> But what I really don't understand is why this genre has it's own category. It's like saying an animated movie (or a non-English movie) cannot be the best movie of the year, solely because the movie features animation.

One could argue that the same holds for documentaries and foreign films. Can't a documentary or a foreign film be the best film of the year?

The thing is, these films, along with animated films, *are* eligible for Best Picture. The separate categories are there to recognize films that are frequently otherwise ignored. But even so, Crouching Tiger came pretty close to winning Best Picture *in addition* to Best Foreign Language Film.

> If they continue with the Animated Feature Film award route, shouldn't there also be Best Comedy Picture, Best Drama Picture, and Best Action Picture awards?

I get what you're saying, but there's a (small) difference. Animation is a style, not a genre: you can have animated comedies, animated dramas, animated adventures, etc. More appropriate sibling categories would be Best Digital Picture, Best Black and White Film Picture, and so forth. While these categories aren't at all likely to happen and probably not desirable, they make more sense to me than genre categories do.