Modern animation in the United States

First-run syndicated animation

The older Bugs Bunny and Popeye cartoons made way for first-run syndicated cartoons such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Rambo: The Force of Freedom, ThunderCats, Dennis the Menace, My Little Pony, The Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, and reruns of Scooby-Doo, Garfield and Friends and The Pink Panther, among many others.

In 1987, The Walt Disney Company tried its luck at syndication; DuckTales went on the air that September and lasted 100 episodes. The success of DuckTales paved the way for a second series two years later, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. The following year, the two shows aired together under the umbrella title The Disney Afternoon. In 1991, Disney added another hour; the block aired in syndication until 1999.

These cartoons initially competed with the nationally broadcast ones. In the 1980s, national TV only aired Saturday mornings, not competing with the weekday and Sunday blocks of syndication aired by local independent stations; however, by the 1990s, Fox and then WB started airing weekday afternoon blocks. By the end of the 1990s, both syndicated and national TV ended up losing most of their children's market to the rise of cable TV channels like Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network, which provided appealing children's entertainment throughout the week at nearly all hours.

Rise of the "Big Three" kids networks

From Hanna-Barbera to Cartoon Network

The late 1980s and 1990s brought enormous changes in the Saturday-morning landscape. By now, the once-prosperous Hanna-Barbera Productions was beleaguered by several factors. Other studios' shows broke its dominance over the networks' schedules, and once The Smurfs was cancelled by NBC in 1989, Hanna-Barbera had no other hit ongoing series on the air. Additionally, its ability to successfully exploit older characters like The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo with new shows was coming to an end; Scooby-Doo would end a near-continuous 22-year first-run after its most recent juniorized version, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, ended its run in 1991. The 1990 theatrical release of Jetsons: The Movie was a success for the fading studio, which earned $20 million ($49.3 million in today's dollars). In 1987, Great American Insurance Company owner Carl Lindner Jr. became the majority shareholder of Hanna-Barbera's parent company, Taft Broadcasting, renaming it Great American Communications.

Great American wanted out of the entertainment business, and Hanna-Barbera was sold to the Turner Broadcasting System in 1991. Ted Turner had expressed that he mainly wanted ownership of the studio's back catalog; its launch of Cartoon Network on October 1, 1992, provided a new audience for Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers cartoons, both old and new.

In 1989, producer Tom Ruegger had led an exodus of Hanna-Barbera staffers to restart Warner Bros. Animation. At first, the studio was constantly under threat of closure. However, under Fred Seibert's guidance, Hanna-Barbera's new staff (whose ranks included Craig McCracken, Genndy Tartakovsky, Butch Hartman and Seth MacFarlane) created a new generation of Hanna-Barbera cartoons in the 1990s such as 2 Stupid Dogs, Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel and The Powerpuff Girls. Alongside these Hanna-Barbera cartoons, shows from other companies also premiered on the channel, such as Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Ed, Edd n Eddy and Courage the Cowardly Dog.

Time Warner acquired Turner in 1996, and thus inherited the rights to all of Hanna-Barbera's creative properties. This allowed Cartoon Network to begin airing all of the classic Looney Tunes shorts as well (previously, Turner had owned only the Looney Tunes shorts produced before August 1948, which had become part of the MGM/UA library). Cartoon Network's success with original programming led them to move the reruns of old Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes cartoons to their spin-off channel Boomerang.

In 1997, Fred Seibert left Hanna-Barbera to found his studio. In 1998, Hanna-Barbera moved to the same building as Warner Bros. Animation; the use of the Hanna-Barbera name for new productions ended with William Hanna's death in 2001. Hanna and Barbera continued to work as Time Warner employees and consultants until their respective deaths in 2001 and 2006; the name is still used for productions based on properties created during the Hanna-Barbera era. Cartoon Network Studios now handles most original animation for the network.

Nickelodeon

In 1991, Nickelodeon introduced The Ren & Stimpy Show as the first of three installments in Nicktoons brand. Ren & Stimpy was a wild and offbeat series that violated all the restrictions of Saturday morning cartoons, instead favoring the outrageous style of the shorts from the Golden Age period. The series' creator, John Kricfalusi—a Ralph Bakshi protege—was largely influenced by the classic works of Bob Clampett. Despite the show's popularity, it was beset by production delays and censorship battles with Nickelodeon, which fired Kricfalusi in 1992. The show continued under the production of the network-owned Games Animation company until 1996, though many animators departed with Kricfalusi. TNN revived the show in a more risqué form in 2003, with Kricfalusi receiving more creative freedom, but it only lasted six episodes.

