2021 Oscar Predictions: VISUAL EFFECTS (February)

After the shocking snubs of Sonic the Hedgehog, The Invisible Man and Greyhound, the Oscar shortlist for Visual Effects gave us some big surprise inclusions and one very inspired one.

As it was with Makeup and Hairstyling, Birds of Prey outshone its own studio competition in Wonder Woman 1984 to make a showing here. Two bigger surprises came with the Vin Diesel reanimated soldier sci-fi flick Bloodshot and the post-apocalyptic monster comedy Love and Monsters.

But the truly inspired pick here was Welcome to Chechnya, which uses face altering, deep fake technology to disguise LGBTQ refugees as they escape the horrors of the country’s brutal gay purge. A nomination here for this kind of technology would be history-making.

Here are my ranked 2021 Oscar predictions in Visual Effects for February.

Green – moves up ↑; Red – moves down ↓; Blue – new entry this month +; Black – no change ↔

1. The Midnight Sky (Netflix) ↔ – BAFTA longlist, BFCA
Matt Kasmir, Chris Lawrence, Dave Watkins, Max Solomon

2. Tenet (Warner Bros) ↔ – BAFTA longlist, BFCA
Andrew Jackson, Andrew Lockley, Scott R. Fisher, Mike Chambers

3. Mulan (Disney+) ↑ – BAFTA longlist, BFCA
Sean Faden, Anders Langlands, Seth Maury, Steve Ingram

4. Mank (Netflix) ↑ – BAFTA longlist, BFCA
Wei Zheng, Simon Carr, Pablo Helman, James Pastorius

5. Welcome to Chechnya (HBO) +
Ryan Laney

6. Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (Warner Bros) ↑
Nominees TBD

7. Love and Monsters (Paramount Pictures) +
Nominees TBD

8. The One and Only Ivan (Disney+) ↑ – BAFTA longlist
Nick Davis, Greg Fisher, Ben Jones, Santiago Colomo Martinez

9. Soul (Disney/Pixar) ↑ – BAFTA longlist
Michael Fong, Bill Watral

10. Bloodshot (Lionsgate) +
Nominees TBD

Welcome to Chechnya photo courtesy of of HBO Documentary Films

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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