Each year, the Fargo Film Festival juries nominate films and vote on the overall Best Animation from movies in competition. From 2001 to 2008, the Animation and Experimental categories were combined, and the category winner could come from either or both of the two filmmaking approaches.

In 2009, Don Hertzfeldt’s “I Am So Proud of You” became the first film to receive the Best Animation Award following the separation of animated and experimental work into two discrete competitive categories.

2024: Starling (Mitra Shahidi)
2023: Black Slide (Uri Lotan)
2022: Fly (Carlos Gomez-Mira Sagrado)
2021: The Winter (Xin Li)
2020: Mind My Mind (Floor Adams)

2019: The Driver Is Red (Randall Christopher)
2018: World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts (Don Hertzfeldt)
2017: Taking Flight (Brandon Oldenburg)
2016: Of Shadows and Wings (Elice Meng and Eleonora Marinoni)
2015: Coda (Alan Holly)
2014: Sleight of Hand (Michael Cusack)
2013: Junkyard (Hisko Hulsing)
2012: It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt)
2011: The Silence Beneath the Bark (Joanna Lurie)
2010: Lebensader (Angela Steffen)

2009: I Am So Proud of You (Don Hertzfeldt)
2008: No award given
2007: Fission (Kun-I Chang)
2006: To a Man With a Big Nose (Cecilia Aranovich)
2005: Claynation (Wayne McConnell)