The closely watched race for the top animation Oscar of the year came to an end on Sunday night as Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron took home the much-coveted prize. This was a sweet finale to the story of Japanese master’s widely acclaimed movie, which set new box office records for an anime feature in the U.S. and made over $167.7 million worldwide ($121.690 million in the U.S.). The Boy and the Heron beat its top rival in Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, as well as Pixar’s Elemental, Netflix’s Nimona and Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams.
At 83, Miyazaki is the oldest director ever nominated in this category and the oldest winner by more than two decades. As predicted, Miyazaki was not present at the ceremony to accept the award for his 12th feature. Presenters Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy accepted the Oscar on the master filmmaker’s behalf. Studio Ghibli has been nominated for the Oscar six times. Miyazaki also won the Oscar for Best Feature for his 2003 movie, Spirited Away. The movie also won the Best Animated Feature at the Japan Academy Awards on Friday. The Boy and the Heron proved to be U.S. indie distributor GKIDS’ first Oscar win and its 13th Oscar nomination in its 15-year history.
War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko was the winner in the Best Animated Shorts category. Directed by Pixar alum Dave Mullins and produced by Brad Booker (story by Sean Ono Lennon and Mullins), the short tells the story of two World War I soldiers who are engrossed in chess game via a carrier pigeon. The short also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short earlier this year. Produced by ElectroLeague, the short featured music by Oscar-winner Thomas Newman. The four other nominees in the race were Our Uniform (Yegane Moghaddam), Pachyderme (Marc Rius, Stephanie Clement), Ninety-Five Senses (Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess) and Letter to a Pig (Tal Kantor, Amit Russell Gicelter).
The Oscar for Best Visual Effects was awarded to Masaki Takahashi, Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya and Tatsuji Nojima for their dazzling work on the movie Godzilla Minus One. The other nominees in this category were Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Napoleon, The Creator and Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
