Apple Wins Oscar for 'The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse'

Apple and the BBC have won an animated short Oscar for "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse," a magical fable by writer and artist Charlie Mackesy.

The Boy the Mole the Fox and the Horse
Winning at the 95th Academy Awards over the weekend, the film follows the dreamlike friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy's search for home. It stars Tom Hollander as The Mole, Idris Elba as The Fox, Gabriel Byrne as The Horse, and Jude Coward Nicoll as The Boy.

Apple Original Films acquired the production last year and it debuted on Apple TV+ and the BBC during Christmas 2022.

Apple CEO Tim Cook congratulated the team involved in making "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse" in a tweet, adding "Your beautiful short tells an enduring story about the meaning of kindness, acceptance and hope."

The Oscar is Apple's first for an animated short. It was Apple's only win at this year's Oscars, with Apple receiving one other nomination, for Brian Tyree Henry for supporting actor in Apple TV+ drama "Causeway."


At the 2022 Oscars, Apple became the first streaming service to win the best picture prize for "CODA," in addition to wins for Troy Kotsur for supporting actor and director Siân Seder for adapted screenplay.

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Beta Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner. Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri ...
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
iPhone SE 4 Single Camera Thumb 3

iOS 18.3 Leak Provides Clue About iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and iPad Air 7 Launch Timing

Wednesday January 22, 2025 9:39 am PST by
New information has surfaced that indicates the rumored iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and new iPad Air models are nearing launch. A private account on social media platform X today revealed that iOS 18.3 or iPadOS 18.3 will be preinstalled on all of those upcoming devices when they are released. It is still unclear exactly when the devices will launch, but this information suggests that Apple will...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...

Top Rated Comments

MuppetGate Avatar
25 months ago

Apple did nothing but fork out $$$
It’s one thing having the money; it’s another thing to know the best place to spend it.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ApplesAreSweet&Sour Avatar
25 months ago

Apple did nothing but fork out $$$
How do you think movies, shows and shorts get made and seen by anyone? You think the artists and writers fund it out of pocket and somehow it just reaches the masses because of how well-made the project is?

That's not how these things come about except for maybe one out of several millions of projects.

There's always some kind of investor behind these kinds of things. Either small ones at the start and then bigger ones later on. Or big ones from the start.

And even though I don't know whether Apple helped fund the development of this short or they just jumped in once it was done. I can tell you that there's no way these kinds of projects get the exposure they deserve unless some huge entity, like Apple, gets in the mix.

No, the big corporation can't make a short like this without the artists. But Apple is just as much a part of making this movie as any other party involved and it's completely justified to claim that "Apple Wins Oscar".
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mac Fly (film) Avatar
25 months ago
You mean Apple acquired and has on their streaming platform a film that did.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
star-affinity Avatar
25 months ago
Wow, checked out the trailer – looks fantastic.


So Apple did nothing except air it on their streaming channel and now they are claiming it is 'their' win, typical Apple.
Did they? Tim's tweet is congratulating the team behind it. I don't see Apple claiming the win, but the MacRumors header sure do. :)
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mdriftmeyer Avatar
25 months ago

You mean Apple acquired and has on their streaming platform a film that did.
Wrong.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy,_the_Mole,_the_Fox_and_the_Horse_(film)

Production Companies:

Apple Studios
Bad Robot Productions
NoneMore Productions

Distributors:

AppleTV+ (United States)
BBC One
BBC iPlayer (United Kingdom)

Apple funded and distributed the film in the US and BBC got paid to distribute it in the UK.

Bad Robot Production means Producer and team JJ Abrams proposed the film and bulk of production costs to several studios with Apple Studios winning the contract.

When their studio is built in Culver City I imagine a lot of projects will rely less on Bad Robot Productions and more on screenwriters directly soliciting and not selling their screenplays to JJ Abrams for a song who then sells rights including production costs for a huge profit on their part, not unlike the traditional Music Industry model.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Sydnxt Avatar
25 months ago
Apple did nothing but fork out $$$
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)