2023 Oscar Predictions: VISUAL EFFECTS (November)

On December 21, the Academy will reveal the shortlist of 10 contenders who will be eligible to compete for a nomination for Visual Effects and the Visual Effects Society will follow with its nominations on January 17.

Can Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (above) be only the third stop motion animated film ever to be nominated for Visual Effects? 1993’s Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas was first (pre-dating the animated feature Oscar category) and most recently 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings, which earned six VES nominations and won one. Surely del Toro’s unique take and vision on the classic Carlo Collodi will be able to make the shortlist cut. But there will be stiff competition from CGI-heavy films like Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and more practical effect films like The Batman and Top Gun: Maverick.

Here are my 2023 Oscar predictions in Visual Effects for November.

Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new entry ♦

1. Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century Studios)
2. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)
3. Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount Pictures)
4. The Batman (Warner Bros)
5. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)

6. Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24)
7. RRR (Variance Films)
8. Beast (Universal Pictures) ♦
9. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Marvel Studios)
10. Jurassic World: Dominion (Universal Pictures)

Other contenders (alphabetical)

All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix)
Babylon (Paramount Pictures)
Bardo (Netflix)
Black Adam (Warner Bros)
Bullet Train (Sony Pictures) ♦
Elvis (Warner Bros)
Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore (Warner Bros)
Good Night Oppy (Amazon Studios)
Nope (Universal Pictures)
Thor: Love and Thunder (Marvel Studios) ↓
Three Thousand Years of Longing (MGM)
Uncharted (Sony Pictures)
Wendell & Wild (Netflix)

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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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