Today is another important day in the calendar, and not just because it’s my sister’s birthday. December 4 marks the deadlines for submissions to the Golden Globe Awards, as well as many of the industry guild awards ceremonies. But most importantly for our purposes, we have yet another list of contenders for one of the categories at next year’s Oscars. The Academy has released the preliminary list of films competing for Best Visual Effects!
You can read the official post from the Academy here. As always, I’ll list the films below, as well as links to any of the films I’ve reviewed. The introductory field of 20 will be narrowed to 10 later this month when the shortlists are announced, which will then be reduced to the final five nominees next month.
Here are your contenders!
Ad Astra
The Aeronauts
Aladdin
Alita: Battle Angel
Avengers: Endgame
Captain Marvel
Cats
Dumbo
Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Ford v Ferrari
Gemini Man
The Irishman
Jumanji: The Next Level
The Lion King
Men in Black: International
Midway
1917
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Terminator: Dark Fate
Right off the bat, I think this list is hilarious. Every film falls into one of three categories. Each contender is either a) a movie I’ve seen and reviewed on this blog, b) a movie I plan to see later this month, or c) a movie I refuse to watch unless it’s nominated, to the point that I included it in a “This Film is Not Yet Watchable” column.
From that, I can safely trim this list without hesitation. Removing the TFINYW entries alone cuts it down to 11. At this point I just need to eliminate one more, and for me it’s a toss-up between Dumbo and Alita. For now, I’d knock off Alita, because even though Dumbo was by far the worse film of the two, the actual baby elephant looked way more realistic than the Uncanny Valley androids. My clear early favorite would be Ad Astra, with Ford v Ferrari as a close second for now.
Keep it locked here for more updates as they become available!
Join the conversation in the comments below! Which of these films would you give the Oscar to? What worthy film got left out? If you had to only nominate one Marvel movie, which one would it be? Let me know!
I Actually Paid To See This 