He’s won Best Picture and Best Director, but now Guillermo del Toro can add the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film to his trophy case. “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” beat out a very competitive field to take the Oscar and became just the second stop-motion animated film to take the honor after “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” in 2005. It is also the first Animated Feature Film Academy Award for Netflix after five previous nominees.
Co-directed by Mark Gustafson (who has not gotten enough credit for its success), this incarnation of “Pinocchio” included an all-star cast of voice talent including Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Ron Perlman, John Turturro, and Christoph Waltz. It also featured an original score and original songs by two-time Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat. Incredibly, it also reportedly cost just $35 million, more than a third of the price of most studio CG animated films.
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” dominated the animated award season race. It won five Annie Awards including Best Feature, was named Best Animated Film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, won the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, the Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures at the PGA Awards, and the Golden Globe for Best Animated Film, among other honors.
Other nominees this year included Dean Fleischer Camp’s “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,” Chris Williams’ “The Sea Beast,” Joel Crawford’s “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and Domee Shi‘s “Turning Red.”
