Best Visual Effects

Oscars 2025: The Odds and Ends

Jeremy BeckOscars
A scene from KPop Demon Hunters

Behold, it’s the Oscars! And an unusually competitive Oscars at that! Over the next week, we’ll be analyzing the 21 feature categories (no offense, shorts), discussing our predictions and preferences. Am I deeply invested in who will or should win any particular Academy Award? Not really. But the Oscars still matter, in both a commercial and historical sense, and it remains meaningful to think about them, even if just as an excuse to complain about them.

Today we’ll be running through eight miscellaneous categories—the kind that can make or break your pool (are Oscar pools still a thing?). Let’s get to it.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

NOMINEES
Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2

WILL WIN
Did you know that Zootopia 2 was the biggest domestic hit of 2025? It somehow made more money than Minecraft, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and Superman. But the Oscars are less about financial success than cultural saturation, and no animated film was a bigger phenomenon last year than KPop Demon Hunters—a movie whose presence was so pervasive, Netflix even allowed it to appear in theaters for a few days. That’s a real breakthrough. Read More

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Oscars 2024: The Odds and Ends

Jeremy BeckOscars
A scene from Flow

Welcome to Oscars week! Over the next five days, we’ll be walking you through all 20 feature categories at the 97th Academy Awards, providing predictions, preferences, and assorted gripes. Now before you grumble that the Oscars don’t matter, let me stop you and say: I agree. The notion that bestowing a trophy on a particular work of art somehow imbues it with greater value is, of course, nonsense.

But while the Oscars can’t change how you feel about a particular movie, they do serve a valuable historical function, providing a snapshot in time of the industry’s collective consciousness. Some decisions hold up well, others age horribly, but the point is that they’re there—etchings in stone to be commended or condemned as the decades pass. Read More

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Oscars 2023: The Big Techies

Jeremy BeckOscars
A scene from El Conde

With the Oscars fast approaching, we’re digging into the various feature categories. Yesterday, we looked at some odds and ends; today, we’re moving on to “the big techies.” What makes these below-the-line categories more significant than yesterday’s grouping? My random and arbitrary opinion, that’s what. In fact, I’d like to congratulate Best Costume Design on graduating from the minor leagues and making its first ever appearance in this batch; the promotion was long overdue, given that roughly 80% of my Twitter account these days is just screenshots of actresses in beautiful dresses.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

NOMINEES
El Conde—Edward Lachman
Killers of the Flower Moon—Rodrigo Prieto
Maestro—Matthew Libatique
Oppenheimer—Hoyte van Hoytema
Poor Things—Robbie Ryan Read More

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Oscars 2022: The Big Techies

Jeremy BeckOscars
A scene from Avatar: The Way of Water

Our weeklong analysis of the Oscars marches on. Yesterday, we looked at seven below-the-line categories; today, we’re looking at five more technical categories—but, like, the cool ones. (I promise, the sexy stuff is coming soon.) Let’s get to it.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

NOMINEES
All Quiet on the Western Front—James Friend
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths—Darius Khondji
Elvis—Mandy Walker
Empire of Light—Roger Deakins
Tár – Florian Hoffmeister

WILL WIN
Some of the Academy’s omissions in this category are downright flummoxing. But it’s notable that three of the five nominees exhibit more subtle technique than usual, especially when voters in recent years have favored boisterous showmanship. That means this is likely a race between the two more aggressive contenders: All Quiet on the Western Front and Elvis. The latter is certainly flashier, but the former is more intense and disturbing with its grotesque war imagery. I’ll go with All Quiet. Read More

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Oscars 2021: The Big Techies, aka Bad Dune Rising

Jeremy BeckOscars
Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson in Dune

Quick trivia question: Which movie received the second-most nominations at this year’s Oscars (following The Power of the Dog’s twelve)? It wasn’t the emerging Best Picture threat CODA, or the technical marvel West Side Story, or the big-hearted crowd-pleaser Belfast. It was Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s mammoth sci-fi adventure about spice, dreams, and colonialism. In addition to raking in cash (its $108 million domestic haul far surpassed any other Best Picture contender), Dune racked up 10 total Oscar nods, with the Academy clearly admiring its bold visual style and maximalist craft. It’s an impressive showing that recalls Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, which also scored 10 nominations in 2013 and won a whopping seven trophies (the third-most of any movie this century, behind The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Slumdog Millionaire), though it failed to win the big prize, falling to 12 Years a Slave.

Dune isn’t winning Best Picture either, but could it match Gravity’s overall tally? In yesterday’s piece, I analyzed eight miscellaneous categories, and while Dune is nominated in three of those, I’m predicting it to fare poorly (winning Sound, but losing both Costume Design and Makeup/Hairstyling). Thus, to keep pace with Cuarón’s smash hit, Dune virtually needs to sweep the following five fields, each of which encompasses a high-profile area of technical filmmaking (and which I’ve historically dubbed The Big Techies). What are its chances? Let’s find out. Read More

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