3 is a Magic Number - Beasts, Balloons, and Toys.

Only twice in the Academy Award's history has an animated feature film been nominated for Best Picture. Beauty and the Beast broke through and achieved its nomination after its release in 1991, and Up achieved something greater after its release in 2009 - Up battled the existent Animated Feature category, which seems to relegate all animated films into its cage, to become the second animated nominee and the first CGI nominee. And the first to do it with 10 nominees, though that's probably the only reason it happened. Maybe we can thank the unforgivable Wall-E snub for this, as we can thank The Dark Knight for giving us 10 nominees in the first place.