Take a ‘Meow!’ PETA’s 2024 Oscat Award-Winners Took Animal-Friendly Filmmaking to New Heights
It’s that time of year again—the Oscats are back! For PETA’s eighth annual Oscat Awards, we’re honoring the 2024 films that put kindness to animals in the spotlight with powerful performances, exceptional storylines, and impressive special effects. So, without further ado, let’s roll out the red carpet and present the awards!
Friendship for Good
PETA’s holding space—and a “Friendship for Good” Award—for Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, who show compassion to animals on and off screen. The musical serves as an allegory for animal liberation, emphasized by green queen Elphaba’s call to action: “My heart’s desire is for you to help the animals. Something bad is happening to them, and they need you.” Erivo’s powerful performance as Elphaba—who fights for animal rights in Oz—spells out a clear message: That everyone deserves to live freely, no matter their species. Plus, the real-life besties are also real-life vegans—now that’s what we call leading change for good!
Best Director
In Tim Burton’s stunning return to the macabre world of Beetlejuice, he once again showcased his masterful filmmaking by using numerous types of humane technology—like CGI, props, animatronics, figurines, and even casting his dog Levi— to craft an imaginative portrayal of animals that respects their rights as living beings while pushing the boundaries of cinematic artistry. With other nods to animal rights – like Astrid’s “Boycott Animal Testing” backpack and a “Protect the Animals” poster hanging in her dorm (yes, we noticed!) – Burton shows us that no decision is too small when it comes to creating animal-friendly cinema.
Goats’ G.O.A.T.
Julio Torres brought to screen a film only he could create. This beloved veganista used his platform to advocate for animals stuck in the cruel dairy industry. His choice to order the goat cheese salad without the goat cheese cleverly showed audiences that any meal can be made vegan. Ditching dairy, whether it comes from cows or goats, keeps families together, as dairy farmers regularly separate kids and calves from their mothers. If more people followed Julio’s example, there would be much less suffering. By standing up for goats, Julio proved he’s a G.O.A.T. for goats. He’s a goat’s G.O.A.T.!
Best Actor
And the award for Best Actor goes to… a CGI chimpanzee?! While 2024 featured many wonderful performances, Robbie Williams, as a CGI chimpanzee, captured our hearts and stole the show. Thanks in large part to PETA’s work, the use of chimpanzees in Hollywood is a thing of the past—and Robbie Williams’ biopic-with-a-twist is a glorious celebration of how far we’ve come. Director Chris Mindy threw down the gauntlet to other filmmakers, showing that humane technology is the only ethical way to depict primates onscreen and can be done to powerful, lifelike effect. While the chimpanzee refers to himself as “unevolved,” the lead performance in Better Man is anything but that. This film is yet another reminder that real primates aren’t “actors,” and VFX can give filmmakers the exact performance they want without any of the cruelty.
Best Actress
This year’s Best Actress Oscat goes to the legendary Cate Blanchett. Her performance as Lilith stood out in a crowded field when she rescued Tiny Tina – who fittingly wore a pair of bunny ears –from a laboratory and saved her from cruel experiments. Of course, with Eli Roth in the director’s chair, it’s no surprise that the lead character would send an animal-friendly message to the world. With Eli’s writing and Cate’s brilliant performance, Borderlands tells audiences everywhere that it’s time to close the vault on deadly, painful tests on animals.
Best Sleeper Hit
After a quiet opening weekend in December, the lion awoke, and audiences everywhere experienced Mufasa’s astounding artistry. We agreed wholeheartedly when Mufasa said, “Every being has a place in the circle of life.” Barry Jenkins and his creative team upheld Mufasa’s sage wisdom by using state-of-the-art, photorealistic animation to remind viewers of the endless possibilities for storytelling without exploiting real animals. It’s no surprise that the movie roared at the worldwide box office.
Stick Up for Animals
In one of the more moving films of the year, Tuesday gave audiences an unexpected look at the cruelty of glue traps, which cause immeasurable suffering to rats, mice, and other wildlife. The title character, Tuesday, finds our title macaw stuck in a glue trap, frees him, and washes the glue off his feet. There begins their close (we’ll not say more!) relationship. It’s common for these traps—which are now banned in some cities and countries, and even well-known retailers have stopped selling them – to indiscriminately trap wildlife, leaving them to suffer until they eventually die a slow, agonizing death from dehydration or starvation. Thanks to Daina O. Pusić’s beautiful script and Lola Petticrew’s moving performance, audiences got the clear message that a sure way to keep roaming animals safe is to scrap the trap!
Pig’s Pick
Audiences get a taste of pig farming reality in Apartment 7A when Terry Gionoffrio— played by the incomparable Julia Garner – turns down bacon for breakfast, saying, “I don’t eat meat, but thank you.” She elaborates, “I grew up on a pig farm. It’s kind of hard to enjoy the smell of bacon when you’ve seen how it’s made.” Garner’s compassionate quip reminds us that the real horror in the Rosemary Baby’s prequel is how pigs suffer when the meat industry raises and slaughters them for their flesh. Pigs rejoiced at the meat-free moment, and so did we!
Best Animated Feature
Chris Sanders’ phenomenal film The Wild Robot moved and inspired audiences to respect the natural world. By dropping a robot into the forest and having him learn about Earth from wildlife, Sanders reminded audiences that animals have much to teach us. And they can teach us not under knives in a laboratory or on display at roadside zoos or marine parks, but in their natural habitat. Ahead of the film’s release, doting cat mom and star Lupita N’yongo took the messaging a step further by promoting vegan foods—because, after all, going vegan is the most important thing anyone can do to protect the planet. Check out Lupita’s PSA and learn about the joys of vegan living here.
Mr. Mice Guy
Despite the countless breathtaking moments in Dune: Part One & Part Two, what stood out was the respect shown to the desert mouse. Indeed, the Fremen celebrate desert mice, called the Muad’Dib, for their intelligence and adaptability. While the species featured in the Dune-iverse is fictional, these are some of the countless qualities that make real mice so special. Paul Atreides, played by the wonderful Timothée Chalamet who gave a sand-sational performance, chooses the name Muad’Dib after he’s learned to live in harmony with his environment, an honor to mice everywhere. He’s no doubt a Mr. Mice Guy!
Best Documentary
Kip Anderson and Kameron Waters’ profound documentary sheds light on a pressing question: why is cruelty to animals accepted around the world, even though compassion is the uniting core principle of all world religions? From Nazareth to the Vatican and New Delhi to Kathmandu, the pair question world-renowned theologians, Christian farmers, Indigenous shamans, archeologists, and religious leaders. What they find is a message of hope and compelling evidence that great religious leaders absolutely rejected harming and killing animals!
Inspired by These Winners?
YOU can be like these Oscat winners by advocating for our fellow animals whenever you can. Go vegan, don’t support companies that test on animals, and speak up against the use of live animals in film and television. If you witness or hear about animal abuse on production sets, report it to PETA immediately:
More Articles Like This:
