‘Spider-Verse,’ ‘The Boy And The Heron,’ ‘Elemental,’ And ‘Chicken Run’ Score Animated Feature BAFTA Nominations

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTAs), the U.K.’s equivalent of the Oscars, have revealed this year’s nominees, including animated feature, British animated short, and vfx.

Representing the home team this year will be Aardman Animations’ Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget from director Sam Fell. A Netflix original, the stop-motion feature is a sequel to Aardman’s first animated feature, Chicken Run, which was BAFTA-nominated for best British film and visual effects in 2001.

This is the first time that The Boy and the Heron director Hayao Miyazaki has been nominated by the BAFTAs since Spirited Away competed for Best Film Not in the English Language in 2004.

Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson’s Across the Spider-Verse will be looking to repeat the achievement of its predecessor, Into the Spider-Verse, which won the animated feature BAFTA in 2018. Daniel Pemberton, the film’s British composer, was also nominated for best original score.

Elemental continues to be Disney’s strongest awards season contender this year and rounds out the BAFTAs’ animated feature category. Disney and Pixar may not have the same grip on the BAFTAs that they do the Oscars, but the studios have won the ceremony’s animated feature award 10 times since it was created in 2006.

This year’s British Short Animation category demonstrates incredible diversity in style and technique despite only recognizing three films.

Featuring hand-drawn 2d animation, Ross Stringer’s Crab Day is a surprisingly cute – given its murderous narrative – coming-of-age story about a young boy who must kill his first crab to prove he’s a man and win his father’s approval.

Samantha Moore’s stop-motion documentary Visible Mending examines the way that people use the art of knitting to repair themselves, even if complete mending is impossible. Just last week, the full short was shared by The New York Times Film Club, accompanied by several thought-provoking questions.

Karni Arieli, Saul Freed, and Jay Woolley’s Wild Summon was recently shortlisted by the Oscars, and looks like a strong contender for this year’s BAFTA. The fantasy/natural history short follows the life cycles of salmon, except that the fish in this film take on the form of humans. Wild Summon’s surreal nature is grounded by ultrarealistic vfx and animation.

This year’s vfx nominees include The Creator, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Napoleon, and Poor Things.  Perhaps surprisingly, Oppenheimer didn’t get a vfx nod despite winning several effects plaudits at major awards ceremonies in recent weeks and being the most-nominated film at this year’s BAFTAs.

The 2024 BAFTA Film Awards will be hosted by David Tennant on Sunday, February 18, and can be watched on BBC One and iPlayer in the U.K. and Britbox in North America.

Here are the 2024 animation and vfx BAFTA nominees.

Animated Film

• The Boy and the Heron – Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki
• Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget – Sam Fell, Leyla Hobart, Steve Pegram
• Elemental – Peter Sohn, Denise Ream
• Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse – Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Avi Arad, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Amy Pascal, Christina Steinberg

British Short Animation

• Crab Day – Ross Stringer, Bartosz Stanislawek, Aleksandra Sykulak
• Visible Mending – Samantha Moore, Tilley Bancroft
• Wild Summon – Karni Arieli, Saul Freed, Jay Woolley

Special Visual Effects

• The Creator – Jonathan Bullock, Charmaine Chan, Ian Comley, Jay Cooper
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – Theo Bialek, Stephane Ceretti, Alexis Wajsbrot, Guy Williams
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – Neil Corbould, Simone Coco, Jeff Sutherland, Alex Wuttke
• Napoleon – Henry Badgett, Neil Corbould, Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet
• Poor Things – Simon Hughes

Original Score

• Killers of the Flower Moon, Robbie Robertson
• Oppenheimer, Ludwig Göransson
•  Poor Things, Jerskin Fendrix Saltburn, Anthony Willis
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Daniel Pemberton