It’s awards season and VFX artists and enthusiasts are ready to criticize, applaud, and dissect every noteworthy visual effects sequence and shot of 2022. 

The Visual Effects Society’s 2023 schedule starts on Saturday, January 14th when the Global Nominating Panels and the L.A. Nominating Panels will hold their vote on the best VFX sequences of 2022. Nominees will be credited with their film or episode, but the judging process is to submit a single sequence breakdown or one standalone shot to represent the entire body of work, similar to the Oscars or Emmys. The shortlist of nominees will be announced on January 17th, followed by a “members only” viewing and vote period. All of this will culminate in the 21st Annual VES Awards Gala on February 15th.

VES Awards

The VES recognizes films for their contributions to VFX across 25 categories, honoring animation, photoreal productions, real-time projects, commercials, practical and special effects, compositing and lighting, and even a student project award. Films that had a heavy presence at last year’s awards included Dune and Encanto with six nominations each, and Loki earning four nominations. 

This year’s contenders include the 2000+ visual effects shots for Top Gun: Maverick to the otherworldly UFO monster that dumps blood rain in Nope (both films included VFX work by MPC). The Marvel universe will have several films in contention (huge surprise, right?) with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Thor: Love and Thunder.

Miles Teller in Top Gun Maverick

Me and my mustache would like some of those VES nominations, please.”
(photo credit: Skydance Media)

While the VES nominating list has over two dozen specific categories, one could look at the Academy’s recently announced Oscars shortlist to see who might be in the running for “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature” at the VES Awards. The Visual Effects Branch of the Academy nominated a shortlist that includes:

All Quiet on the Western Front 

Avatar: The Way of Water 

The Batman 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Jurassic World Dominion

Nope

Thirteen Lives

Top Gun: Maverick

Some of those, like Avatar 2, are going to dominate nominations in every category in which they are eligible like Dune did last year. VFXVoice wrote an in-depth analysis piece of all the contenders and discussed some of the less obvious challengers fighting for a nomination, including Uncharted, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Idris Elba’s survival-horror film Beast.

Sure, you can cynically throw your hands up in the air because you know Avatar 2 is gonna be nominated in every category. OR you can root for your favorite sequence in an underdog like Everything Everywhere All at Once that utilized five artists to complete 80% of the film’s VFX shots.  

Wherever your allegiances lie, congratulations to the outpouring of dedicated energy that every artist, supervisor, and producer poured into the movies of 2022.