How ‘Smurfs' points to the dire straits of the Best Animated Feature Oscar race

Yahoo

7 days ago

With apologies to Papa Smurf, it's been a rough smurfin' year for theatrical animation. The first half of 2025 has seen a box-office resurgence for family fare with A Minecraft Movie, How to Train Your Dragon and the billion-dollar-grossing Lilo & Stitch all racking up massive numbers. But all three of those movies were live-action features — albeit live-action features that used extensive amounts of computer animation. Stranger still, Lilo and Dragon were remakes of animated movies released by their respective studios, Disney and Universal, over a decade ago.
Meanwhile, the animated films that have been released in U.S. theaters in the past seven months are mostly a distant afterthought with audiences and critics. With a 20 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and dismal tracking numbers, Paramount's attempt to relaunch the Smurfs franchise is unlikely to change 2025's unfortunate trajectory when it opens in theaters this weekend — even with Rihanna onboard as an executive producer and the new voice of Smurfette.
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That leaves Oscar voters with little to root for — let alone vote for — in the Best Animated Feature category as we head into the second half of the year. Fortunately, there are some bright cartoony spots on the horizon, including In Your Dreams from Netflix, another SpongeBob Squarepants film from Paramount, and Disney's Zootopia 2, which is expected to run wild at the Thanksgiving box office. But in a category with five nominees, a couple more contenders are going to be required.
With that in mind, we looked back at the seven biggest animated titles released between January and July and ranked them by their Academy Awards potential. Just call us Oscar Smurf.
7. Sneaks (April 18)
Just barely released in theaters during the spring, this talking sneaker comedy didn't even crack $1 million at the domestic box office, despite the presence of an all-star cast including Anthony Mackie, Martin Lawrence, and Macy Gray. Critics' reactions hovered between baffled to bothered, with many noting that despite the similarity to Cars — i.e., giving life to otherwise inanimate objects — the animation quality was light years removed from Pixar. Even in a thin field, Sneaks is likely to remain at the bottom of 2025's animation locker.
6. Smurfs (July 18)
Fun fact: the latest Smurfs feature opens in theaters exactly 60 years after their first big-screen outing, 1965's The Adventures of the Smurfs, a now-lost compilation of black-and-white made-for-TV shorts starring the Belgian cartoon characters. A hand-drawn European-made original film followed in 1976 and then Hollywood took over in the 2000s, with Sony releasing three films between 2011 and 2017. None of those movies were Oscar contenders in their respective years and while the latest attempt is a modest improvement — one memorable scene finds Smurfette and her sidekick No Name Smurf (James Corden) racing through different animation styles, from anime to 8-bit video game — it's still, at heart, an I.P. grab. On the other hand, Rihanna does stand a legitimate shot at a Best Original Song nod for one of her earworm-y tunes ... if only so the Oscars can guarantee her presence (and a possible performance) at next year's ceremony.
5. The King of Kings (April 11)
Faith-based features rarely factor into the Oscar race in any medium, but this animated retelling of Jesus' life does boast an impressive vocal cast — including Mark Hamill, Uma Thurman, Kenneth Branagh, and Oscar Isaac as Christ himself. (Funnily enough, Isaac played Jesus' earthly dad, Joseph, in the 2006 film The Nativity Story opposite Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary.) The Angel Studios-distributed movie also earned a solid $60 million at the box office, suggesting it found an audience outside of the genre's traditional crowd. But reviewers did note the saccharine tone and the mixed quality of the animation, which could be the deciding factor with Oscar voters.
4. KPop Demon Hunters (June 20)
A surprise Netflix smash when it dropped on the service in June, this delightful fusion of KPop and demon slaying has deservedly gone viral with younger audiences. The streaming service gave the movie an Oscar-qualifying limited theatrical run in New York and Los Angeles, which means it is eligible for the Animated Feature statuette. But the punk-rock title may prove to be a hindrance as voters sift through their many, many screeners. Let's hope their kids persuade them otherwise.
3. Dog Man (Jan. 15)
Believe it or not, the feature film version of Dav Pikey's beloved series of graphic novels remains the year's highest-grossing cartoon released in U.S. theaters with a $97 million tally. That alone makes it a strong contender for nomination, but Dog Man also offers beautifully stylized animation that brings the comic book characters to life and, as many have noted, the story is essentially RoboCop for kids. Not for nothing, but that Paul Verhoeven classic did receive a special achievement Oscar for Sound Effects Editing and was also nominated in the sound and film editing categories. Case closed.
2. Elio (June 20)
If it were released by any other major studio, Elio's mixed reviews and behind the scenes troubles would effectively end its Oscar campaign before it began. But the movie hails from Pixar, which has an industry-best track record of 19 Oscar nominations and 11 wins in this category for such contemporary classics as Finding Nemo, Up, and Coco. Even less-loved titles like Incredibles 2, Luca, and Elemental have earned nominations — and the studio is still hoping that Elio could stage an Elemental-like resurgence. In other words, Elio may be down, but he's not out.
1. Ne Zha 2 (Feb. 16)
While stateside animated features have been struggling commercially, China struck box-office gold with Ne Zha 2, which has crossed the $2 billion mark abroad. Roughly $20 million of that total came from the sequel's limited U.S. theatrical release in February. But expect that tally to grow now that A24 is releasing an English-language version in August with an eye towards entering the Oscar race. The vocal cast for that new release include Michelle Yeoh and presumably more A-listers to be named later, which should provide it with an extra boost among voters. Leaving aside its astonishing commercial success, Ne Zha 2 is among the most visually vibrant cartoon adventures of 2025, bringing Chinese mythology to the big screen in eye-popping ways.
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