From the early 1990s to the late 2000s, Nickelodeon Animation Studio and Paramount Animation also gave birth to many other hit animated series such as Doug, Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Hey Arnold!, KaBlam!, The Angry Beavers, The Wild Thornberrys, CatDog, SpongeBob SquarePants, Rocket Power, Invader Zim, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, The Fairly OddParents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Danny Phantom, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Many of these shows spawned successful multimedia franchises, most notably Rugrats, SpongeBob SquarePants (both franchises having three theatrical films and TV movies), and Avatar: The Last Airbender (which garnered both a sequel series and a live action series).

Disney Channel

Disney had hit animated series from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s such as Adventures of the Gummi Bears (1985), DuckTales (1987), Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1989), Darkwing Duck (1991), and Gargoyles (1994). These aired on syndication, the Disney Afternoon programming block, and the Disney Channel (at the time a pay-cable channel).

Further successful cartoons appeared in the late 1990s to early 2000s with Recess and Pepper Ann (1997), The Weekenders, Teacher's Pet (2000), The Proud Family (2001), and Kim Possible (2002) airing on Disney Channel (which switched to basic cable in 1997) and ABC's One Saturday Morning (later ABC Kids). Around the same time, Disney launched Toon Disney, a channel specifically intended for animation.

Disney continued launching successful cartoon series in the late 2000s to 2020s, such as Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, the 2017 DuckTales reboot, Big City Greens, Amphibia, The Owl House, The Ghost and Molly McGee, Kiff, Primos, and StuGo. Toon Disney rebranded to Disney XD; cartoons continued airing there, as well as on Disney Channel and Disney's streaming platform Disney+.

Broadcast networks

Throughout the 1990s, the "Big Three" networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) were no longer a three-way oligopoly. On cable TV, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel all grew to a point where they were and are still competitive with the broadcast networks around the world. The fledgling Fox network launched their Fox Kids programming block on weekdays and Saturdays in 1990, while The WB joined the competition with a kids' programming block shortly after the network's 1995 launch.

When NBC compared the success of the live-action youth sitcom Saved by the Bell to the paucity of their animated hits, they stopped airing cartoons in 1992, instead concentrating on live-action teenage shows with their Saturday-morning TNBC block. ABC was purchased by Disney in 1996, and Disney transformed ABC's Saturday schedule into a series of Disney-produced animated cartoons collectively named One Saturday Morning. CBS was never able to come up with any new hits once the shows that anchored its late 1980s/early 1990s Saturday morning lineup—Muppet Babies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Garfield and Friends, etc.—ran their respective courses. When CBS was purchased by Viacom, which also owned Nickelodeon, Viacom repurposed much of the Nick Jr. lineup—in addition to adding a Saturday edition of the CBS morning-news program The Early Show.

As a result of years of activism by Action for Children's Television and others against shows they believed blurred the line between entertainment and advertising, the Children's Television Act was passed in 1990. It was strictly enforced starting in 1996. The Federal Communications Commission began requiring three hours a week of educational and informational programs intended explicitly for children, at times when children were awake. Since this required three hours to be "off-limits" to programs aimed at the general public, the networks naturally chose to air them on Saturday morning, when children were already watching. As a result, almost every Saturday-morning network show is required to contain some educational content. Fox and The WB worked around this problem by airing short one-hour weekday children's blocks instead of morning news shows; however, those weekday blocks no longer exist (with the notable exception of PBS, which continues to have large weekday children's programming blocks as of 2010). Nonetheless, there were still a few toy-based children's programs in the 1990s, particularly Power Rangers and Pokémon.

Cable networks were not subject to these—or most other—FCC requirements, which allowed their series to have more leeway with content than network shows. The impact of the new regulations was almost instantaneous: by 1997, Nickelodeon had rocketed past its broadcast competitors to become the most-watched network on Saturday mornings.

Animation for adults

The 1990s marked the beginning of a new wave of animated cartoon series, primarily targeted at adults only, following a decade of little focus on such age groups.

