Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was the big film winner at the 50th anniversary Annie Awards, which were handed out Saturday night at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The stop-motion film came in with a leading nine nominations and snagged five wins including Best Feature and Direction. See the full winners list below.
Guillermo del Toro hustled over from the PGA Awards at the Beverly Hilton, where he also won, to present the Annie for Limited Series; he announced the winner as “La La Land — just kidding!” (Oni: Thunder God’s Tale was the real winner.) The Pinocchio honcho then accepted the award for Best Direction. “I wanted the f*cking Annie so much,” he said. “It’s the most gorgeous goddamn trophy in the world!”
The Netflix pic also won for Best Production Design, Character Design and Music for a feature.
So just how will tonight’s big wins for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio factor into a certain widely watched trophy show happening on March 12? Well, since the Academy Awards’ Best Animated Feature category was launched in 2002, 13 of the 20 winners of the Annies’ top feature prize – and six of the past 10 – went on to claim Oscar gold. Last year was an anomaly, as Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines won the Annie, beating out the eventual Oscar winner, Disney’s Encanto.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On — another stop-motion pic — scored three wins tonight, for Indie Feature, Writing and Jenny Slate’s title voice role. It was second with eight noms coming into the evening.
Pinocchio and Marcel the Shell will face off for the Animated Feature Oscar next month against Puss in Boots: The Last Wish — which was a two-time Annie winner tonight — The Sea Beast and Turning Red. The latter Disney pic had the third-most nominations coming in but went home empty-handed.
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Meanwhile, it’s time to pencil in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse in your Animated Short Oscar pool. It collected four Annies, for Best Direction, Editorial, Character Animation and Special Production.
Global behemoth Avatar: The Way of Water took dual trophies tonight, for Best FX and Character Animation, Live Action.
Love, Death + Robots was the only other quadruple winner at the Annies — for Writing, Storyboarding, FX and Character Design.
The Cuphead character had two wins — one for the video games and the other for TV’s The Cuphead Show!
Three-time Oscar-winning Pixar CEO Pete Docter received the Winsor McCay Award, presented by Disney CEO Bob Iger. “[Docter] was 8 years old when he created his first flip book, which he still gives out as Christmas presents,” Iger said in his intro. “I’ve been the recipient of several.” The exec also told a story of how Disney first flirted with and then sealed the idea of buying Pixar. Docter’s Up was mentioned prominently.
Docter, a nine-time Oscar nominee who won statuettes for Up, Inside Out and Soul, noted that “the work kind of has a life of its own.” He cited a number of influences, collaborators and mentors “and hundreds of others.” “It’s moments like this that make real realize how truly wonderful it has been,” Docter added onstage. “The only thing that would make it better was if there were other nominees so I could feel like I beat someone.”
Tonight’s two other Winsor McCay Awards in recognition of lifetime or career contributions were given posthumously to Evelyn Lambart, an early National Film Board of Canada collaborator who died in 1999, and Craig McCracken, the influential TV creator whose credits include Powerpuff Girls, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Wander Over Yonder and Kid Cosmic.
ASIFA-Hollywood president Sue Shakespeare presented the June Foray Award for significant and benevolent or charitable impact to author, historian and educator Mindy Johnson. The Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancement affecting the animation industry was presented to Visual Effects Reference Platform, initially developed by Nick Cannon and Francois Chardavoine to eliminate incompatibilities between digital content creation software. Cannon and Chardavoine accepted the prize.
The Certificate of Merit Award for service to the art and industry was presented to John Omohundro.
As the Annies turn 50, the evening also celebrated 100 years of Disney Animation.
“This is a very special year — not only because it is the Annie Awards 50th anniversary but also because, after nearly three years, this is the first time our community is able to be back together again, in person,” Annie Awards exec producer Frank Gladstone said in a post-show statement. “For a community as close knit as ours, being with each other is of major importance, so we are pulling out all the stops to make this a memorable and historic evening for folks locally, and worldwide.”
