The Academy Awards are given each year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for the best films and achievements of the previous year. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is given each year for animated films. An animated feature is defined by the academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique, a significant number of the major characters are animated, and animation figures in no less than 75 percent of the running time. The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was first given for films made in 2001.