The Simpsons and 20th Television Animation

In 1987, "The Simpsons", an animated short cartoon segment of The Tracey Ullman Show, debuted. Matt Groening's creation gained its own half-hour series in 1989, the first prime-time animated series since The Flintstones. Although 70% of the first episode's animation had to be redone, pushing the series premiere back three months, it became one of the first major hit series for the fledgling Fox network. The Simpsons caused a sensation, entering popular culture and gaining wide acclaim for its satirical treatment of American culture, families, society as a whole, and the human condition.

The show has won dozens of awards, including 24 Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards and two Peabody Awards. Time magazine's December 31, 1999 issue named it the 20th century's best television series; it had also named character Bart Simpson in Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, being the only fictional character to appear on the list. The Simpsons Movie grossed over half a billion dollars worldwide. On February 26, 2009, Fox renewed The Simpsons for an additional two years, "...which will secure its place as TV's longest-running prime-time series." Its 21st season began on September 27, 2009, breaking the 20-season record it once shared with Gunsmoke.

The success of The Simpsons led Fox to develop other animated series aimed at adults, including Bob's Burgers (created by Loren Bouchard), King of the Hill (created by Mike Judge), Futurama (also by Groening), Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show (all created by Seth MacFarlane). King of the Hill was an instant success, running 13 seasons. Both Futurama and Family Guy were cancelled by the network; after strong DVD sales and ratings in re-runs, both returned to the air—Family Guy on Fox, and Futurama on Comedy Central, now Hulu. On March 20, 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, which integrated 20th Century Fox Television into Walt Disney Television as part of Disney Television Studios In December 2020, Disney announced that 20th Television Animation would be relaunched as a standalone unit from the live-action studio.

Spike and Mike

In 1989, a festival of animation shorts, organized by Craig "Spike" Decker and Mike Gribble (known as "Spike & Mike") and originally based in San Diego, began showcasing a collection of short subject animated films. Known as the Classic Festival of Animation, it played in theatrical and non-theatrical venues across the country.

The collections were largely made up of Oscar-nominated shorts, student work from the California Institute of the Arts, and experimental work funded by the National Film Board of Canada. Early festivals included work by John Lasseter, Nick Park, Mike Judge, and Craig McCracken. Judge's piece, Frog Baseball, marked the first appearance of his dimwitted trademark characters Beavis and Butt-head. McCracken's short The Whoopass Girls in A Sticky Situation featured the introduction of the trio of little girl superheroes that would later gain popularity under their new moniker, The Powerpuff Girls.

The festival gradually became a program of films called Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation, an underground movement for adult humor and subject matter.

Cartoon Network and Adult Swim

In 1994, the American cable television network Cartoon Network approved a new series entitled Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. In a particularly postmodern twist, this show featured live-action celebrity interviews mixed with animation from the original Space Ghost cartoon. It was the beginning of the now common practice of using old Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters for new edgier productions, such as the surrealistic Sealab 2021, based on the short-lived early 1970s environmentally themed cartoon Sealab 2020. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law was about a lackluster superhero, Birdman—originally the star of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio—who has become a lawyer. His clientele, as well as most of the other characters on the show, are made up entirely of old Hanna-Barbera characters.

Adult Swim, a scheduling block of adult-oriented cartoons appearing on Cartoon Network beginning after primetime, premiered in 2001. Originally limited to Sunday nights, as of 2018, Adult Swim remains on the air every night until 6:00 a.m. Eastern time. Animated series produced exclusively for Adult Swim include The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Squidbillies, The Venture Bros., Perfect Hair Forever, Stroker and Hoop, Tom Goes to the Mayor, Robot Chicken, Rick and Morty, Metalocalypse and Smiling Friends. In addition to American animation, Adult Swim also runs popular anime series such as Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Eureka Seven, the Fullmetal Alchemist series, Bleach, and My Hero Academia.

Other cartoons for adults

Other TV networks also experimented with adult-oriented animation. MTV produced several successful animated series especially for its adolescent and young adult audience, including Liquid Television, The Brothers Grunt, Æon Flux, Beavis and Butt-head (and its spin-off Daria), The Maxx, Cartoon Sushi and Celebrity Deathmatch. They would continue experimenting with animated series into the early 2000s with shows such as Clone High, Spy Groove, and 3-South. Their original animated programming slowed to a halt by the end of the decade. USA Network's Duckman, starring the voice of Jason Alexander, found a cult following. Premium cable also experimented with original animated series, such as Spawn.

