How did the Academy overlook this movie?

I agree, despite my thoughts on the film itself, the music is wonderful. To answer your question though, the Academy has always been against awarding animated films. The Best Animated Feature category was essentially created to isolate the films from other categories.

"If life is getting you down and needs uplifting, then please come dance with me!"

Film studios have to campaign for their films to earn nominations for the Academy Awards, and the top five nominated films with the most votes proceed to be the official nominees.

In the case of The Land Before Time, it depends if Universal Pictures pushed for the film to be nominated for Best Original Song and Best Original Score. If they did, then, it did not earn enough votes to become an official nominee for both categories. If they didn't, that explains the lack of nominations.



What we do in life, echoes in eternity.

I also wonder why this film didn't get any recognition from American Film Institute.

RIP
Freddie Mercury
1946-1991

Always wondered this growing up. It either has to do with the somewhat dark/mature nature of the film. Or maybe they though the whole Judith Barsi scandal would overshadow things and bring too much negative light, abandoning it for inevitable cult success.

"Oh... I'm not afraid."
-Pamela Voorhees

100% agree here. But still its extremly underrated, the people who remember this is the ones watching it back in the day it seems and is returning for it.