“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” was the big winner at the 50th annual Annie Awards, winning five categories in the award show that honors the best in animation. Fellow Oscar-nominees “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” and “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” won three and two awards, respectively.
“Pinocchio” led all films with nine nominations and went into the ceremony as a strong favorite to win the top award. The dark stop-motion take on the “Pinocchio” story also came into the ceremony at a time when its distributor, Netflix, has been dominating the Annies. Last year, its film “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” was nominated in eight categories and won all eight, including Best Feature, while the eventual Oscar winner “Encanto” settled for three awards in categories in which “Mitchells” was not nominated. And two years before that, Netflix’s “Klaus” was a surprise winner over Pixar’s “Toy Story 4,” which won the Oscar.
“Pinocchio” was not a dark horse the way those two films were, and it didn’t sweep the way they did. It won for feature, directing, character animation, music and production design, while losing to “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” for editorial and storyboarding, to “Marcel the Shell” for voice acting and to “Avatar: The Way of Water” for animated effects.
“Avatar” pulled off the curious trick of winning as an animated film in the Best Animated Effects in an Animated Feature production category, and winning as a live-action film in the Character Animation in a Live Action Production category.
In addition to its voice-acting win for Jenny Slate, “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” won for writing and for Best Indie Feature.
The awards for Best Short Subject and Best Special Production went to a pair of films that are nominated in the Oscars Best Animated Short category, “Ice Merchants” and “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.” The latter film also won in three additional categories.
In the television/media categories, winners included “Love, Death + Robots,” which won four awards; “Oni: Thunder God’s Tale,” which won two; and “Bob’s Burgers,” “Abominable and the Invisible City” and “The Tiny Chef Show,” which won in the program categories.
After two years of being held virtually because of the pandemic, this year’s ceremony was held in-person in Los Angeles at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. It is now available for viewing on annieawards.org.
Here is the complete list of winners:
Best Feature: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
Best Indie Feature: “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”
Best Special Production: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse”
Best Animated Short Subject: “Ice Merchants”
Best Animated Sponsored Project: “Save Ralph”
Best Animated Television Production for Preschool Children: “The Tiny Chef Show”
Episode: “Pancakes”
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Children: “Abominable and the Invisible City”
Episode: “Everest Returns”
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Mature Audiences: “Bob’s Burgers”
Episode: “Some Like It Bot Part 1: Eighth Grade Runner”
Best Animated Television/Media Production, Limited Series: “Oni: Thunder God’s Tale”
Episode: “The Demon Moon Rises”
Best Student Film: “The Soloists”
Student directors: Mehrnaz Abdollahinia, Feben Elias Woldehawariat, Razahk Issaka, Celeste Jamneck & Yi Liu
Best Animated Effects in a Television/Media Production: “Love, Death + Robots”
FX Team: Kirby Miller, Igor Zanic, Joseph H. Coleman, Steven Dupuy, Josh Schwartz
Episode: “Bad Traveling”
Best Animated Effects in an Animated Feature Production: “Avatar: The Way of Water”
FX Team: Johnathan M. Nixon, David Moraton, Nicholas Illingworth, David Caeiro Cebrian, Alex Nowotny
Character Animation in an Animated Television/Media Production: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse”
Animator: Tim Watts
Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
Animator: Tucker Barrie
Character Animation in a Live Action Production: “Avatar: The Way of Water”
Animation Team: Daniel Barrett, Stuart Adcock, Todd Labonte, Douglas McHale, Stephen Cullingford
Character Animation in a Video Game: “Cuphead – The Delicious Last Course”
Animation Team: Chad Moldenhauer, Hanna Abi-Hanna
Character Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Love, Death + Robots”
Designer: Alberto Mielgo
Episode: “Jibaro”
Character Design in an Animated Feature Production: “The Bad Guys”
Designer: Taylor Krahenbuhl
Directing in an Animated Television/Media Production: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse”
Directors: Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy
Directing in an Animated Feature Production: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
Directors: Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson
Music in an Animated Television/Media Production: “The Cuphead Show!”
Score: Ego Plum, Dave Wasson, Cosmo Segurson
Episode: “Carn-evil”
Music in an Animated Feature Production: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
Score: Alexandre Desplat, Roeban Katz, Guillermo del Toro, Patrick McHale
Production Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Oni: Thunder God’s Tale”
Design Team: Robert Kondo, Rachel Tiep-Daniels, Lia Tin, Yohei Hashizume, Masa Inada
Episode: “The Demon Moon Rises”
Production Design in an Animated Feature Production: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
Design Team: Curt Enderle, Guy Davis
Storyboarding in an Animated Television/Media: “Love, Death + Robots”
Storyboard Artist: Emily Dean
Episode: “The Very Pulse of the Machine”
Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production: “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”
Storyboard Artist: Anthony Holden
Voice Acting in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Zootopia+”
As “Mr. Big”: Maurice LaMarche
Episode: “The Godfather of the Bride”
Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production: “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”
As ‘Marcel’: Jenny Slate
Writing in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Love, Death + Robots”
Writers: Andrew Kevin Walker
Episode: “Bad Traveling”
Writing in an Animated Feature Production: “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”
Writers: Dean Fleischer Camp, Jenny Slate, Nick Paley, Elisabeth Holm
Editorial in an Animated Television/Media Production: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse”
Editorial Team: Daniel Budin
Editorial in an Animated Feature Production: “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”
Editorial Team: James Ryan ACE, Jacquelyn Karambelas, Natalla Cronembold, Joe Butler, Katie Parody
