2026 Oscar Predictions: MAKEUP and HAIRSTYLING and VISUAL EFFECTS (December)

The Oscar shortlists are here, giving us 10 finalists for both Makeup and Hairstyling and for Visual Effects and both came with some shocking snubs.

Right off the bat, Weapons missing the M&H shortlist was just not something anyone saw coming, especially with the direct relation it had to Aunt Gladys, Amy Madigan’s witchy weirdo that’s put her at the top of Oscar nomination predictions for her performance. But for all of the snubs this category provides it also gives us fantastically inspired choices like Kokuho and The Ugly Stepsister, or something like The Alto Knights, the dual performance Robert De Niro film that was savaged by critics and at the box office. Nuremberg was another interesting inclusion and we know this branch loves a fat suit, as was Marty Supreme for…Chalamet’s pock marks?

Over in Visual Effects we saw misses from Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, just a year after the previous entry in the series finally got it, as well as hits like Lilo & Stitch and A Minecraft Movie. What we got instead was the fires of The Lost Bus and the $320m Netflix bomb The Electric State, one of the year’s worst-reviewed films. But, as with makeup, these branches don’t care much about reviews or box office, which, to their credit, keeps it about the craft.

It also snubbed both Marvel entries this year, Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the first time since 2009 that a Marvel film has missed the shortlist stage (excluding 2020). Wild times.

The Makeup and Hair Styling Guild (MUAH) reveals their nominations on December 29 and the Visual Effects Society (VES) on January 13.

We’ll see what comes from the bake-offs next month, which can sometimes make or break a nomination.

Here are my 2026 Oscar nomination predictions for Makeup and Hairstyling and Visual Effects for December.

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

VISUAL EFFECTS

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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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