Only once did an animated film get close to earning a coveted Best Picture Oscar: It was 1991, and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast scored a nomination. But some are now speculating that the recent release of Wall-E could change animated film history.

With its tale of a trash-strewn earth centuries into the future, WALL-E’s environmental message should resonate with the typically liberal politics of most Oscar voters. The film also makes affectionate nods to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, City Lights and Hello, Dolly! “There are a lot of little olive branches in WALL-E to the Academy,” says The Movie Blog’s John Campea.

More important than its homages to Hollywood classics may be WALL-E’s status as an example of the kind of films Hollywood rarely makes anymore: well-crafted stories for a mass audience. Filmgoers, it seems, have to choose between smart but dark, strange, independent or quasi-independent films, like last year’s Best Picture, No Country for Old Men, or mind-numbing popcorn flicks, like the latest superhero offering from Will Smith, Hancock. WALL-E, however, seems to be stimulating both hearts and minds.

But whether Wall-E even has a shot at the big prize will depend in large part on whether Disney launches a Best Picture campaign–something the studio may not want to do considering its past record with an Academy that isn’t convinced animated films deserve consideration alongside live-action ones. But maybe this year the timing is right. As Variety’s Anne Thompson notes, “Every year there’s a movie that captures the zeitgeist in some way. WALL-E does that.”