What matters more in animation awards — getting nominated, or actually winning?
At the Annie Awards, those two numbers often tell very different stories. Some studios flood the ballot with nominations year after year, while others quietly convert a smaller number of nods into an impressive streak of wins.
Pixar may lead in trophies, Disney may dominate nominations, and DreamWorks, Sony, and Netflix each have their own lane in the race. In this breakdown, we look at which studios truly lead the Annie Awards over time — and why the results are more complicated than a simple scoreboard.
Let’s start with the metric that most people care about first: total wins.
These numbers focus on feature-film victories at the Annie Awards, giving us a clear picture of which studios have turned their nominations into actual trophies on the big night.
At number one — no surprise — is Pixar Animation Studios with 10 wins.
Pixar doesn’t just get nominated; it converts. Films like The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Inside Out, Coco, and Soul have all turned critical acclaim into major Annie Award hauls, often dominating categories like character animation, direction, writing, and music.
The Incredibles
The Incredibles helped prove that superhero storytelling could work brilliantly in animation, blending family drama, action, and sleek retro-futurist design. Its strong Annie performance cemented it as one of Pixar’s most broadly admired achievements and one of the studio’s biggest awards-season heavyweights.
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo paired emotional storytelling with a technically stunning underwater world, and that combination made it a huge Annie success. Its awards run showed how Pixar could turn a deeply personal parent-child story into something universally powerful while also pushing animation technology forward.
Ratatouille
Ratatouille turned an unlikely premise — a rat becoming a chef in Paris — into one of Pixar’s most elegant and critically acclaimed films. It won big at the Annies, including Best Animated Feature, and stood out for its sophisticated design, expressive character work, and attention to food, movement, and atmosphere.
Inside Out
Inside Out transformed human emotions into memorable characters and built an entire adventure around a child’s inner life. That imaginative concept helped it dominate the Annie Awards with 10 wins, placing it among the most successful animated films in the ceremony’s history.
Coco
Coco remains the ultimate Annie Awards success story, setting the record for the most wins by a single film with 11 trophies in one year.
Soul
Soul brought Pixar into more philosophical territory, mixing jazz, spirituality, and existential reflection with the studio’s usual emotional clarity. Its awards success showed that the Annies were willing to embrace animated films that were quieter, more reflective, and more ambitious in theme than the typical family blockbuster.
What sets Pixar apart is consistency: even when individual box office results vary, the studio’s focus on emotional storytelling and technical craft keeps it at the top of industry voting. At the Annies, that philosophy translates directly into wins, not just recognition.
Next up is Walt Disney Studios with 8 wins.
Disney may not quite match Pixar’s trophy count, but its overall impact at the Annies is undeniable.
Mulan
Mulan marks a key point in Disney’s 90s renaissance, blending myth, music, and action into a more grounded, war-epic style of storytelling. Its success at the Annies helped establish that Disney could tackle more serious themes while still delivering crowd-pleasing animation and songs.
Frozen
Frozen didn’t just conquer the box office and the Oscars — it was also a major Annie Award force, winning multiple trophies including Best Animated Feature and recognition for its music and direction. Its runaway success cemented Disney’s modern musical formula and kept the studio at the front of the awards conversation.
Zootopia
Zootopia turned a talking‑animal comedy into a sharp allegory about prejudice, earning a leading haul of nominations and six wins at the Annies, including Best Animated Feature and Directing.
Raya and the Last Dragon
Raya and the Last Dragon carried Disney into a new fantasy world inspired by Southeast Asian cultures, showcasing complex action scenes and lush worldbuilding. While it faced tough competition, its Annie recognition underlined how much the industry valued its visual design and choreography.
Encanto
With its magical family drama and music‑driven storytelling, Encanto became another awards-season favorite, earning multiple Annie nominations and wins in categories like music, character animation, and storyboarding.
Together, these films have all played major roles during their respective awards seasons, often competing directly with Pixar or other studios. Disney’s wins tend to come from projects that blend classic musical storytelling with modern themes — movies that feel like “event” releases and command attention across multiple categories.
DreamWorks Animation follows with 6 wins, cementing its status as a consistent Annie Awards contender.
Shrek
Shrek helped redefine early‑2000s animation with its irreverent tone, fairy‑tale parodies, and CG worldbuilding. Its Annie Awards success announced DreamWorks as a true rival to Disney and Pixar.
Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda swept the Annies the year it competed, winning 10 feature categories and even shutting out Pixar’s WALL‑E at that ceremony.