Here are the winners at the 2023 Annie Awards:
BEST FEATURE
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Netflix Presents A Double Dare You! Film / A Shadowmachine Production in association with The Jim Henson Company
BEST INDIE FEATURE
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Marcel the Movie LLC
BEST DIRECTION – FEATURE
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Netflix Presents A Double Dare You! Film / A Shadowmachine Production in association with The Jim Henson Company
Guillermo Del Toro, Mark Gustafson
BEST DIRECTION – TV/MEDIA
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Episode: [special production]
NoneMore Productions and Bad Robot Productions
Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy
BEST STORYBOARDING – FEATURE
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
DreamWorks Animation
Anthony Holden
BEST STORYBOARDING – TV/MEDIA
Love Death + Robots
Episode: “The Very Pulse of the Machine”
BEST TV/MEDIA – LIMITED SERIES
Oni: Thunder God’s Tale
Episode: “The Demon Moon Rises”
A Netflix Series / A Tonko House Production
BEST TV/MEDIA – MATURE
Bob’s Burgers
Episode: “Some Like it Bot Part 1: Eighth Grade Runner”
20th Television/Bento Box Entertainment
BEST TV/MEDIA – CHILDREN
Abominable and the Invisible City Episode: “Everest Returns”
DreamWorks Animation
BEST TV/MEDIA – PRESCHOOL
The Tiny Chef Show Episode: “Pancakes”
Tiny Chef Productions LLC / Imagine Entertainment
BEST WRITING – FEATURE
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Marcel the Movie LLC
Dean Fleischer Camp, Jenny Slate, Nick Paley, Elisabeth Holm
BEST WRITING – TV/MEDIA
Love Death + Robots Episode: “Bad Traveling”
Blur Studio for Netflix
Andrew Kevin Walker
BEST VOICE ACTING – FEATURE
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Marcel the Movie LLC
Jenny Slate (character: Marcel)
BEST VOICE ACTING – TV/MEDIA
Zootopia+
Episode: “The Godfather of the Bride”
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Maurice LaMarche (Character: Mr. Big)
BEST EDITORIAL – FEATURE
James Ryan ACE, Jacquelyn Karambelas, Natalla Cronembold, Joe Butler, Katie Parody
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
DreamWorks Animation
BEST EDITORIAL – TV/MEDIA
Daniel Budin
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
A NoneMore and Bad Robot Production for Apple TV+ and BBC
BEST FX – FEATURE
Johnathan M. Nixon, David Moraton, Nicholas Illingworth, David Caeiro Cebrian, Alex Nowotny
Avatar: The Way of Water
20th Century Studios / Disney Studios
Wētā FX
BEST FX – TV/MEDIA
Love Death + Robots Episode: “Bad Traveling”
Blur Studio for Netflix
FX Production Company: Blur Studio
Kirby Miller, Igor Zanic, Joseph H. Coleman, Steven Dupuy, Josh Schwartz
BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION – FEATURE
Tucker Barrie
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Netflix Presents A Double Dare You! Film / A Shadowmachine Production in association with The Jim Henson Company
BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION – TV/MEDIA
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Episode: (special production)
NoneMore Productions and Bad Robot Productions
Tim Watts
BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION – LIVE ACTION
Avatar: The Way of Water
Production Company: 20th Century Studios / Disney Studios
FX Production Company: Wētā FX
BEST CHARACTER ANIMATION – VIDEO GAME
Cuphead – The Delicious Last Course
Studio MDHR
Chad Moldenhauer, Hanna Abi-Hanna
BEST CHARACTER DESIGN – FEATURE
Taylor Krahenbuhl
The Bad Guys
DreamWorks Animation
BEST CHARACTER DESIGN – TV/MEDIA
Alberto Mielgo
Love Death + Robots Episode: “Jibaro”
Blur Studio for Netflix
BEST MUSIC – FEATURE
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Netflix Presents A Double Dare You! Film / A Shadowmachine Production in association with The Jim Henson Company
Alexandre Desplat, Roeban Katz, Guillermo del Toro, Patrick McHale
BEST MUSIC – TV/MEDIA
The Cuphead Show! Episode: “Carn-Evil”
Netflix Animation
Ego Plum
BEST SPONSORED
Save Ralph
Arch Model Studio
BEST SPECIAL PRODUCTION
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
A NoneMore and Bad Robot Production for Apple TV+ and BBC
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – FEATURE
Curt Enderle, Guy Davis
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Netflix Presents A Double Dare You! Film / A Shadowmachine Production in association with The Jim Henson Company
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – TV/MEDIA
Robert Kondo, Rachel Tiep-Daniels, Lia Tin, Yohei Hashizume, Masa Inada
Oni: Thunder God’s Tale
Episode: “The Demon Moon Rises”
A Netflix Series / A Tonko House Production
BEST SHORT SUBJECT
Ice Merchants
COLA Animation production & Wild Stream
BEST STUDENT FILM
The Soloists
Student directors: Mehrnaz Abdollahinia, Feben Elias Woldehawariat, Razahk Issaka, Celeste Jamneck & Yi Liu
School: Gobelins, l’école de l’image