Golden Globes Surprise With Animated Feature Nominations For ‘Wish,’ ‘Suzume’

This year’s Golden Globes nominees were revealed today, and the animated feature race sees big budget U.S. studio fare go up against the best from Japan.

Best Motion Picture, Animated

• The Boy and the Heron (Studio Ghibli)
• Elemental (Pixar)
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Animation)
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Illumination)
• Suzume (Toho Co.)
• Wish (Disney)

The big U.S. award shows have largely ignored anime titles in the past, and it was easy to envision a scenario in which voters would only be willing to pick one film from the region. In fact, the Globes have never nominated two anime titles in the same year, making the inclusion of Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume a pleasant surprise. That said, the nomination is entirely deserved considering the film’s critical, audience, and box office receptions.

In addition to an animated feature selection, The Boy and the Heron scored a second nod when composer Joe Hisaishi picked up a long overdue nomination for best original score. The deeper we get into awards season, the more this film feels the frontrunner to score most of the big animation prizes.

This year’s four other nominees are all major Hollywood studio titles, meaning U.S. independent films and films from anywhere else in the world were blanked. That’s especially disappointing in a year with so many animated films to chose from.

Perhaps this year’s most surprising nominee is Disney’s Wish, which was panned by critics and is being ignored by audiences. It’s one of Disney’s most poorly reviewed theatrical animated films ever and will surely be one of the studio’s biggest box office bombs. It’s hard to see what Golden Globe voters saw in Wish that audiences have not.

Peter Sohn’s Elemental got a mixed first reaction from critics when it premiered at Cannes and failed to ignite the box office when it was released in June. Yet, incredibly strong word of mouth fueled a tremendous comeback and one of the year’s most impressive box office runs. Audiences genuinely loved the film, and after it hit Disney+, it took only ten days to become the platform’s most-streamed title of the year.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers, is the critically and commercially successful sequel to the 2019 Golden Globe-winner Into the Spider-Verse. Reviews largely agreed that the film was a step forward for the franchise, and audiences flocked to see it in theaters, where it out-grossed its predecessor by more than $300 million. The film’s composer, Daniel Pemberton, joins Hisaishi as a nominee in this year’s best score category.

Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, was the biggest animated commercial hit of the year, grossing $1.36 billion. Mario’s virtues don’t end at the box office, though. The film was expertly animated and had a tremendous cultural impact all around the world. Horvath, Jelenic, Jack Black, Eric Osmond, and John Spiker also received a best original song nomination for “Peaches.”

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Super Mario Bros. Movie were also nominated for the new Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award, recognizing the year’s highest-earning and/or most-watched films globally. The category is open to films that gross more than $150 million globally and $100 million in the U.S. Alternatively, streaming-first titles can qualify by reaching certain milestones tracked by industry sources.

Cinematic and Box Office Achievement

• Barbie (Warner Bros.)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel Studios)
• John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate Films)
• Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 (Paramount Pictures)
• Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Animation)
• Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (AMC Theaters)
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Illumination)

Best Score

• Ludwig Göransson — Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
• Jerskin Fendrix — Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures)
• Robbie Robertson — Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
• Mica Levi — The Zone of Interest (A24)
• Daniel Pemberton — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures)
• Joe Hisaishi — The Boy and the Heron (GKids)

Best Original Song

• Barbie — “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish and Finneas
• Barbie — “Dance the Night” by Caroline Ailin, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt
• She Came to Me — “Addicted to Romance” by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie — “Peaches” by Jack Black, Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Eric Osmond, and John Spiker
• Barbie — “I’m Just Ken” by Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt
• Rustin — “Road to Freedom” by Lenny Kravitz