Sony Pictures Animation’s CG pic Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse emerged as the big winner at Saturday night’s 51st-annual Annie Awards ceremony, celebrating excellence in 32 animation categories at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

The web-slinger sequel dominated seven of these fields, winning Best Feature, Best Direction, Best Music, Best Production Design and Best Editorial. Across the Spider-Verse was the sixth highest-grossing film of 2023, earning more than US$690 million globally against a budget in the range of US$100 million to US$150 million. 

In other strong superhero showings, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur took home three trophies in the Annies’ technical TV categories, and Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 won Best Character Animation – Live Action.

Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur scored a trio of prizes in the TV/Media categories for Best Character Design, Best Storyboarding and Best Voice Acting.

Nimona took home the Feature category awards for Best Writing and Best Voice Acting. (Credit: Netflix)

Stop-motion series Ghee Happy won Best TV/Media – Preschool, beating out higher-profile contenders such as Batwheels and The Creature Cases. And other notable family-friendly wins included Arcadia Motion Pictures’ Robot Dreams (Best Independent Feature) and Apple TV+ special Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie (Best Special Production).

Netflix primarily dominated this year’s TV categories with its adult-skewing anime series Blue Eye Samurai, but it also had a strong kids content showing. Fantasy film Nimona (Annapurna Animation) took home awards for Best Voice Acting – Feature and Best Writing – Feature, and the Best TV/Media – Children prize went to an episode of Hilda (Netflix/Hilda Productions/Silvergate Media Company/Mercury Filmworks). 

Netflix topped the 2024 Annies shortlist with 28 nominations that were announced right on the heels of co-CEO Ted Sarandos reiterating the importance of animation in the streamer’s strategy, citing the genre’s consistently strong viewership. (Nimona alone generated 1.8 million hours of watchtime in the first half of 2023.)

A full list of this year’s Annie Awards winners is available online.

Featured image – Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (Courtesy of Sony Pictures Animation)