Does Up Have the Right Stuff? See Which Toons Are Oscar Eligible

Wed., Nov. 11, 2009 12:24 PM PST by Josh Grossberg

Monsters vs. Aliens, Ponyo, Up, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

DreamWorks; NibarikiGNDHDDT/Disney; Disney/Pixar; Twentieth Century Fox

Now here's a Balloon Boy Hollywood can really get behind. As expected, Up leads the record 20 eligible films for the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Disney-Pixar's latest instant-classic, which is also aspiring for a Best Picture nod, seems a lock for one of the five animation slots when the nominations are announced on Feb. 2.

Jockeying for the other four will be intense. Japanese master and previous Academy Award winner Hayao Miyazaki hopes for some Oscar bait with the acclaimed hand-drawn Ponyo, about a goldfish who wants to be a little girl.

But he'll need to ward off a slew of big-budget, big-box-office, big-studio submissions, including DreamWorks Animation's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Monsters vs. Aliens, 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Universal's stop-motion creepfest Coraline, and a couple other Disney efforts: the Jim Carrey-powered A Christmas Carol and the Mouse House's return to traditional hand-drawn fare, The Princess and the Frog, due out Dec. 11.

Another forthcoming film that has a shot is Fantastic Mr. Fox, quirkmeister Wes Anderson's first foray into animation, a stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl featuring voice work by George Clooney and Meryl Streep.

Get the complete list of qualifying films after the jump.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Astro Boy
Battle for Terra
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Coraline
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Dolphin - Story of a Dreamer
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Mary and Max
The Missing Lynx
Monsters vs. Aliens
9
Planet 51
Ponyo
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
A Town Called Panic
Up

This is only the second time since the creation of the category nine years ago that five films have made the cut. The only previous time was in 2002, when 17 films were submitted. (If fewer than 16 are deemed eligible, only three can be nominated.)

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