DreamWorks Has Alarming Annie Awards Night With 'The Wild Robot' Sweep And 'Orion' Wins
'Arcane' swept its TV categories, while 'Dream Productions', and 'Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur' captured multiple wins for Disney
The 2025 Annie Awards were held Saturday night, and it was sweepingly wild. In fact, “wild” and “fire” were a little too close together again on a night that once again honored firefighters as the community reels from the Los Angeles wildfires, and the fire alarm went off leading to an approximate 20 minute evacuation and delay. Their Animaid fundraising initiative raised $107,000. DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot won all nine awards it was nominated for including Best Feature, and the double-nominated while Netflix and Riot Games’s Arcane swept with seven wins on seven nominations of its own. Even still, DreamWorks avoided potentially cannibalizing itself on the film side with Orion and the Dark getting two wins on three nominations as a “special production” that mostly competed in television categories thanks to its Netflix release.
Because Flow and Memoir of a Snail are filtered out to the Independent Feature category (but integrated everywhere else), The Wild Robot’s victory in Best Feature still came over Inside Out 2 and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, but also Kung Fu Panda 4, That Christmas, and Ultraman Rising. The film was the only to earn more than three wins. Its victory in Outstanding Achievement for Animated Effects in an Animated Production went to Derek Cheung, Michael Losure, David Chow, Nyoung Kim, and Steve Avoujageli, defeating teams from Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Kung Fu Panda 4, Moana 2, and Ultraman Rising. In Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in a Feature, Fabio Lignini defeated Inside Out 2’s Aviv Mano, Kung Fu Panda 4’s Patrick Guisiano, Moana 2’s Brian Scott, and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’s Carmen Bromfield Mason. For Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in a Feature, Genevieve Tsai was victorious over Inside Out 2’s Deanna Marsigliese, Scarygirl’s Nathan Jurevicius, Spellbound’s Guillermo Ramíre, and That Christmas’s Uwe Heidschötter. Chris Sanders won Best Director over Chicken for Linda!’s Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach, Flow’s Gints Zilbalodis, That Christmas’s Simon Otto, and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’s Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, who were one of several pairs of presenters over the course of the night, starting with Steve Buscemi alone and followed by Gravity Falls screen siblings Kristen Schaal and Jason Ritter and then the voices of Roger Rabbit and Goofy, Charles Fleischer and Bill Farmer. The editorial team of Mary Blee, Collin Erker, Orlando Duenas, Lucie Lyon, and Brian Parker were victorious over those of Inside Out 2, Moana 2, Ultraman: Rising and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Kris Bowers’s win in music was over Kensuke's Kingdom’s Stuart Hancock, Piece by Piece’s Pharrell Williams and Michael Andrews, That Christmas’s John Powell, Ed Sheeran, and Johnny McDaid, and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’s Lorne Balfe and Julian Nott. Raymond Zibach and Ritchie Sacilioc won production design over the teams of Inside Out 2, That Christmas, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Ultraman: Rising, and finally, Lupita Nyong’o won outstanding voice acting in a film as Roz, over co-star Kit Connor as Brightbill, thus sweeping with nine wins despite ten nominations, Inside Out 2’s Maya Hawke as Anxiety, Transformers One’s Brian Tyree Henry as D-16 aka Megatron, and Chicken for Linda!’s Mélinée Leclerc as Linda.
Orion and the Dark won Best Special Production over A Bear Named Wojtek, Mog’s Christmas, Tabby McTat, and Yuck! Writer Charlie Kaufman also won Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production against Yuck!’s Loïc Espuche, Craig of the Creek episode "Whose Dimension Is It Anyway?" writers Harron Atkins, Lorraine DeGraffenreidt, Pearl Low, and Richie Pope Jessica's Big Little World episode "Jessica's Picnic" writers Austin Faber, Gabriel Franklin, Shawneé Gibbs, Shawnelle Gibbs, and Ashleigh Hairston and The Simpsons episode "Bart's Birthday" writer Jessica Conrad. Timothy Lamb and Christine Bian lost Production Design to Arcane’s Arnaud-Loris Baudry, Julien Georgel, Faustine Dumontier, and Charlotte O'Neil with the nominated episode being “The Dirt Under Your Nails", but so did Bert Berry and Josh Holtsclaw from the Dream Productions episode “The Dream Team”. In addition, the episode “A Night To Remember” lost the Animated Effects category to the same Arcane episode, losing alongside three individually-nominated episodes of Secret Level. This is an important distinction as in Character Animation, several episodes each of Arcane (who won), Dream Productions, In The Know, and Star Trek: Lower Decks competed against one another with a single episode of The Patrick Star Show in the mix as well. “A Night To Remember” won Dream Productions Best Limited Series against Iwájú’s "Tola" Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: "Part Three", Moon Girl's Lab: "Moon Girl Saves the Moon", and strangely enough, the decidedly not limited series My Adventures with Superman episode "Pierce the Heavens, Superman!". Schaal was a nominee for voice acting in television as Louise in the Bob’s Burgers episode "They Slug Horses, Don't They?", but alongside costar John Roberts as Linda in "The Right Tough Stuff", Jeremy Jordan as Lucifer Morningstar in the Hazbin Hotel episode “Dad Beat Dad” and Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil in the Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "Splinter and April Fight a Goldfish", lost to Paula Pell as Paula in the Dream Productions episode “Out of the Body” giving the show its second win.
Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles managed four other nominations, with “The Pearl” directors Alan Wan and Colin Heck losing to "The Dirt Under Your Nails"’s Arnaud Delord, Pascal Charrue, and Bart Maunoury, editor Caleb Yoder losing Editorial to Arcane’s "Pretend Like It's the First Time" editors Nazim Meslem, Gilad Carmel, and Roberto Fernandez, and storyboarders Laura Gille, Sebrina Gao, and Kevin Molina-Ortiz losing to Arcane’s "Killing is a Cycle" and its storyboarder Joséphine Meis. “Bishop Makes Her Move!" and character designer Rustam Hasanov were nominated for character design against Dream Productions’s Grant Alexander for "A Night to Remember", Kal Athannassov for Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld’s pilot and X-Men ‘97’s Amelia Vidal for "Mutant Liberation Begins", but they all lost against Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur’s Jose Lopez for the episode "The Molecular Level", which also won best children’s series against Gremlins: The Wild Batch’s “Never Use Double Negatives”, Jurassic World: Chaos Theory’s "Batten Down the Hatches", Primos’s “Summer of Tater Luna” and WondLa’s “Ruins”. Believe it or not, Paramount’s only victory came when The Tiny Chef Show won best preschool series for the episode "Tiny Chef's Spooky Stump Spectacular" against Ariel’s "Crystal Cavern Caper", Gabby’s Dollhouse’s "Pandy's Bad Day", Jessica’s Big Little World's "Jessica's Picnic", and Wonder Pets: In The City’s “Save Tate?”. Bob’s Burgers won best mature series, with the same episode Schaal was nominated for, against The Great North’s "Aunt Misbehavin' Adventure", The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy’s "The Land of Sex and Death", Solar Opposites: "The What If?! Device", and South Park’s “The End Of Obesity”.
Source: Variety