A Look Back: Top Annie Award Winners

The Annie Awards are this weekend, featuring several contenders for Best Animated Feature. Originally, the Annie Awards were created to honor lifetime or career achievements; in 1992, the Annies started honoring individual films. For fun, I decided to look back at some of the stand-out winners in Annie Award history.

First Best Animated Feature Winner, 1992: Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast took home the very first Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, one of the few categories for the first year of honoring individual achievement. Animator Glen Keane also earned the Annie for Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation.

First non-Disney/Pixar Best Animated Feature Winner, 1997: Cats Don't Dance

Through the five years after Beauty and the Beast made history, Disney and Pixar were dominating the top award categories. In 1997, Cats Don't Dance broke that streak for Warner Bros. and Turner Feature Animation and, with the expansion of categories, composer Randy Newman took home the Annie for Best Individual Achievement: Music in a Feature/Home Video Production.

First to Record-Breaking 10 Awards, 1998: Mulan

The Best Animated Feature award was briefly renamed Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Theatrical Feature from 1998 to 2001. Mulan took home the top award and nine other awards, including Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production to Rita Hsiao, Christopher Sanders, Philip LaZebnik, Raymond Singer, and Eugenia Bostwick-Singer; Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Feature Production to Ming-Na Wen; and Outstanding Individual Achievement for Effects Animation to David Tidgwell.

First Studio Ghibli Winner, 30th Annual Awards, 2002: Spirited Away

Spirited Away was Studio Ghibli's first Best Animated Feature win, marked the 30th Annie Awards, and was the tenth Best Animated Feature winner. The film also took home the awards for Directing in an Animated Feature Production to Hayao Miyazaki; Music in an Animated Feature Production to Joe Hisaishi; and Writing in an Animated Feature Production to Miyazaki.

First Stop-Motion Winner, 2005: Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Curse of the Were-Rabbit was Aardman Animations' first top winner and the first win for the stop-motion animation medium. Aardman also scored nine other wins, including for Animated Effects to Jason Wen, Character Design in a Feature Production to Nick Park, Storyboarding in a Feature Production to Bob Persichetti.

Stay tuned for more Annie Awards madness, Valentine inspiration, and a new Film of the Week series. Be sure to vote for your favorite Best Animated Feature nominee before the Annie Awards this weekend!