What to know:
- The Wild Robot has dominated most major awards, but Flow’s Golden Globe win suggests that the Oscar race is still open.
- The trading volume on Kalshi for Best Animated Feature has reached over $200,000.
- While The Wild Robot and Flow are frontrunners, Inside Out 2 has franchise recognition, Memoir of a Snail has an Oscar-winning director, and Wallace & Gromit has a strong legacy.
Often dismissed as children’s movies, animated films have created some of the most breathtaking movies and iconic characters in cinema. From Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, animated movies have pushed the boundaries of storytelling and art.
At the upcoming 97th Academy Awards, the Best Animated Feature category is yet another competitive one. On March 2, 2025, Conan O’Brien will be hosting and we will find out what Academy voters believe deserve the top prize in the animated medium.
Top prediction market platforms have been betting on the nominees for months and the trading volume shows the anticipation is high. With over $200,000 trading volume on Kalshi, the market has fluctuated quite a bit in the last two months.
Before starting your Oscar betting journey, here’s what you need to know about each nominated animated feature.
The Wild Robot
The Wild Robot is currently the frontrunner on Kalshi with a 69% chance of winning the category. This film is based on a series of children’s/teenagers’ novels of the same name by Peter Brown and adapted from the first book.
The movie premiered at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival and became the sixth highest-grossing animated film of 2024. The Wild Robot grossed $327,576,671 at the global box office and was a critical darling with a Certified Fresh score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose.
The Dreamworks Animation film was directed and written by Chris Sanders and features a star-studded cast including Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, and Catherine O’Hara.
The movie’s success has led to a sequel already being in development and Best Animated Film wins at the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Producers Guild of America Awards, and the Annie Awards, which is specific to animation movies and is presented by the International Animated Film Association.
Flow
Flow is the second most likely to win the category on Kalshi with a forecasted chance of 32%. This Latvian film has the record for most tickets sold in Latvian history.
It premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. It was the first Latvian film shown in this section since 1998. The film grossed $15,974,462 internationally and also received a Certified Fresh score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences.
The movie has no dialogue and was animated with the help of Blender, a free and open-source 3D modeling software. Gints Zilbalodis directed, wrote, produced, and edited the film with the help of his small team of 50.
Flow won the Best Animated Feature at the Golden Globes, National Board of Review Awards, and won Best Independent Animated Feature at the Annie Awards.
Inside Out 2
Inside Out 2 is third for most likely to win the category on Kalshi at a distant 7%. The Pixar and Disney film was a huge commercial success.
The film premiered in June 2024 and became the highest-grossing animated film of all time, the highest-grossing film of 2024, and the eighth-highest-grossing film of all time. It grossed $1.69 billion internationally and a Certified Fresh score of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.
A sequel that features Riley entering puberty and experiencing brand new, more complex emotions as a result. As Riley tries to adapt to her teenage years, her old emotions try to adapt to the possibility of being replaced.
The animated movie was directed by Kelsey Mann and the screenplay was written by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein. This film’s cast features big names like Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Tony Hale, Phyllis Smith, and Ayo Edebiri.
The film has been nominated at the Golden Globes, Annie Awards, and Producers Guild of America Awards but has not won any of them.
Memoir of a Snail
Unlike the previous three movies, Memoir of a Snail does not rank on the Kalshi market with less than one percent chance. This Australian stop-motion film is R-rated and the second R-rated animated film to be nominated at the Academy Awards.
The film premiered at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The film grossed $1.8 million internationally and is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 94% score.
Grace Pudel is a book-loving, snail-collecting misfit that falls into a series of misfortunes after being separated from her twin brother Gilbert. Despite her hardships, inspiration and hope arise when Grace begins a friendship with an eccentric elderly woman named Pinky.
The stop-motion film was directed and written by Adam Elliot. The voice cast is led by Australian actress Sarah Snook best known for her role in HBO’s Succession.
Memoir of a Snail was nominated twice at the Annie Awards, and nominated for Best Feature Film at the Golden Globes. It won the Cristal Award for a Feature Film at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Similar to Memoir of a Snail, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl has a less than one percent chance of winning the category according to Kalshi Oscar bettors. Dating back to the first short film in 1991, this is the sixth Wallace & Gromit film.
Aardman Animations and BBC produced this film and it was internationally released on Netflix. It premiered on Christmas Day on BBC One and BBC iPlayer with 9.3 million viewers. It became the second most-watched UK broadcast since 2022.
In this next installment, Gromit's concern that Wallace is becoming too dependent on his inventions proves justified, when Wallace invents a "smart" gnome that seems to develop a mind of its own. When it emerges that a vengeful figure from the past might be masterminding things, it falls to Gromit to battle sinister forces and save his master... or Wallace may never be able to invent again!
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is also a stop-motion film and was directed by
Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. The film was a critical success with a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
It was nominated for seven Annie Awards, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA award.
Golden Globes and the Oscars Predictions for Best Animated Feature
At the Golden Globes, Flow won Best Animated Feature. Will Academy voters choose differently? Let’s look at past winners.
Year | Golden Globe Winner | Oscar Winner | Match? |
2010 | Toy Story 3 | Toy Story 3 | Yes |
2011 | The Adventures of Tintin | Rango | No |
2012 | Brave | Brave | Yes |
2013 | Frozen | Frozen | Yes |
2014 | How to Train Your Dragon 2 | Big Hero 6 | No |
2015 | Inside Out | Inside Out | Yes |
2016 | Zootopia | Zootopia | Yes |
2017 | Coco | Coco | Yes |
2018 | Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse | Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse | Yes |
2019 | Missing Link | Toy Story 4 | No |
2020 | Soul | Soul | Yes |
2021 | Encanto | Encanto | Yes |
2022 | Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio | Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio | Yes |
2023 | The Boy and the Heron | The Boy and the Heron | Yes |
2024 | Flow | N/A | N/A |
Since 2010, the two award shows have only mismatched three times. This is not a good sign for Kalshi bettors who are confidently voting for The Wild Robot over Flow.
After the Golden Globes, The Wild Robot went from 79% to 60% on Kalshi and Flow went from 17% to 40%. Since then, The Wild Robot has risen and Flow has fallen.
The Wild Robot’s director Sanders has been nominated three times before for The Croods (2014), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), and Lilo & Stitch (2002). Flow’s Zilbalodis is a first-time nominee.
But you also shouldn’t count out the other nominees. Park has won in the past for 2005’s Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit along with three other past wins. The first Inside Out won the Oscar for its year and Memoir of a Snail’s director Elliot has won an Oscar for Best Animated Short.
All this is to say that many of these films have a chance of winning at the Oscars. Since 2020, the Oscars and Golden Globes have consistently lined up on their Best Animation Feature wins but this year could be different. While The Wild Robot has won at almost every other large awards show, Flow still has a chance and may be worth betting on.