Another successful adult-oriented animated series was Trey Parker and Matt Stone's South Park, which saw its beginnings in 1995 with the short cartoon The Spirit of Christmas. Like The Simpsons, Beavis and Butt-Head and South Park were given the big-screen treatment as Beavis and Butt-Head Do America and South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut both of which met with box office success.

Cartoonist Bill Plympton transitioned from print to animation in the late 1980s and has continued to make adult-oriented shorts. Don Hertzfeldt began in animation in the 1990s and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2001 for Rejected.

Feature-length films like Cool World and Bebe's Kids helped establish a market for adult animation films.

The rise of computer animation

The 1990s saw major growth in the use of computer-generated imagery to enhance both animated sequences and live-action special effects, allowing elaborate computer-animated sequences to dominate both. This new form of animation soon dominated Hollywood special effects; the films Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park included Oscar-winning special effects sequences which made extensive use of CGI. After decades of existing as related but separate industries, the barrier between "animation" and "special effects" was shattered by the popularization of computerized special effects, to the point where computer-enhancement of Hollywood feature films became second-nature and often went unnoticed. The Academy Award-winning Forrest Gump (1994) depended heavily on computerized special effects to create the illusion of Tom Hanks shaking hands with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and to make Gary Sinise convincingly appear to be a double amputee, winning a special-effects Oscar. The film Titanic used computer effects in nearly every scene of its three-hour run time; one of the film's 11 Oscars was for visual effects.

While Disney made the film Tron—which extensively mixed live-action, traditional animation, and CGI in 1982, and introduced the CAPS system to enhance traditional animation in 1990's The Rescuers Down Under, a completely computer-animated feature film had yet to be made. In 1995, Disney partnered with Pixar to produce Toy Story, the first computer-animated movie. The film's success was so massive that other studios looked into producing their own CGI animated films. Computer-animated films turned out to be wildly popular, and animated films returned the highest gross margins (around 52%) of all film genres in the 2004-2013 timeframe.

Computer animation also made inroads into television. The Saturday morning animated series ReBoot won a large cult following among adults; it was the first of several CGI animated series, including Beast Wars, War Planets, and Roughnecks. The quality of the computer animation improved considerably with each successive series. Many live-action TV series (especially science fiction TV series such as Babylon 5) invested heavily in CGI production, creating a heretofore-unavailable level of special effects for a relatively low price.

Pixar

The most popular and successful competitor in the CGI race. Pixar originated in 1979 when George Lucas’ Lucasfilm was able to recruit Edwin Catmull from the New York Institute of Technology to start the Graphics Group of its special-effects division. In late 1983, Catmull was able to bring in as a freelance independent contractor a Disney animator, John Lasseter, not long after Lasseter (then unbeknownst to Catmull) had been fired by the Walt Disney Company for his vigorous advocacy of computer animation; Lasseter was hired as a full-time employee about a year later.

Lucas experienced cash flow issues after his 1983 divorce, and in 1986, Pixar was spun off from Lucasfilm as a separate corporation with $10 million in capital from Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs. At that time, Pixar primarily developed computer animation hardware, but Lasseter helped the company make a name for itself by creating acclaimed CGI short films such as The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984). After the spin-off, he would go on to produce Tin Toy (1988), which won an Oscar. The company transitioned into TV commercial production and projects such as the Computer Animation Production System for Disney. After the success of Tin Toy, Pixar made a deal with Disney to produce feature films. The first of these films, 1995's Toy Story, was a smash hit, which in turn led to additional successful films such as A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2. By then, Jobs had become the owner of Pixar by keeping it alive with additional investments over the years; he had often considered selling it, but changed his mind after Toy Story.

