Alita: Battle Angel and The Lion King are vaulted straight to the top of the Oscar race for Best Visual Effects with five nominations apiece today from the Visual Effects Society. All five of the VES nominees for Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature - effectively their top category - are in the Academy's ten-strong shortlist, and are clearly winning over their peers. Among all titles, however, Toy Story 4 leads with six nods here.
Award winners will be announced on the 29th of January.
Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature
Matt Aitken, Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Daniel Sudick and Jen Underdahl (Avengers: Endgame)
Richard Baneham, Richard Hollander, Eric Saindon, Kevin Sherwood and Bob Trevino (Alita: Battle Angel)
Stacy Bissell, Roger Guyett, Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach and Dominic Tuohy (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)
Mark Hawker, Karen M. Murphy, Sheldon Stopsack, Bill Westenhofer and Guy Williams (Gemini Man)
Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, Tom Peitzman and Adam Valdez (The Lion King)
Outstanding Special (Practical) Effects in a Photoreal or Animated Project
David Brighton, Neil Corbould, Keith Dawson and Ray Ferguson (Terminator: Dark Fate)
Sam Conway, Laurence Harvey, Terry Palmer and Alastair Vardy - 'The Bells' (Game of Thrones)
Toby Froud, Phil Harvey, Sean Mathiesen and Jon Savage - 'She Knows All the Secrets' (The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance)
Mark Holt, Jay Mallet, Dickon Mitchell and Will Wyatt - 'Magic Carpet' (Aladdin)
Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature
Jeff Brink, Jill Brooks, Leandro Estebecorena, Mitch Ferm and Pablo Helman (The Irishman)
Jeff Brink, Mathew Giampa, Bryan Godwin, Brice Parker and Edwin Rivera (Joker)
Greg Butler, Sona Pak, Guillaume Rocheron, Vijay Selvam and Dominic Tuohy (1917)
Mark Byers, Olivier Dumont, Dave Morley, Malte Sarnes and Kathy Siegel (Ford v. Ferrari)
Mike Dawson, Annie Godin, Christian Kaestner, Ara Khanikian and Louis Morin (The Aeronauts)
Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a CG Project
Richard Bluff, Landis R. Fields IV, Baz Idione and Jason Porter - 'The Prisoner' / 'The Roost' (The Mandalorian)
Caleb Deschanel, Ben Grossmann, Robert Legato and A. J. Sciutto (The Lion King)
Nick Epstein, Emile Ghorayeb, Simon Jung and Mike Perry (Alita: Battle Angel)
Jean-Claude Kalache and Patrick Lin (Toy Story 4)
Outstanding Compositing in a Feature
Sam Bassett, John Galloway, Charles Lai and Jeff Sutherland (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)
Adam Bradley, Ben Roberts, Carlo Scaduto and Takeda Hirofumi (Alita: Battle Angel)
Joerg Bruemmer, Tim Walker, Tobias Wiesner and Blake Winder (Avengers: Endgame)
Trent Claus, David Moreno Hernandez, Jeremiah Sweeney and Uehara Yuki - 'Young Nick Fury' (Captain Marvel)
Christopher Doerhoff, Benjamin O'Brien, Vincent Papaix and Nelson Sepulveda (The Irishman)
Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal Feature
Ryan Arcus, Mathias Larserud, John Stevenson-Galvin and Mark Tait - 'Iron City' (Alita: Battle Angel)
John Bair, Vance Miller, Sebastian Romero and Steve Sullivan - 'Penn Station' (Motherless Brooklyn)
Daniele Biji, Steven Denyer, Steve Hardy and John Seru - 'Pasaana Desert' (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)
Jules Bodenstein, Luca Bonatti, Filippo Preti and Marco Rolandi - 'The Pridelands' (The Lion King)
Falk Boje, Kevin George, Stanislaw Marek and Daniel Schmid - 'Agrabah' (Aladdin)
Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature
Goncalo Cababca, Francois-Maxence Desplanques, Thibault Gauriau and Don Wong (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)
Jacob Clark, Adam Gailey, Stephanie Molk and Jacob Santamaria - 'Molten Man' (Spider-Man: Far from Home)
Andy Feery, Samantha Hiscock, David Schneider and Kostas Strevlos (The Lion King)
Victor Glushchenko, Sam Hancock, Arthur Moody and Andrew Savchenko - 'Bubble elephants' (Dumbo)
Outstanding Models in a Photoreal or Animated Project
Eric Andersson, Jason Martin, Xuan Prada and Jonathan Vardstedt - 'The Resolute' (Lost in Space)
Casi Blume, Chris Kuhn, Ben McDougal and Neil Taylor - 'Rocket Train' (The Man in the High Castle)
Dan Casey, Todd Alan Harvey and Katy Hughes - 'The Manchuria' (Missing Link)
Doug Chiang, Landis R. Fields IV, John Goodson and Jay Machado - 'The Razorcrest' / 'The Sin' (The Mandalorian)
Outstanding Animated Character in a Photoreal Feature
Stuart Adcock, Emiliano Padovani, Marco Revelant and Paul Story - 'Junior' (Gemini Man)
Robert Allman, Ebrahim Jahromi, Sven Jensen and Kevin Martel - 'Smart Hulk' (Avengers: Endgame)
Gabriel Arnold, Daniel Fortheringham, Julia Friedl and James Hood - 'Scar' (The Lion King)
Michael Cozens, Mark Haenga, Olivier Lesaint and Dejan Momcilovic - 'Alita' (Alita: Battle Angel)
Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature
Szymon Biernack, Marcin Jakubowski, Sergio Pablos and Matthew Teevan (Klaus)
Gary Bruins, Josh Cooley, Bob Moyer and Mark Nielsen (Toy Story 4)
David Burgess, John Rix, Tim Smith and Mark Theriault (The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part)
Peter del Vecho, Michael Giaimo, Steve Goldberg and Mark Hammel (Frozen II)
Benoit Dubuc, Steve Emerson, Travis Knight and Brad Schiff (Missing Link)
Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature
Philippe Brochu, Ariel Chisholm, Ronnie Cleland and Chris Grun - 'The Hidden World' (How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World)
Phil Brotherton, Oliver Jones, Nick Mariana and Ralph Procida - 'Passage to India Jungle' (Missing Link)
Hosuk Chang, Andrew Finley, Alison Leaf and Philip Shoebottom - 'Antiques Mall' (Toy Story 4)
Justin Cram, Jay V. Jackson, Samy Segura and Scott Townsend - 'Giants' Gorge' (Frozen II)
Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature
Alexis Angelidis, Amit Baadkar, Lyon Liew and Michael Lorenzen (Toy Story 4)
Derek Cheung, Jason Mayer, Baptiste van Opstal and Woo You Xi - 'Water and waterfalls' (How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World)
Lee Do Min, Michael Losure, Alex Timchenko and Eric Warren (Abominable)
Erin V. Ramos, Rattanin Sirinaruemarn, Scott Townsend and Thomas Wickes (Frozen II)
Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature
Brenda Baumgarten, Benoit Dubuc, Morgan Hay and Rachelle Lambden - 'Susan' (Missing Link)
Cameron Black, Marc Bryant, Richard E. Lehmann and Svetla Radivoeva - 'The Water Nokk' (Frozen II)
Alfredo Cassano, Maxime Delalande, Jason Schwartzman and Tamura Yoshimichi - 'Jesper' (Klaus)
Radford Hurn, Tranja Krampfert, George Nguyen and Becki Rocha Tower - 'Bo Peep' (Toy Story 4)
Image credit: MovieStillsDB