Best Picture Oscar nomination for ‘Inside Out 2’?

“Inside Out 2” roared into cinema in June, becoming Pixar’s highest-grossing film in a debut weekend of all time, while its current worldwide haul at this time of writing stands at just over one billion.

The first movie — one of the most ingenious films of this century — took audiences inside the head of young Riley as she navigated a move to a new city while her emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust) tried to guide her through the move in her head. This second film brings back those emotions as Riley goes through her teenage years. But Joy and Sadness and the gang have to deal with several new emotions in headquarters, including Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Ennui.

But while the film marches towards $1 billion at the box office, could it also be marching towards awards glory? Well, animated flicks don’t get the justice they deserve when it comes to the Academy Awards. So often, animated movies are some of the most original, memorable, and well-told stories of the entire year yet they are, more often than not, confined to the category of Best Animated Picture.

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” “Fantasia,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “The Lion King,” “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” “WALL-E,” “Shrek,” and last year’s Best Animated Picture winner, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” are just a handful of all-time classic movies that aren’t great animated movies, they are great movies period. Despite this, however, we have only had three animated movies in Oscars history that have been nominated for Best Picture.

“Beauty and the Beast” was the first animated movie to do so, landing a Best Picture bid in 1991. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, “Beauty and the Beast” was nominated for six Oscars: Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Original Score, and thrice for Best Original Song for “Be Our Guest,” “Belle,” and “Beauty and the Beast.” The movie won Best Original Score (for Alan Menken) and Best Original Song for “Beauty and the Beast” (for Menken and Howard Ashman). The movie lost Best Sound to “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” while Best Picture went to “The Silence of the Lambs.” The other Best Picture nominees that year were “Bugsy,” “JFK,” and “The Prince of Tides.” The Best Picture nomination for “Beauty and the Beast” was even more notable as it came before the inception of the Best Animated Feature category, which was created in 2002.

The second animated film to be nominated for Best Picture was “Up,” which was nominated in 2010 alongside “Avatar,” “The Blind Side,” “District 9,” “An Education,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Precious,” “A Serious Man,” “Up in the Air,” and Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker.” “Up,” which was directed by Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson, also won two Oscars — Best Original Score for Michael Giacchino and Best Animated Feature. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay (for Doctor, Peterson, and Tom McCarthy) and Best Sound Editing.

The third, final, and most recent animated film to land a Best Picture nomination was another Pixar flick — “Toy Story 3,” which was directed by Lee Unkrich. This film was nominated for Best Picture the year after “Up” in 2011, where it was nominated alongside “Black Swan,” “The Fighter,” “Inception,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “127 Hours,” “The Social Network,” “True Grit,” “Winter’s Bone,” and Best Picture winner “The King’s Speech.” “Toy Story 3” won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (for Randy Newman for “We Belong Together”). It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay (for Unkrich, Andrew Stanton, John Lasseter, and Michael Arndt) and Best Sound Editing.

So, those are the three history makers, although the likes of “The Lion King,” “Finding Nemo,” “Ratatouille,” “WALL-E,” and “Shrek” surely came close to joining them. But that’s the past. Let’s look ahead to the future.

Could “Inside Out 2” become the fourth animated flick to snag a Best Picture animation? Well, the first film won Best Animated Feature (for director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera) while it also earned a Best Original Screenplay citation for Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, and Ronnie Del Carmen. That writing bid was only the ninth time an animated film has been Oscar-nominated for writing while it is also the most recent animation to earn such a nomination.

The good news, however, is that two out of three of the Best Picture-cited animated films were Pixar flicks — “Up” and “Toy Story 3.” “Inside Out 2” has the box office backing while it also has the critical backing. The sequel sits on 91% on Rotten Tomatoes with the site’s critical consensus reading: “Spicing things up with the wrinkle of teenage angst, ‘Inside Out 2’ clears the head and warms the heart by living up to its predecessor’s emotional intelligence.” This unexpected, awe-inspiring success could result in “Inside Out 2” becoming just the 4th animated flick to score a Best Picture nomination.

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