3D Animation News Breakdown:
• Animation is not only for kids, it’s a medium for art and film – as quoted from Guillermo del Toro’s speech at the 2023 BAFTA awards.
• Disappointment follows the 2025 EE BAFTA shortlisted nominees announcement as animated films continue to be overlooked.
• This disregard for animated films in major award categories continues despite the increased quality and cultural significance of animated films.
Hot Take:
Say it with me folks: Animation. Is. Not. Just. For. Kids. *insert mic drop*
Now that we got that out of our system let’s dig in. Ah, the BAFTAs. A time for glitter, glamour, and egregiously snubbing animated films. Despite cries from seasoned directors like del Toro and the indisputable fact that animated films keep getting visually – not to mention emotionally – stunning each year, they continue to be sidelined. This seems like the real-life version of that Agatha Christie novel where the butler is always the suspect but never the murderer. Well, dear BAFTA, it’s about time to make animated films the guest of honor and not just the comic relief.
“The value of animation in art and cinema is undeniable,” insisted directing giant Guillermo del Toro during his acceptance speech at the 2023 BAFTA ceremony. However, the recent reveal of the 2025 BAFTA hopefuls shows that animation is sadly still sidelined.
Recurring issues like bias, narrow categorizing, and disregard for foreign contributions persist. It doesn’t aid that the recent alteration pushes children’s films into mainstream animation categories, which potentially diminishes their value. Even more alarming was the absence of animated film nominees from the official BAFTA live announcement.
The incubus of the BAFTA Children and Young People Awards was realized in 2023 due to an observed “continuous decline in participation and interest,” as reported by Variety. As a result, 2025 saw the inclusion of new categories for the youth media sector within the BAFTA film, gaming, and TV awards.
The newly introduced Children’s and Family Film award emerged as the first category addition in five years to the EE BAFTA Film Awards, following the Casting award in 2020. This award was intended to honor high-quality films that captivate audiences across generations. However, it further pushes animated films into this category, with the biographical film Young Woman and the Sea being the sole exception.
The animation industry is still grappling with the loss of the BAFTA Children and Young People Awards. Its amalgamation into the annual film awards signifies that the animated categories, including the newly introduced Children and Family Film category, have evidently been made the foot soldiers to make up for their absence.
Interestingly, the nominees list for the Animated Film and Children’s and Family Film awards mirrored each other, excluding the swap of Kensuke’s Kingdom for Inside Out 2, thereby solidifying the stereotype of animation being solely child-centric.
In BAFTA history, only three animated films have entered the Best Picture lineup at the Oscars (Beauty and the Beast, Up, and Toy Story 3), and merely Shrek has made it to the Best Film category at the BAFTAs. Despite scoring high audience and critic approval and having an impressive box office run and significant awards campaign, DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, based on Peter Brown’s book series, surprisingly did not make the Best Film category this year. In fact, there were no animated movies nominated in this category.
There were surprising omissions this year. The longlist for Animated Film included popular Australian stop-motion filmmaker Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail, but was missing from the shortlist, with mainstream films from habitual contenders taking its place, excluding the notable entry from Latvia, Flow.
Praised anime features Look Back (Kiyotaka Oshiyama) and The Colours Within (Naoko Yamada) regrettably did not make the longlist. Interestingly, eight animated features that made it predominantly featured English dialogue, and one was completely devoid of dialogue.
Regardless, The Colours Within would have struggled to meet eligibility requirements concerning the minimum number of UK commercial screenings. This brings up questions about whether BAFTA’s eligibility requisites may be excluding certain features.
Popular films like Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Transformers One, Ultraman: Rising, and Paddington in Peru were also unexpectedly excluded from the Children and Young People Awards longlist.
A perennial issue that doesn’t seem to be resolved is the number of shortlisted nominees per category. The categories of Animated Film & Children’s and Family Film are limited to four nominees, and British Short Animation has a mere three. This is significantly lesser than other categories, often capped at five nominees. This restriction results in potential contenders missing out on a nomination simply because there’s no space for them on the shortlist, as in the case of Memoir of a Snail.
This constraint is due to BAFTA’s rules around how many films can transition from the longlist to the shortlist, which depends on the total number of eligible films submitted for consideration. In the Animated Film category, out of 16 eligible films submitted, only eight made it to the longlist. For British Short Animation, only six films were listed, with the total number of eligible films submitted not disclosed.
On a brighter note, recent industry campaigning has made a positive impact on the eligibility for the British Short Animation award. Films screened at UK film festivals like the Manchester Animation Festival (MAF) – now known as BAFTA’s British Short Animation Qualifying Festivals – can directly enter the longlist. This change notably aids in promoting emerging talent regarding inclusivity and simplifies the awards process.
Unfortunately, in contrast, BAFTA Scotland recently merged their Animated Short category into their Animated Film category and titled it ‘The Short Film & Animation category.’ This change, coupled with entry fees, serves as a hindrance for shorts despite a flourishing industry.
On a positive note, the acclaimed Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl from Aardman Animations made the Outstanding British Film shortlist, alongside nine live-action films, including the critically acclaimed Conclave, Ridley Scott’s sequel Gladiator II, and the Irish-language film Kneecap, recently named the winner at the British Independent Film Awards. It’s a significant achievement for animation!
Although BAFTA made an effort to refine the eligibility process in the animated short category, there’s plenty of room for improvement when it comes to tackling potential bias. One must wonder why directors, editors, composers, and production designers of animated features are left out of their respective categories. As seen in the recent Oscar nominations, Flow was nominated in the International Film category and The Wild Robot in the Score category. There is clearly no excuse for their exclusion.
BAFTA should be more inclusive when it comes to animated features and creative teams. Should we, as an industry, push BAFTA to raise its game? Should we be championing our animation for broader categories as well, offering BAFTA a chance to show they can appreciate film as an art form regardless of its form, whether live-action or animation? What’s your take?
Original article: https://www.skwigly.co.uk/bafta-nominees-2025-the-dismissal-of-animated-films-continues/