The contenders for the Best Animated Feature Oscar are revealed

With 2011 rapidly drawing to a close, we're now just a few short months away from awards season and yesterday the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed the eighteen films that will duke it out for an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Animated Feature at the 84th Academy Awards in February.

Specifying that 'submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and meet all of the category's other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process', the Academy announced the potential nominees, which includes the Steven Spielberg / Peter Jackson collaboration The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Pixar sequel Cars 2, Aardman's Arthur Christmas and live-action/animation hybrids such as The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.

Take a look at all of the contenders...

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (dir. Steven Spielberg)
Alois Nebel (dir. Tomáš Luňák)
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked (dir. Mike Mitchell)
Arthur Christmas (dir. Sarah Smith)
Cars 2 (dir. John Lasseter, Brad Lewis)
A Cat in Paris (dir. Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol)
Chico & Rita (dir. Tono Errando, Javier Mariscal, Fernando Trueba)
Gnomeo & Juliet (dir. Kelly Asbury)
Happy Feet Two (dir. George Miller)
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (dir. Mike Disa)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (dir. Jennifer Yuh)
Mars Needs Moms (dir. Simon Wells)
Puss in Boots (dir. Chris Miller)
Rango (dir. Gore Verbinski)
Rio (dir. Carlos Saldanha)
Winnie the Pooh (dir. Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall)
Wrinkles (dir. Ignacio Ferreras)

With 18 features submitted this year, Academy rules state that five films will receive a nomination, unlike last year when Pixar's Toy Story 3 took the Oscar against competition from How to Train Your Dragon and The Illusionist. Toy Story 3's victory was the fourth consecutive year that Pixar were honoured with the award following victories for Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up and indeed, the last time they tasted defeat was back in 2006 when Cars lost out to Happy Feet. Both sequels will be strong possibilities for a nomination this time out, but if I had to hazard a guess as to the winner, I'd say the lure of having Spielberg and Jackson up on stage together will prove to much for the Academy voters to ignore (even though Tintin falls somewhat short of Oscar-winning material).

And finally, I'd be hugely surprised if a live-action/animation hybrid secures a nomination, as this would really open up a can of worms in terms of what constitutes an 'Animated Feature'. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, anyone?

The Oscar nominations are announced on January 24th and the 84th Academy Awards ceremony takes place on February 26th, 2012.