Ratatouille Try for Best Picture?

Should Disney/Pixar try for a Best Picture Oscar for Ratatouille? Or stay with Best Animated Feature Film? I'll find out.

Ever since Disney's Beauty and the Beast got nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award back in 1992, pundits have wondered if, one day, an animated film might take home the Big Oscar.

When the Academy established the Best Animated Feature Film category in 2002 (first won by Shrek), it indicated that AMPAS, despite rules saying that Best Animated Film nominees were automatically nominated for Best Picture, didn't want cartoons anywhere near the Best Picture category.

Disney chairman Dick Cook had similar concerns. “We all hope this doesn’t take away the opportunity of an animated feature to be recognized as Best Picture,” he told Variety in December of 2000.

However, no animated film since 1992 has received the universal plaudits given to Ratatouille. Should Disney/Pixar try for a Best Picture nomination, or content themselves with an almost certain win in Best Animated Feature Film?

The only real competition for Ratatouille comes from Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, which some pundits liked even more than Bird's flick. However, the short list for Best Picture nominations is pretty weak this year, with no other film getting Ratatouille's critical love.

The downside? The Best Picture field is an R-rated zone, with only two PG-rated films getting nominations in the past 10 years. Neither of those two, 2004's Finding Neverland and 2005's Good Night and Good Luck, were serious contenders. Ratatouille's G rating is a liability here.

Also, if Ratatouille tries for Best Picture, it may hurt its chances in the Best Animated film category, which means that Persepolis could steal the animated prize. That said, Persepolis has a similar issue with its Best Foreign Film nomination.

Should Ratatouille try for Best Picture? Stay tuned and see what I find out.