Jan 7, 2024

Hayao Miyazaki's "The Boy and the Hare" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature, the first foreign film to do so.

Two days after his 83rd birthday, Hayao Miyazaki won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Film.

"The Boy and the Hare" became the first foreign animated film to win the prestigious award in the animation category at the 18-year-old Globe Awards.

Neither Miyazaki nor producer Toshio Suzuki attended the Golden Globe Awards ceremony in Los Angeles and did not give an acceptance speech. However, Suzuki did issue the following statement through GKIDS, the film's U.S. distributor.

Message from Toshio Suzuki. pic.twitter.com/ANSylS6YMR

- GKIDS Films (@GKIDSfilms) January 8, 2024

The Golden Globes have long seemed indifferent to the presence of anime, but in recent years they have made efforts to recognize films from Japan However, in recent years, the Golden Globes have made an effort to recognize films from Japan. For the first time, an animated film was nominated in 2018 for Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai no Mirai, followed in 2022 by Masaaki Yuasa's The Dog King. This year, two films from Japan were nominated. They are the award-winning Miyazaki film and Makoto Shinkai's "Suzume. (Miyazaki was also nominated in the Foreign Language Film category in 2013 for "The Wind Rises.)

In addition to the two animated films, four American films were nominated in the Animation category: Disney-Pixar's "Elemental," Sony Pictures Animation's "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," Illumination's " Super Mario Brothers Movie," and Disney's "Wishes."

Miyazaki's award is not necessarily a surprise. Last month we wrote that "the more awards season gets going, the more "The Boy and the Hare" feels like a frontrunner to win most of the big animation awards. Nevertheless, it is always unexpected for a foreign animated film to win a high-profile award, especially at the Golden Globes, which has never given an animation award to a non-American film.

As we enter the final months of the awards season, the animated feature honor seems to be becoming a two-way race between "Heron" and "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." Heron has earned top honors from the prestigious L.A. and N.Y. film critics groups, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is often voted top by regional critics' associations.

The National Board of Review recognized both films, naming "Heron" a Top 10 film of 2023 and "Spider-Verse" a Best Animated Feature Film.

Tonight's win for "Heron" further bolsters Miyazaki's momentum, making "The Boy and Heron" the clear frontrunner for the remainder of the season.

"Super Mario Brothers Movie," "The Boy and the Hare," and "Spider-Verse" were also nominated in various music categories, but none of them won.