How to Train Your Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon dominated its Annie year with 10 wins from 15 nominations, including Best Animated Feature, and helped DreamWorks earn a reputation for heartfelt epics, not just comedies.
DreamWorks has built its reputation on character-driven comedy, action, and richly designed fantasy worlds. When a DreamWorks film connects, it often shows up in multiple craft categories.
Sony Pictures Animation has emerged as a major force in the last decade, with 4 wins.
The studio’s profile skyrocketed with projects like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which introduced a bold comic-book-inspired visual style that reshaped expectations for mainstream animation.
Spider‑Man: Into the Spider‑Verse
Into the Spider‑Verse exploded onto the awards scene with its comic‑panel visuals, mixed frame rates, and experimental color work, quickly becoming an Annie Awards favorite.
Spider‑Man: Across the Spider‑Verse
Across the Spider‑Verse expanded that visual language even further, introducing multiple art styles and worlds that each felt like their own animated universe.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
The Mitchells vs. the Machines continued Sony’s 2D‑inspired CG look while delivering a heartfelt family‑road‑trip story layered with internet culture and absurdist humor. It won eight Annies and showed that Sony’s new visual identity could support both superhero epics and original comedies.
Rounding out the wins list are Netflix Animation and Warner Bros. Animation, each with 2 wins.
Netflix has made a rapid impact in a short time through films like Klaus, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and The Sea Beast, showing that streaming platforms can compete directly with theatrical studios when it comes to artistry and awards momentum.
Klaus (Netflix)
Klaus helped announce Netflix as a serious awards player by reviving 2D‑style animation with modern lighting and shading techniques.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio dominated its Annie year with nine nominations and won five, including Best Animated Feature.
The Sea Beast (Netflix)
The Sea Beast brought large‑scale sea‑monster adventure to streaming and earned multiple Annie nominations alongside other Netflix titles.
The Iron Giant (Warner Bros.)
The Iron Giant may have underperformed at the box office on release, but it became a major awards and cult favorite over time. Its Annie recognition and later critical reappraisal turned it into one of Warner Bros.’ most respected animated features.
Wins are one side of the story. Nominations tell you which studios are constantly in the conversation.
When we switch from wins to nominations, the leaderboard changes — and the gap between visibility and conversion becomes a lot clearer.
At the top of the nominations chart is Walt Disney Studios with a massive 35 nominations.
That is nearly a decade’s worth of continuous presence across Annie ballots. From the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s through the modern era of Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and beyond, Disney has been hard to ignore when it comes to getting onto the shortlist.
However, those 35 nominations don’t translate into a proportionally higher number of wins, which is where the gap between prestige and conversion starts to show.
Frozen
Frozen not only won multiple Annies but also helped drive Disney’s overall nomination totals, leading categories in direction, music, and animation the year it competed.
Big Hero 6
Big Hero 6 combined superhero action, robotics, and heartfelt grief themes, earning several Annie nominations and a win, alongside major awards success elsewhere.
Zootopia
With 11 Annie nominations and six wins, Zootopia was one of Disney’s biggest awards hauls of the 2010s, headlining the studio’s presence on the ballot that year.
Pixar Animation Studios stands as one of the strongest performers in Annie Awards history, with 26 nominations in this comparison set.
What makes Pixar especially impressive is not just the nomination count, but how efficiently the studio converts those nominations into wins. With 10 wins from 26 nominations, Pixar has built a reputation for turning acclaimed animated features into major awards-season success stories.
Pixar’s nomination strength has been driven by films like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Inside Out, and Coco, all of which became major Annie players in their respective seasons.
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo gave Pixar one of its earliest all-around Annie triumphs, pairing emotional storytelling with a visually groundbreaking underwater world.
The Incredibles
The Incredibles pushed superhero storytelling into animated prestige territory, with sleek design, dynamic action, and a strong family core.
Ratatouille
Ratatouille turned an unusual concept into one of Pixar’s most acclaimed awards runs and proved the studio could elevate strange ideas into prestige animation.
Inside Out
Inside Out transformed psychology and memory into a colorful, emotionally accessible adventure, and its awards-season dominance reinforced Pixar’s reputation for turning abstract ideas into mainstream success.
Coco
Coco remains one of Pixar’s most powerful Annie Awards success stories, combining music, family emotion, and cultural specificity into a major awards force.
Overall, Pixar’s 26 nominations reflect a studio built on consistency, emotional storytelling, and technical excellence.
DreamWorks Animation matches Pixar with 26 nominations, proving just how strong its Annie Awards presence has been over the years.
