For our seventeenth Rundown article, we review an inventive category where something is created where nothing existed before. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Visual Effects as well as general commentary about the race. Wednesday, we’ll cover categories whose innovation existed in its infancy when the Academy was founded.

Best Visual Effects

Winner Predictions

• Avengers: Infinity War (WL R) [New](TL O)
• Christopher Robin
• First Man (TB R) [New]
• Ready Player One (PP O)
• Solo: A Star Wars Story

Runner-Up Predictions

• Avengers: Infinity War (TB R) [New]
• First Man (PP O)(TL O)
• Ready Player One (WL R) [New]

(color and symbol key at bottom of page)

Wesley Lovell: This is the third year in a row where no Best Picture nominees were cited. For a time, Best Picture nominees were guaranteed winners, but without one present, how do you choose. The most effects is usually the winner unless one film particularly stands out above all others. First Man is the film I might have predicted (and once did predict), but its collapse in voting elsewhere suggests it wasn’t nearly as admired as it could have been. Among these others, a case could be made for many of them, but Avengers: Infinity War has a lot of effects to look at and will likely be remembered for its dusting sequence at the end. Ready Player One is wall-to-wall visual effects and I wouldn’t be surprised if it won either.
Peter J. Patrick: I have no idea about how they will go with this category, so I’ll just predict what I would vote for here – Ready Player One to win, First Man to place.
Tripp Burton: This is a tough category this year, with no real front-runner obvious. First Man is the most liked film here, and it has a small but vocal group of supporters who will want it to be honored somewhere. Plus, Marvel has never won here.
Thomas La Tourrette: I am still amazed that Black Panther was not nominated in this category. It seems strange that the first superhero film to be nominated for best picture (as well as in six other categories) could not pull off a nomination for visual effects. That said, I believe it will go to a different Marvel Universe film, Avengers: Infinity War. Avengers just won the top award from the VES (Visual Effects Society) as well as three other awards, so it is primed to win the big one. First Man seemed the likely winner when it came out, and it did win a fairly major award at the VES. However, it just does not feel like a winner at this point, though I would say it is the one that could pull an upset. Ready Player One, another very heavy effects-laden film, is also a possibility, but a more doubtful one. I do not think that Solo: A Star Wars Story nor the charming Christopher Robin will be much in play here. Avengers should win, as a stand in for Black Panther.

KEY: