Oscar Predictions: Best Animated Feature

This year, Oscar nominations will be announced on Monday, March 15th. I’ll be offering detailed predictions in all categories.

Last year’s nominees: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, I Lost My Body, Klaus, Missing Link, Toy Story 4

My choices: Coming soon!

This year’s locks: Soul, Wolfwalkers

Possible: Over the Moon, Onward, The Croods: A New Age, Calamity Jane, The Willoughbys, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Earwig and the Witch

Unlikely: Ride Your Wave, many others

The rundown: Last year broke the two-year streak of the Golden Globe lineup matching the Oscar list entirely. The difference this time is that the two films that bumped the more high-profile Globe inclusions were expected to do so, and I can’t really think of anything that would this time. Soul and Wolfwalkers are locks, and there isn’t any good reason that Over the Moon and Onward would miss, though more popular sure things have been snubbed in the past. The least likely to translate is The Croods: A New Age, though it easily could too, especially since it joined the other four films as a PGA nominee. I haven’t seen most of the other eligible films, but I’m going to welcome the optimism generated by Nathaniel’s picks over at The Film Experience and hope that, if any of these films get snubbed, Calamity Jane, which I did see and which was a European Film Award nominee and lost to the not-submitted “Josep,” grabs a spot.

For your consideration: The live-action Netflix series seems to be getting more attention, but I really enjoyed Lupin III: The First and would love to see it land a slot.

Forecasted winner: I don’t see a way that Soul loses.