Only Three Animated Movies Have Been Nominated For Best Picture — Will ‘Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’ Be The Fourth?

There are as many Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield as animated films that have been nominated for Best Picture. It’s a short list, and they’re all Disney productions: Beauty and the Beast, Up, and Toy Story 3. That’s it. 2018’s magnificent Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse could have been the fourth; 2023’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse should be the fourth.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is currently sporting a 96 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.7 on Letterboxd. In his review, Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan wrote, “On paper, these really probably shouldn’t work. ‘An ambitious mess,’ would be the most likely headline. Instead, it’s one of the most, if not the most, immersive superhero stories going, pushing far beyond the boundaries of what superhero stories should and could be.”

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won the only Oscar it was nominated for, Best Animated Feature (it beat Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet, among others). Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a remarkable, superhero fatigue-busting achievement that makes me mad all animated movies can’t be this imaginative, and it’s deservedly getting Oscar buzz outside of the genre-specific category. Is Best Picture a possibility? Variety makes the case:

It has a chance. With Oscar-winning and nominated auteurs such as Guillermo del Toro (Pinocchio), Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs), and Charlie Kaufman (Anomalisa) exploring stories in animation and becoming vocal advocates for what it can achieve, it only helps the future of the medium. This conveys hope for more opportunities for the industry to see this as a serious art form as more respected filmmakers discover and explore its creative capabilities.

I hate going to bat for a comic book movie, which have dominated the culture for over a decade. But most comic book movies aren’t this good.

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