While DreamWorks has a lower win total overall, its nomination count shows that the studio has remained a constant force in the awards conversation. Rather than relying on one signature formula, DreamWorks built its Annie profile through bold commercial hits, fantasy adventures, broad comedy, and franchise storytelling.
Its nomination strength has been powered by films like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon.
Shrek
Shrek announced DreamWorks as a serious animation rival by using fairy-tale parody, celebrity voice casting, and a more irreverent tone than most family animation at the time.
Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda gave DreamWorks one of its biggest Annie triumphs, sweeping feature categories and earning enormous awards respect.
How to Train Your Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon became one of DreamWorks’ defining Annie Awards achievements, combining emotional storytelling with spectacular flying sequences and sweeping fantasy atmosphere.
DreamWorks’ 26 nominations tell the story of a studio that may not always convert at Pixar’s rate, but that repeatedly produces films big enough, bold enough, and popular enough to stay in the Annie spotlight.
10 nominations: Sony Pictures Animation
9 nominations: Warner Bros.
8 nominations: 20th Century Fox
Sony’s 10 nominations reflect its steady climb from early efforts like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to game-changers like the Spider-Verse films.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was one of Sony Pictures Animation’s early breakout hits, mixing slapstick comedy with a surprisingly heartfelt father‑son story.
Warner Bros.’ 9 nominations come from a mix of feature films, hybrid projects, and stylized titles that have attracted attention whenever the studio fully invests in animation.
20th Century Fox (through Blue Sky Studios and other banners) built its tally via franchises like Ice Age and Rio, consistently placing films into the Annie conversation even without always topping the winner’s list.
Ice Age
Ice Age was the film that put Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox Animation firmly on the map, launching a long‑running franchise from an unlikely prehistoric buddy‑comedy premise.
Rio
Rio continued Fox’s momentum with a vibrant, music‑driven story set in Brazil, praised for its colorful depiction of Rio de Janeiro and energetic bird animation.
7 nominations each: Aardman Animations, Netflix Animation
6 nominations: Laika
These studios may not dominate the raw Annie totals the way Disney or Pixar do, but they carry some of the strongest artistic identities in the animation world.
Aardman Animations
Aardman has long been associated with handcrafted stop-motion charm, dry British humor, and characters who feel instantly recognizable.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit became one of Aardman’s biggest Annie triumphs, sweeping 10 categories including Best Animated Feature.
Laika
Laika has built a reputation around darker fantasy, technical innovation in stop-motion, and films that often feel more eerie, emotional, and visually intricate than mainstream family animation.
Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link
These films helped shape Laika’s Annie identity and explain why the studio remains a respected name in animation awards conversations even without Disney-level output.
Netflix Animation
Netflix reached this level much faster than older studios, building its Annie profile through a mix of prestige projects, original features, and filmmaker-driven releases.
Klaus
Klaus helped put Netflix on the Annie map by reviving a hand-drawn look with modern lighting and digital polish.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio became one of Netflix’s most important Annie titles, earning nine nominations and winning five, including Best Animated Feature.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Nimona
Netflix also expanded its Annie footprint with films like The Mitchells vs. the Machines, which won eight Annies, and Nimona, which led the 2024 nominations for Netflix with nine.
What unites Aardman, Laika, and Netflix is that all three studios are recognized for distinctiveness. They may not dominate the overall leaderboard, but their films often feel more handcrafted, adventurous, or stylistically daring than the average studio release.
So what happens when you put wins and nominations side by side?
Pixar looks like the efficiency champion: fewer nominations than Disney, but a higher conversion rate into wins. When Pixar shows up with a major film, it is often the one to beat.
Disney is the volume leader — constantly present, hugely influential, and almost always nominated, even if it doesn’t top the win column every single year.
DreamWorks fills the role of consistent competitor, rarely absent from the conversation when it has a big release on the calendar.
Sony feels like the rising challenger, especially in the last decade, powered by projects that change how audiences think about mainstream animation.
And studios like Laika and Aardman? They might not dominate the charts, but they have carved out a space where almost every new film feels like an event — the kind of work that animators and critics talk about long after awards season ends.
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So — which studio do you think truly dominates animation at the Annie Awards?
Is it Pixar’s precision and conversion rate, Disney’s legacy and nomination power, DreamWorks’ steady presence, or the bold risks of Sony, Laika, Aardman, and Netflix?
Let me know in the comments, and if you love award stats, film records, and animation deep dives, don’t forget to like, share, and explore more posts from Cinema Awards Archive.