Pixar's string of critical and box-office successes continued with Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 all receiving rave reviews, earning huge profits, winning awards, and overshadowing Disney's in-house offerings until Cars 2 in 2011 ended the streak when it proved a critical disappointment, albeit still a commercial success. Disney produced a CGI/live-action feature film of its own without Pixar (Dinosaur), but the film received a mixed reaction, despite its financial success. During the later years of Michael Eisner' management, friction between Disney and Pixar grew to the point where Pixar considered finding another partner when they could not reach an agreement over profit sharing. When Eisner stepped down in 2005, his replacement, Robert Iger, arranged for Disney to buy Pixar in a $7.4 billion all-stock deal ($12.2 billion in today's dollars) that turned Steve Jobs into Disney's largest individual shareholder. The deal was structured so that Disney Animation and Pixar Animation would continue to operate as completely separate studios under the Disney corporate umbrella; Lasseter was placed in charge of greenlighting all-new animated films for both studios in his new role as Chief Creative Officer, a position he had held for 12 years.

DreamWorks Animation

When Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney to become a co-partner of Steven Spielberg and David Geffen in the new studio DreamWorks Pictures, the studio naturally became interested in animation. Its first film, Antz, did not do as well as the Disney-Pixar releases but was a critical success. However, DreamWorks succeeded in its partnership with the British stop motion animation studio Aardman Animations Chicken Run in 2000, and later the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005.

Furthermore, DreamWorks finally had success in 2001 with the computer-animated feature film Shrek, a gigantic box-office hit that overpowered Disney's summer release for that year, Atlantis. After winning the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Shrek established DreamWorks as Pixar's first major competitor in CGI animation. DreamWorks' commercial success continued with three Shrek sequels, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Over the Hedge, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind, The Croods, The Boss Baby and Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. DreamWorks Animation eventually became a separate company from its parent; it is now owned by Universal Studios through its parent company NBCUniversal/Comcast as of 2024.

Walt Disney Animation Studios

In 2003, noting the growing success of studios that relied on computer animation, including Pixar, Blue Sky Studios, and DreamWorks Animation, Walt Disney Feature Animation announced it would be converted into a CGI studio.

Two years later, Chicken Little, the first fully computer-animated film from the studio, was released to moderate success at the box office and mixed critical reception. On January 24, 2006, Disney announced that it would be acquiring Pixar (the deal successfully closed that May), and as part of the acquisition, executives Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter assumed control of Walt Disney Feature Animation as President and Chief Creative Officer, respectively. Lasseter later acknowledged that there had been discussions back in 2006 about closing Feature Animation as redundant since Disney now owned Pixar, which he and Catmull flatly rejected ("Not on our watch. We will never allow that to happen."); they resolved to try to save Walt Disney's creative legacy by bringing his animation studio "back up to the creative level it had to be".

To maintain the separateness of Disney and Pixar (even though they share common ownership and senior management), it was outlined that each studio remains solely responsible for its own projects and is not allowed to borrow personnel from or lend tasks out to the other.

In 2007, the studio released Meet the Robinsons, which experienced a poor response at the box office despite the lukewarm critical and audience reception. The following film, 2008's Bolt, had the best critical reception of any Disney animated feature since Lilo & Stitch, and became a moderate success, receiving an Academy Award nomination. An adaptation of the Brothers Grimm's "Rapunzel" tale entitled Tangled was released in 2010, earning $591 million in worldwide box office revenue, and signified a return by the studio to fairytale-based features common in the traditional animation era. This trend was followed in 2013' global blockbuster hit Frozen, a film inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen tale, which released to widespread acclaim and was the first Disney animated film to earn over $1 billion in worldwide box office revenue surpassing Pixar's Toy Story 3. Frozen also became the first film from Walt Disney Animation Studios to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. They also had critical and commercial success with Oscar winners Big Hero 6, Zootopia and Encanto alongside (following in Pixar's footsteps) their own animated shorts Feast and Paperman; the latter was shown before Wreck-It Ralph.

Independents and others

Other studios attempted to enter the CGI game. After Don Bluth left 20th Century Fox Animation in 2001, the company released its first fully computer-animated feature, a hugely successful CGI-animated feature in early 2002 entitled Ice Age, as the first full-length feature film under Blue Sky Studios. In 2001, Paramount and Nickelodeon offered Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and TWC offered Hoodwinked! in 2005. Warner Brothers had a major success in 2006 with the Oscar-winning film, Happy Feet, while Sony and Columbia produced films under Sony Pictures Animation including Open Season in 2006, Surf's Up in 2007, and the successful film franchises Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania which began in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Universal Studios attempted several times to become a viable participant in the market, finally achieving the goal in 2010 with Despicable Me, the first feature film from Illumination Entertainment, which provided more hits for them within the following decade. In 2013, Dallas, Texas–based Reel FX released their first feature film Free Birds, which was a moderate success, a year later, they released The Book of Life which was a huge success and was nominated for a golden globe for best animated feature.

