It’s that time of year again—when kids films get a chance to shine at Hollywood’s most important award ceremony of the year. Nominations for the 98th edition of the Academy Awards were officially announced this morning, and we’ve got your breakdown of the biggest highlights and surprises for kids & family fare.

HUNTR/X don’t miss
One of this year’s surest award-season bets, Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation’s KPop Demon Hunters (pictured) earned its two expected nominations for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song with “Golden”.

KPDH is fresh off of Golden Globe wins in the same categories, putting its Oscar odds well ahead of the other contenders. The most competition it’s likely to face comes from crowd-pleaser Zootopia 2 (which could leverage its record-setting box-office success to attract votes) and the French indie flick Arco (an Annecy prize winner co-produced by Natalie Portman). Pixar’s Elio, a box-office bomb that has shown surprising resilience during awards season, and Ikki Films’ co-pro Little Amélie or the Character of Rain round out this year’s Best Animated Feature shortlist.

Not so popular
Wicked: For Good didn’t defy gravity this time around, walking away with zero nominations. Even though the musical sequel wasn’t received as well by critics as its predecessor (which earned 10 nods last year), For Good has been a consistent presence at other award shows in recent months, particularly in the craft and music categories—which makes this one of the more shocking snubs of the season.

The anime factor
The Best Animated Feature category’s shortlist looks pretty much the same as the Golden Globes—the one title that got left out by the Academy is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle, even as Crunchyroll remained hopeful about its prospects. This anime feature was one of last year’s biggest box-office hits, with a theatrical run of almost US$780 million. And the snub may very well ignite debate around representation of the increasingly popular genre at the Oscars, which has not extended far beyond Studio Ghibli. 

Other notables
Best Visual Effects, which is usually where four-quadrant superhero pics get to shine, completely shut out the likes of Superman (DC Studios) and Fantastic Four: First Steps (Marvel Studios)—but the dinosaurs in Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth made the cut. And the Best Animated Short category has family-friendly nominees like Forevergreen and The Girl Who Cried Pearls in the running.

Here are this year’s Animated Feature and Animated Short nominations, and a full list of 2026 Oscar contenders is available online.

Animated Feature Film

Arco – Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry, Sophie Mas and Natalie Portman

Elio – Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina and Mary Alice Drumm

KPop Demon Hunters – Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans and Michelle L.M. Wong

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain – Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, Nidia Santiago and Henri Magalon

Zootopia 2 – Jared Bush, Byron Howard and Yvett Merino

Animated Short Film

Butterfly – Florence Miailhe and Ron Dyens

Forevergreen – Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears

The Girl Who Cried Pearls – Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

Retirement Plan – John Kelly and Andrew Freedman

The Three Sisters – Konstantin Bronzit