Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.
The State of the Race
The Best Visual Effects Oscar shortlist from December 17 includes “Alien: Romulus,” “Better Man,” “Civil War,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Gladiator II,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Mufasa: The Lion King,” “Twisters,” and “Wicked.”
The Oscar race is filled with apes, led by “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Better Man” (both done by Wētā FX), ILM’s baboons in “Gladiator II,” and flying monkeys in “Wicked.”
However, while it’s potentially shaping up as a battle between “Kingdom” and “Better Man,” Wētā hasn’t won the Oscar for its ape work since “King Kong.” The acting branch, which has a dislike for performance capture, could make it a race between “Wicked” (which has a lot more going for it than flying monkeys) and “Dune: Part Two.”
Wes Ball’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (20th Century Studios) kicks off the post-Caesar (Andy Serkis) saga 300 years later, diving deeper into the now dominant ape civilization. Wētā greatly upgraded its photoreal performance capture animation and VFX, leveraging tech from the previous “Apes” trilogy along with the Oscar-winning “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Additionally, Ball made use of a lot more VFX action set pieces (33 minutes are entirely digital — a franchise first) by incorporating his hand-held, single-take visual style. Maybe now Wētā can win the elusive Oscar for the franchise.
“Better Man” (Paramount) shows off a completely different Wētā simian style (production VFX supervised by Luke Millar). The CG chimp conceit came about when Williams told director Michael Gracey that he felt like a performing monkey in his youth. This became the driving metaphor for Williams’ rise and fall as a result of arrested development and addictions. Wētā adopted a more human approach to mimic Williams’ mannerisms from youngster to adult (performance-captured by actor Jonno Davies). The highlight is the elaborate musical sequences (particularly “Rock DJ,” which was shot on London’s Regent Street throughout four evenings and stitched together like a single shot).
Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part 2” (Warner Bros.) is more exciting and emotional, with Paul (Timothée Chalamet) leading the nomadic Fremen in a holy war on Arrakis. VFX supervisor Paul Lambert and his Oscar-winning “Dune” DNEG team ramped up everything with much more visceral action, particularly with Paul and the Fremen riding the massive CG sandworms into battle against the Sardaukar. For Paul’s first ride, they created a separate “worm” unit, in which Chalamet stood on a platform with gimbals designed by SFX supervisor Gerd Nefzer as the sandworm set piece, with gripping devices imitating the Fremen hooks, and surrounded by an industrial fan that blew sand on the set.
Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked” (Universal), the long-awaited adaptation of the Broadway musical fantasy by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, tells us how the Wicked Witch and Glinda the Good Witch became rivals. In this origin story, an unlikely friendship forms between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a compassionate girl with green skin, and the conceited Galinda (Ariana Grande) at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. ILM and Framestore split VFX duties, with ILM’s Pablo Helman serving as production supervisor. They lean into magical realism for the Land of Oz, inspired mainly by the look of the illustrations in L. Frank Baum’s original “Wizard of Oz” books. The CG work includes hundreds of animals, displays of sorcery, atmospherics, and lots of extensions.
Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” (Paramount), the sequel to his Oscar-winning “Gladiator,” introduces a new generation of warriors starring Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus, the former heir to the Empire forced to fight as a gladiator, Denzel Washington as Macrinus, a former slave-turned-wealthy merchant, and Pedro Pascal as Marcus Acacius, the heroic Roman general. ILM and Framestore share primary VFX honors, with ILM’s Mark Bakowski and Neil Corbould of ILM serving as production supervisor and SFX supervisor, respectively. The gladiator action sequences are prime examples of thrilling, cutting-edge showmanship, utilizing practical sets supplemented by special and visual effects. Unable to stage a man-versus-rhino sequence in 2000, Corbould helped pull it off for the sequel, building a mechanical rhino enhanced that could be driven around the Colosseum, enhanced by CG. Another example was a ferocious baboon sequence that combined stunt people with CG. In addition, Corbould simulated a sea invasion in the middle of the desert with the aid of industrial platforms and two full-scale ships.
Lee Isaac Chung’s “Twisters” (Universal) puts storm-chasing rivals Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Tyler (Glen Powell) in the middle of Oklahoma’s most terrifying ordeal. ILM (which worked on the 1996 “Twister”) returns for the update, led by production VFX supervisor Ben Snow, an artist on the original movie. They took actual storm footage assets captured by professional storm chaser Sean Casey and created six tornado sequences. These had a design aesthetic combining physics with a stylistic flourish, accomplished through both practical SFX and digital VFX.
Fede Álvarez’s “Alien: Romulus” (20th Century Studios), a standalone set between “Alien” and “Aliens,” concerns young colonists who encounter the parasitic Xenomorphs while scavenging a derelict space station. In a throwback to the original, there’s a deft combination of animatronics and CG. ILM joins Image Engine, Tippett Studio, and Wētā (production supervised by Oscar winner Eric Barba of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”). There are Facehuggers and Xenomorphs (including a cool zero-gravity fight sequence), a hybrid human/Xenomorph from Wētā, and a diabolical android named Rook that resembles Ash (Ian Holm) from “Alien,” using a Legacy puppet and Metaphysic Live, the generative AI software from Metaphysic, for transferring the facially-captured and de-aged performance to the puppet.
Alex Garland’s “Civil War” (A24) dystopian actioner handled by Framestore, required a VFX look to complement the film‘s gritty, doc-style aesthetic, capturing as much in-camera as possible. The studio (led by production VFX supervisor David Simpson) created 1,000 invisible VFX shots, most of which centered on the climactic attack on Washington, D.C. (shot in Atlanta), including the White House. The environment work was detailed down to each building having different lightbulbs, internal office furniture, and desk clutter, all of it feeling recently abandoned.
Shawn Levy’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” (Marvel/Disney) reunites Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine for the first time as part of the R-rated “Deadpool” franchise within the MCU. The time-bender involves the TVA (Time Variance Authority) and introduces baddie Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), the mutant with telekinetic and telepathic powers and the twin sister of Charles Xavier. VFX is mainly divided between ILM, Framestore, Wētā, and Rising Sun Pictures (production supervised by Swen Gillberg). Among ILM’s contributions (supervised by Vincent Papaix) were complex CG extensions and FX simulation, and lots of FX gore and CG character work.
“Mufasa: The Lion King” (Disney) might seem like a stretch for “Moonlight” Oscar winner Barry Jenkins, but this animated origin story about Mufasa’s (Aaron Pierre) rise to nobility is dear to the director’s heart, and he’s tamed the photorealistic tech to suit his performance-driven vision. The prequel to Jon Favreau’s innovative virtual production remake of “The Lion King” (nominated for the VFX Oscar) involves an updated version of the same workflow from MPC (VR with Unreal for layout but then keyframe animated with greater emotional nuance).
Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner until we have seen it.
Frontrunners
“Better Man”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Gladiator II”
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”
“Wicked”
Contenders
“Alien: Romulus”
“Civil War”
“Deadpool & Wolverine”
“Mufasa: The Lion King”
“Twisters”
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