Despite all its success, computer animation still relies on cartoon and stylized characters. 2001 saw the first attempt to create a fully animated world using photorealistic human actors in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which met with moderate critical success but did not succeed at the box office.

In 2004, the live-action film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was released. It was notable for being filmed entirely in front of a bluescreen, with the background being completely computer-generated; only the actors and some props were real. Robert Zemeckis’ film The Polar Express, starring Tom Hanks in five roles, was a completely CGI-animated film but used performance capture technology to animate the characters. Zemeckis followed The Polar Express with two other motion capture films: Beowulf and Disney's A Christmas Carol.

The use of CGI special effects in live-action film increased to the point where George Lucas considered his 2002 film Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones to be primarily an animated film that used real-life actors. A growing number of family-oriented films began to use entirely computer-generated characters that interacted on the screen with live-action counterparts, such as Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the title character of Hulk. While computer-generated characters have become acceptable to moviegoers, there have yet to be any fully animated films featuring virtual human actors, or "synthespians".

Rise of Internet and Flash animation

The late 1990s saw the rise of Flash animation—animated films created using the Adobe Flash animation software—produced in the U.S. and elsewhere, and distributed through the Internet.Waldron, Rick (November 20, 2000). "The Flash History". Flash Magazine. Archived from the original on August 2, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2008.

Some popular Flash animated cartoons include ‘’Joe Cartoons‘’, ‘’Weebl and Bob‘’, ‘’Happy Tree Friends‘’, ‘’Homestar Runner‘’, the ‘‘Brackenwood’’ series, ‘’Making Fiends‘’ and ‘’Salad Fingers‘’.

Animation accolades

Recognition by the Oscars

Historically, despite the continuation of the Best Animated Short Subject category, animated films seldom received much recognition from the Academy Awards for anything other than musical scores and songs. The unprecedented nomination of Disney's ‘’Beauty and the Beast‘’ for Best Picture and five other awards changed things, even though it won two Oscars for its song and score while ‘’Toy Story‘’ became the animated film for Best Original Screenplay. Animation had become so widely accepted by the beginning of the 21st century that, in 2001, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences introduced a new Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

The three contenders for the award were: Shrek, by DreamWorks, Monsters, Inc., by Disney/Pixar, and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, by Paramount and Nickelodeon. The award that year went to Shrek. Films passed up that year included the acclaimed adult-oriented film Waking Life and the photorealistic CGI film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Hayao Miyazaki's critically acclaimed Spirited Away won the Oscar in 2002. Disney/Pixar's Finding Nemo received the 2003 award, defeating nominees The Triplets of Belleville and Brother Bear. Since then, Pixar has won the most awards in this category with the current exceptions being Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005, Happy Feet in 2006, Rango in 2011, Frozen in 2013, Big Hero 6 in 2014, Zootopia in 2016, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018, Encanto in 2021, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio in 2022, The Boy and the Heron in 2023, Flow in 2024 and KPop Demon Hunters in 2025.

In 2013, the March 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter published the ballots of eight different Oscar voters in the Academy. Of those eight, four voters abstained in the Best Animated Feature category due to inadequate knowledge of the subject. They admitted to not having seen all of the nominations, with one person stating “that ended when I was 6.” Such disregard for animated films by the voters themselves is often criticized by American animators, who claim that “Hollywood doesn’t care or know the first thing about animated films.”

Annie Awards

The Annie Awards are presented each February by the Hollywood branch of the International Animated Film Association for achievements in the fields of film and television animation in the United States. Originally formed in 1972 to celebrate lifetime contributions to the various fields within animation, the awards started to honor animation as a whole, including current offerings.

Legacy

Eight animated features, The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), The Lion King (1994), Toy Story (1995), Shrek (2001), The Incredibles (2004), and WALL-E (2008) were inducted into the National Film Registry alongside two shorts made by Pixar, Luxo Jr. (1986) and Tin Toy (1988).

Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away (2001) and four Pixar films (2003's Finding Nemo, 2007's Ratatouille, 2008's WALL-E and 2015's Inside Out) were included on BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century poll.