Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - 1 nomination

 

Best Animated Feature Film
Joel Crawford
Mark Swift

Puss in Boots discovers that he has burned through 8 of his 9 lives acting as a hero and sometimes, just acting like an idiot.  He hangs up his crime fighting hat and plants himself at a safe house full of cats with little to threaten his last life.  There he meets Perrito, a little dog full of sunshine and kindness. One day, the Goldilocks and 3 Bears crime family comes along to hunt Puss down, and he overhears them say that a magical wishing star exists and they are looking for the map, which is about to go to Jack Horner who hordes magical objects so that only he can access their magic. Puss goes to steal the map and runs into his ex-fiancee Kitty Softpaws, who he left at the altar. Now the hunt is on to use the map, to be the first to the magical wishing star, and to reap its rewards no matter the cost ultimately recharging his lives back to 9.

This is the 3rd in the Puss in Boots trilogy, itself a spin off from the Shrek series, and I have to say, the films hold up.  This one was fun, had incredibly beautiful animation, and a compelling storyline.  I'm generally not a fan of pushing any one series to its limits (save Star Wars and the MCU, they can keep making them, I'll keep watching them) because the more stories you add onto a character, the less interesting they tend to become.  Not so with the Puss in Boots series, I enjoyed every single one of them, and I'll happily take more if they've got 'em.