Best Visual Effects is one of my personal favorite Oscar categories, but this year it’s one without a single Best Picture nominee in the bunch, which isn’t that uncommon — it happened most recently in 2020. Not that it necessarily matters, since not a single movie that has won Best Picture has also won this category going all the way back to Peter Jackson‘s “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2003. In fact, that was the last Best Picture winner to even be nominated in this category.
Two of the movies nominated this year received no other nominations, while the others only received one or two additional below-the-line bids. What’s interesting is that there is only one visual effects nominee that is also nominated for its production design: Ridley Scott‘s “Napoleon,” which only received three below-the-line nominations total. In most years that would make it a front-runner in both categories, but that doesn’t seem to be the case this time.
“The Creator”
Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts, and Neil Corbould
Gareth Edwards‘s original science-fiction epic was probably the most obvious and deserving nominee in this category since it’s so driven by its effects, which were added after the filmmaker shot much on location in parts of Asia. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) vet Jay Cooper, a first-time nominee, was pivotal in making this innovative effort happen, joined by ILM’s Ian Comley and Andrew Roberts (both also first-time nominees). All three of these VFX pros have worked on other Oscar-nominated projects before, including “Gravity,” various “Star Wars” movies, and James Gunn‘s original “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Meanwhile, in a situation that seems to happen almost every year, Neil Courbould is a special effects supervisor who is nominated for more than one film in the same year; in this case, he is included in three of this year’s nominations, and that’s after having already won two Oscars, the first for Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” all the way back in 2000, and then for his work on Alfonso Cuaron‘s “Gravity” in 2013.
“Godzilla Minus One”
Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi, and Tatsuji Nojima
It’s tough not to think of “Godzilla Minus One” as this year’s “RRR”: a film from overseas that received a single nomination in a category in which it was particularly impressive. But it also felt like a movie that entered the awards conversation later in the year after dozens of other VFX-heavy films hit theaters. The entire team nominated for the movie is Japanese; they have mostly worked in their own country, so even getting nominated is quite an achievement since they don’t have the familiarity among the academy’s VFX branch that some of their fellow nominees have. It’s impossible to watch the movie and not be impressed by the creation of the film’s title character, so it’s clear why the film was included in the category.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
Stephane Ceretti, Alexis Wajsbrot, Guy Williams, and Theo Bialek
One of the least surprising nominations in this category is the single superhero movie that passed the critical eye of the visual effects branch to break through here. Three-time Oscar nominee Stephane Ceretti received his first two nominations for James Gunn’s first Guardians of the Galaxy and then Doctor Strange, while Weta FX‘s Guy Williams is on his fourth nomination; all three of his past noms were also for Marvel movies, most recently “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.” Much of Weta’s work involved the last act of the film and its climactic outer space battle. As with many other nominees this year, Alexis Wajsbrot of Framestore is an Oscar first-timer, specifically for his work involving Rocket and his anthropomorphic animal friends. And another first-time nominee, Theo Bialek, is based out of Sony Pictures Imageworks. Make no mistake that of the five nominees, this is the movie that probably required the most visual effects work, but unfortunately that doesn’t always seem to be a factor in academy members’ voting in the category.
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”
Alex Wuttke, Simone Coco, Jeff Sutherland, and Neil Corbould
This is one of two nominees where the visual effects feel more supporting, since the film doesn’t include a lot of obvious CGI, although much of this latest installment of the Tom Cruise action franchise revolves around an AI antagonist referred to as “The Entity,” which does appear in a number of different guises that heavily incorporate visual effects. As with many of this year’s nominees, much of the VFX work was done at ILM with Alex Wuttke and Simone Coco — both first-time Oscar nominees — based there. ILM’s Jeff Sutherland is also a first-time nominee despite working on a number of “Star Wars” and “Transformers” movies before this. What’s interesting is that Neil Corbould’s nomination here and for his other two movies in the race are for “special effects,” which usually indicates physical in-camera effects done on set, and he managed to accomplish that on three major films nominated in this category.
“Napoleon”
Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet, Simone Coco, and Neil Corbould
Ridley Scott’s epic might not seem like a VFX-driven movie, but all of those enormous battle sequences and many of the locations (as well as keeping the film true to its time period) involve a ton of effects work. This is the second nomination for Charles Henley, who previously contended for Scott’s return to the “Alien” franchise with “Prometheus” in 2012. He’s joined by Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet, a first-time nominee who has worked his way up the ranks to be the film’s VFX supervisor at MPC. Simone Coco is another pro who managed two nominations this year (this and “Mission: Impossible”); these are his first two career bids as the supervisor at ILM.
One advantage “Napoleon” does have over the other four films is that this is the only movie that also received a nomination for Best Production Design. You’d have to go back to “The Jungle Book” in 2016 and “Ex Machina” in 2015 to find a Best Visual Effects winner that wasn’t also nominated there. Though “Dune” in 2021 was the only movie in the last 10 years that won both categories. (Gold Derby’s Jeffrey Kare and Christopher Tsang wrote more about “Napoleon’s” chances of surprising in this category.)
If “Godzilla Minus One” hadn’t been released in December and gotten into the category, this could have easily gone to “The Creator” or to “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” The latter not winning would especially be a shame, since no Marvel Studios movie has ever won this category despite the MCU being so VFX-heavy. But this one will probably go to the Japanese VFX team, although “Napoleon” does have a shot with that Production Design nomination.
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