Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse , Incredibles 2 , Isle of Dogs, Mirai , Ralph breaks the Internet

The Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars might as well be called the “Pixar Award.” The trophy has been handed out just 18 times, since the 2002 Oscars ceremony (which honored the films of 2001), when Shrek — yes, Shrek — won. At nine of those 18 ceremonies, Pixar took home the prize, including winning four years in a row, from 2008 to 2011 (for Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3). Pixar is also the most recent winner in this category, with Coco as the reigning champion.

But there’s a challenger on the horizon. Going into the 2019 Oscars, Sony Pictures Animation’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has won every major precursor award, including a clean sweep of the animation industry’s Annie Awards.

Boasting critical plaudits and a long, successful run at the box office, Spider-Verse swooped into the race in December and stole the thunder of Pixar’s Incredibles 2, which also boasted great reviews and an even better box office take, but came out in June and feels a little like old news. 

In short: Watch Incredibles 2 if you love superhero deconstructions, family comedy, or Pixar at its best.

Wes Anderson’s occasionally delightful, occasionally cumbersome, always eyebrow furrow-inducing Isle of Dogs stands as the aesthetically precise director’s second stop-motion animation film (after 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, which lost at the Oscars to Pixar’s Up). It’s also his tribute to Japanese cinema, it’s set in Japan, and it makes the very odd choice to have the titular dogs (who have been banned from futuristic Japanese society) speak English while the human characters largely speak untranslated, unsubtitled Japanese.

If you are, for some reason, watching the Animated Feature nominees in alphabetical order, then Mirai will serve as a fascinating counterpoint to both Incredibles 2 and Isle of Dogs. Most obviously, this film can be compared to Isle of Dogs. While Mirai is also set in Japan and while it also features a dog as a character (granted, a supporting one), it was actually made by a Japanese filmmaker: Mamoru Hosoda, well known to anime fans for movies like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and The Boy and the Beast. (This is his first Oscar nomination, despite how frequently films from Japan are nominated in this category.)

It’s indicative of the quality of this category that this terrific sequel to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph is probably going to struggle to scrounge up votes when Academy voters turn in their ballots. Just 10 to 15 years ago, when the Best Animated Feature category frequently found itself filled with the likes of Shark Tale and Surf’s Up (though the surfing penguin movie is a little underrated — gets dragged offstage by a hook), Ralph would have been an easy winner or strong second. Now, it’s an also-ran.

The best movie in the category in 2019 is also the one most likely to win. Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is an energetic swing through decades of comic book lore, somehow pitched simultaneously at those who know everything about Spider-man and those who know absolutely nothing. It’s funny, moving, thrilling, and genuinely groundbreaking from a technical standpoint.

In short: Watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse if you want to see one of the best movies of 2018.