For our fourteenth Rundown article, we review the visual effects category. 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 Best Production Design

Best Visual Effects

Winner Predictions

• Love and Monsters
• The Midnight Sky
• Mulan
• The One and Only Ivan
• Tenet (WL O) (PP O) (TB R) [New] (TL O)

Runner-Up Predictions

• The Midnight Sky (WL O) (TB R) [New] (TL O)
• Mulan (PP R) [New]

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Wesley Lovell: When the Visual Effects Society threw this competition into a tailspin with its pick of The Midnight Sky, we were all rethinking our predictions. However, since BAFTA set Tenet back on the path towards victory, I’ve decided to leave my predictions as-is. That said, winners like Ex Machina and The Golden Compass show that the Academy can sometimes think outside the box.
Peter J. Patrick: I’m sorry, but none of these are deserving of an Oscar in my estimation. My best guess is Tenet with Mulan as runner-up.
Tripp Burton: This is down to a battle between BAFTA winner Tenet and VES winner The Midnight Sky. I have a real hunch that the Clooney film might sneak in, but for now I’m sticking with Tenet.
Thomas La Tourrette: With very few blockbuster style films released during the pandemic year and with some of the ones that were released ignored by the Academy (Wonder Woman 1984, Birds of Prey) it limited the possibilities. This meant that it became a two way race between Tenet and The Midnight Sky. Tenet did not rely on CGI but actually performed a lot of the stunts with them going both forwards and backwards at the same time. It was a striking and sometimes perplexing look, even if it was not that great a film. The Midnight Sky did a lot more with CGI and created some interesting science fiction sites. Midnight Sky won the big award from the Visual Effects Society, while BAFTA’s Visual Effects award went to Tenet, which I just feel will be the Oscar winner. The One and Only Ivan boasted amazing photo-real animals, but I just do not see it winning. Mulan boasts great aerial fight scenes but never seemed to catch on with viewers. Love and Monsters creates a fun and eerie world of giant insects but the cute movie seemed like an odd addition to the group. The effects are good but the movie just was not as good. So it comes down to Tenet or Midnight Sky, with Tenet having the edge in my mind.

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