The Boy and the Heron Wins the Best Animated Feature at the 96th Oscars

Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron won the Best Animated Feature award at the 96th Academy Awards (Oscars). The movie was nominated alongside Elemental, Nimona, Robot Dreams, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The award was credited to Hayao Miyazaki, who directed and wrote the script, and Toshio Suzuki, who produced the movie.

Best Animated Feature winner was the first big reveal at this year’s Oscars, which features 23 categories. Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki’s first Academy Award was in the Best Animated Feature category for Spirited Away in 2003. Since then, the studio has been nominated for an Oscar five times (The Boy and the Heron included).

The Boy and the Heron, dubbed as Miyazaki’s final movie, was released in July of this year in Japan. The film was inspired by Yoshino Genzaburo’s How Do You Live? novel from 1937, but it is not a direct adaptation. Instead, it features elements from Miyazaki’s own life. The movie had its international premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, while the US premiere came during the 61st annual New York Film Festival. The movie has been screening in North American, Australian, and New Zealand cinemas since December.

Kenshi Yonezu performed the film’s theme song titled “Spinning Globe.” The voice cast includes:

• Soma Santoki/Luca Padovan as Mahito
• Masaki Suda/Robert Pattison as the Gray Heron
• Ko Shibasaki/Florence Pugh as Kiriko
• Aimyon/Karen Fukuhara as Himi
• Yoshino Kimura/Gemma Chan as Natusko
• Takuya Kimura/Christian Bale as Shoichi
• Shinobu Otake as Aiko
• Keiko Takeshita as Izumi
• Jun Fubuki as Utako
• Sawako Agawa as Eriko
• Karen Takizawa as Warawara
• Jun Kunimura as the Great King of the Parrots 
• Kaoru Kobayashi/William Dafoe as the Old Pelican
• Jun Kunimura/Dave Bautista as The Parakeet King

Earlier this year, The Boy and the Heron became the first Japanese movie to win a Golden Globe award. It also won a BAFTA, adding to its growing list of accomplishments.

Source: The Boy and the Heron at the Oscars
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