Dec 13, 2022

Stop Motion dominates LA film critics who opt for "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" as the best animated feature of 2022

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is talking, and according to them, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is the best animated film of 2022.

Marcel The Shell Shoes of Dean Fleischer Camp, the recent winner of this year's animated feature of the New York Film Critics Circle, quasi by LAFCA

La's Most Important Critique Award, endorsements from the Association, often telegraph the final Oscar nominations.

The favorites heading into the best animated feature Oscar race of 2023, Pinocchio and Marcel, also picked up a Golden Globe nod on Monday to bolster their Award season credentials.2 There was a time when it seemed like Marcel might not qualify, but the Academy recently revealed that the stop-motion/live-action hybrid meets the criteria to qualify for the category.

Netflix has done well in the past to notch the nod for some animated features (Klaus, Over the Moon, The Mitchell vs.The Machine), but has yet to win the award. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio still looks like the streamer's best chance. Critics are almost universal in their admiration for the film, and it has topped Netflix's most-watched list in many countries since its launch last week. The cultural impact of the film has been too immense, including an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that was launched last week.

Marcel is the first shot at the animated feature Oscar for a24, but the distributor has been heck of a year for stop-motion animation

which saw a lot of action at the Academy Awards with live-action fare such as Ex Machina, Room and Moonlight. In addition to Pinocchio and Marcel, the next 2023 Oscar will feature three stop-motion features: Henry Selick's Wendell & Wild, Phil Tippett's Mad God and Mascha Halberstad's Dutch-Belgian co-production Oink.