Which Disney animated feature was the first to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture?

The first Disney animated feature nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture was Beauty and the Beast.

Released in 1991, Beauty and the Beast made Oscar history as the first fully animated feature nominated for Best Picture. It competed at the 64th Academy Awards alongside The Silence of the Lambs, which won the award. At the time, the Best Picture category had only five nominees, making the achievement especially notable.

The film received six Oscar nominations and won two: Best Original Score for Alan Menken and Best Original Song for “Beauty and the Beast.” It also received nominations for Best Sound and two additional original songs, “Belle” and “Be Our Guest.”

The nomination helped challenge the idea that animated films belonged only in specialist or children’s categories. Beauty and the Beast later became one of the defining films of the Disney Renaissance. Pixar’s Up and Toy Story 3 were subsequently nominated for Best Picture after the Academy expanded the category, while the separate Best Animated Feature category was introduced in 2001.