Oscars Nominations 2022: 8 Ups & 9 Downs

4. The Boring, Predictable Best Animated Film Nominees

Easily one of the most predictable categories this year was Best Animated Feature, which saw the acclaimed likes of Encanto, Flee, Luca, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, and Raya and the Last Dragon receive nods.

Now in fairness all of these films are good-to-great animations, but given that three of them fall under the umbrella of Disney and one other under Netflix, the only particularly left-field and truly interesting choice was animated documentary Flee.

It would've been great to see beloved Japanese animated film Belle make the cut, but instead it seems like Oscar voters largely just went the least adventurous path possible, with Flee making the cut because its nominations in Best Documentary and Best International Feature basically guaranteed it.