Surprisingly (or not, depending on how you look at it), is an entirely silent film, clocking in at only an hour and a half, and an international feature distributed by Janus Films and UFO Distribution.

Flow's protagonist is a cat, who finds itself in the company of a group of various animals forced to depend on each other when their home is flooded. Flow was evidently one of the best animated movies of 2024, but its awards season run still saw it overcome tough odds. Kicking things off with its Golden Globe win, Flow never lost momentum and made it all the way to Best Animated Feature, despite many still predicting The Wild Robot. However, what is most significant about Flow is what it shares with the most recent winners.

Flow Is The Third Non-Disney/Pixar Movie In A Row To Win Best Animated Feature

Disney Is Seeing Its Longest Drought Without A Best Animated Feature Oscar

2025 marks the third year in a row that a movie that is not Disney and/or Pixar has won Best Animated Feature, making for a record-breaking losing streak. The Best Animated Feature category has been frustrating when it is easy to feel like it is just a self-congratulatory ritual for Disney; when Disney has an off year, the award typically goes to another major Hollywood studio such as DreamWorks. This has also never happened more than two years in a row before, a record that Flow and its contemporaries have now ended.

Last year, Studio Ghibli won its second Oscar for what is considered to be the culmination of Hayao Miyazaki's career, The Boy and the Heron. While Studio Ghibli is undeniably a pop culture staple, it has still regularly lost to Hollywood movies, with the exception of Spirited Away. The previous winner, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, is a Netflix-distributed project that largely seems to have been the streaming service granting the visionary filmmaker the freedom to do what he liked. The years before were business as usual with Disney-Pixar winners, but these three movies triumphed over what may once have been unbeatable competitors.

Flow Winning THIS Year Is An Even Bigger Deal

The Wild Robot & Indside Out 2 Are Really Good Movies

There have certainly been years when not-so-great animated movies made it into the Best Animated Feature category, seemingly because they were produced by Disney or Dreamworks. Titles such as Elemental and Onward received mixed reviews, whereas the RT "rotten" movie The Boss Baby was also apparently considered among "the best." The Academy would fill up the category with the most d movies of the year, voting for the one with the best ratings, giving little consideration to the indie picture thrown in for good measure.

However, that was not the case this year. The big studio entries of Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot both sit comfortably above 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Wild Robot became DreamWorks' highest-rated movie to date. If either had won, it would not have been undeserved. The fact that Flow still won under these conditions reveals something more: that Academy voters are seriously considering whether the indie films are better than the Disney ones, even in the year that they could have excuseably voted for Disney without much thought.

Guillermo del Toro & Hayao Miyazaki Paved The Way To Break Disney's Streak

The Last Two Animated Winners Had Major Filmmakers Attached To Them

Animation has had a lucky combination of movies to get it to this point with the Academy, with Guillermo del Toro and Hayao Miyazaki's sweeping epics happening sequentially. With Pinocchio, the Academy likely had an easier time getting behind del Toro's picture, as he is the director of a Best Picture winner and a renowned artist in the industry. Similar was the situation with Miyazaki; Studio Ghibli may not have won an Oscar since Spirited Away, but it is regularly nominated, and Miyazaki is a respected and known filmmaker.

The competition from Disney-Pixar in both cases, Turning Red and Elemental, are good but not masterpieces. However, Pinocchio and The Boy and the Heron possibly brought Academy voters more into the fold of non-Disney/DreamWorks-style animated movies and established a status quo of them actually winning. Therefore, when it came time to vote for Inside Out 2 or The Wild Robot or Flow, were primed to consider the more intellectual and symbolic offering. Yet, notably, Flow does not have any big Hollywood name behind it, and several such wins on top of each other needed to happen for this win to be possible.

What Flow's Win Means For The Future Of Best Animated Feature

Best Animated Feature Is Now A Real Competition

All this suggests that the dynamics of Best Animated Feature have changed, and Academy voters are now watching each entry and carefully evaluating it, coming to a genuine conclusion about which one has the most to offer in of story and artistry. The Academy may have been moved into seeing Flow by the Golden Globes, and that momentum never died down, but Flow still stands out as the most unique and narratively impressive choice of this year. Furthermore, what is going on outside animated film may force voters to take animation seriously.

Namely, TV is seeing a huge boom in adult animation. While the Academy doesn't have to watch new TV shows if they don't want to, it is harder to keep picking the Disney flick every year when animation has clearly evolved into something greater than the solidly enjoyable family movie. In 2025, Disney and Pixar have Elio coming out, which likely won't present anything dramatically different from the studio's previous titles. On the other hand, Ne Zha 2 has seen a spectacular debut, while Andy Serkis is working on an animated adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Disney and Pixar do produce great movies, which is what permitted this status quo for so long.

There are also likely numerous indie projects in the works that are currently non-existent, as far as the Awarding bodies are concerned, until one amazing festival debut happens and a new movie starts gaining traction. All in all, there are more interesting things coming up than Disney's projects. Disney and Pixar do produce great movies, which is what permitted this status quo for so long. However, it is clear that animation is starting to tell different stories in Hollywood, and Flow's win is just the next step in a long-overdue overhaul for its award.