Judy Hopps, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, becomes the first bunny to earn a spot on the Zootopia police force in the film “Zootopia.” The movie won best animated feature at the Oscars on Sunday. (Disney/AP)

Disney’s funny and relevant “Zootopia” won the Oscar for best animated feature at the 89th Academy Awards, held Sunday in Hollywood, California.

The box-office smash is the tale of a rabbit from the country and a big-city fox who team up to investigate a string of animal disappearances.

Judy Hopps is a rabbit who dreams of being an officer for Zootopia’s Police Department. The trouble is there’s never been a bunny cop. Judy must convince big, strong officers that she’s not just some “cute” bunny to earn a position on the force. She enlists the help of Nick Wilde — a sly scam artist of a fox fighting against his own species’ stereotypes — in a 48-hour bid to solve the case of the missing animals.

“We got this idea about five and a half, six years ago to talk about bias with talking animals,” the film’s co-director Byron Howard said following the win, adding that using animals prevented audiences from prejudging the characters.

Howard credited a well-known ancient Greek fable-writer for the original idea.

Co-directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore and producer Clark Spencer, winners of the best animated feature film award for “Zootopia,” pose for photos Sunday with their golden statuettes. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

“Aesop knew this hundreds of years ago, and it was something that animation is very uniquely equipped to do,” Howard said. “We were surprised by how timely the film became as the world sort of blew up.” Howard was referring to a number of police shootings in the past two years that increased tension between black people and white people.

Co-director Rich Moore said he is grateful to audiences for embracing a “story of tolerance being more powerful than fear of the other.”

“Zootopia” was widely considered the front-runner in the animation category, taking home six trophies at the Annie Awards — the awards hosted by the International Animated Film Society — and snagging a Golden Globe. The film earned more than $1 billion at the box office.

The film features an all-star vocal cast including Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Shakira, Idris Elba, J.K. Simmons, Jenny Slate and Octavia Spencer.

The other nominees were “Kubo and the Two Strings,” ‘’Moana,” ‘’The Red Turtle” and “My Life as a Zucchini.”

The Academy Award winner of the best animated short film was “Piper,” a computer-animated movie by Pixar about a baby sandpiper.