca
(7) The Mitchells vs. the Machines
(4) Belle, Flee, Vivo

The Nominations

Best Animated Feature

Encanto
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
Sing 2

Best Animated Feature – Independent

Belle
Flee
Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko
Pomp the Cinephile
The Summit of the Gods

Best Animated Short Subject

Bestia
Easter Eggs
MAALBEEK
Night Bus
Steakhouse

Best Animated Special Production

For Auld Lang Syne
Mum Is Pouring Rain
Namoo
La Vie de Chateau
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

Best Character Animation, Animated Feature

The Boss Baby: Family Reunion
Encanto
Luca
Raya and the Last Dragon
Wish Dragon

Best Character Animation, Live Action Feature

Flora & Ulysses
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
The Suicide Squad
The Tomorrow War
Y: The Last Man

Best Character Design

Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
Ron’s Gone Wrong
Vivo

Best Animated Effects

Belle
Encanto
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
Vivo

Best Storyboarding

The Addams Family 2
Encanto
Raya and the Last Dragon
Spirit Untamed
Vivo

Best Directing

Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Charise Castro Smith – Encanto
Enrico Casarosa – Luca
Mamoru Hosoda – Belle
Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Kenneth Ladekjaer – Flee
Mike Rianda, Jeff Rowe – The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Best Voice Acting

Stephanie Beatriz – Encanto
Jack Dylan Grazer – Luca
Abbi Jacobson – The Mitchells vs. the Machines
John Leguizamo – Encanto
Kelly Marie Tran – Raya and the Last Dragon