The 95th Oscars Shortlists Are Here!

by Cláudio Alves

"All Quiet on the Western Front" | © Netflix

Like in the last few seasons, the Academy has announced shortlists in 10 Oscar categories – Documentary Feature, International Film, Original Score, Song, Sound, Visual Effects, and the three Shorts races. As always, there are surprises along with expected honors and the domination of certain frontrunners. One imagines this is an especially sweet batch of finalists for fans of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and All Quiet on the Western Front, who rule over all other contenders with mentions in five different categories. Not far behind, we find Avatar: The Way of Water with four categories.

Expect more commentary at a later time, but for now, let's look over the complete lists and fire off some instant reactions…

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April Foolish Oscar Predix Pt 3 - Visual Categories

by Nathaniel R

Will ELVIS get the usual Catherine Martin nominations for a Bazmark production?

The April Foolish predictions continue with the visual categories which means the rest of the week is the highest profile of categories: Actors, Directors, and Pictures. Obviously this is too early for confidence -- especially in below the line categories since many films haven't released a single image yet. Much will change including which films get released but we'd hold up our year in advance prediction records against anyones.  At this point the only thing anyone has to go on is a) previous work from the craftsmen involved, b) whether the film might have a "Most" boost (contemporary set pictures generally struggle in the visual categories even when they're brilliant), c) hunches aka crystal ball projections as to how the film involved might fare overall. Regarding the latter, it's commonly understood that Best Picture heat will help you in every category even though each should be judged on its own merits.

Check out the charts, won'cha? Two items of discussion we wanted to underline follow after the jump...

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Visual Effects Society: "Dune" and "Shang-Chi" lead among the Oscar hopefuls

by Nathaniel R

Dune Part One looks like the unsurprising leader going into the 20th annual Visual Effects Society Awards with six nominations. Shang Chi  trailed with four citations. (They have animated categories, too, and Encanto did very well in those races, scoring six nods). These guild prizes give us clues as to what Oscar's VFX branch might also like. Oscar has only one visual effects category, of course, while VES has several, since it's their whole purpose. Here's the list of nominations and aa guide to how the two correlated this year...

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Visual Effects Shortlist - Scene Breakdown

By Ben Miller

The 10 finalists for the Best Visual Effects Oscar were announced last week.  Though once reserved for films that pushed the boundaries of what films could visualize, the Oscars have since gravitated towards spectacle and bombast.  Of the 10 films, none came from an independent studio or had a budget less than $100 million.  That isn't to say their effects should be discounted, but don't expect to see something like Ex Machina or shortlisted documentary Welcome to Chechnya from last year.  This category is usually reserved for outright spectacle, and these shortlisted films reflect that.

Let's focus on one specific setpiece per film that highlights the visual effects artists...

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Oscar Finalist List Predictions!

by Nathaniel R

On Monday (December 21st) we'll be hearing the Oscar finalists list in the 10 categories that use that process to winnow down the vast array of possibilities before nomination balloting. There were 9 previously but Oscar has added Sound into the mix this year. That category has had quite a rollercoaster of late, given that it was two categories just two years ago, it was conjoined for 2020, and now it joins the "bakeoff" groups; in short it's getting smaller and smaller each year! After Monday's massive reveal we can really dig in to each Oscar race (and closely revamp each Oscar chart) individually. Isn't it strange that the finalist lists in these 10 categories are coming so much earlier than the actual nomination ballots (which don't go out for another 5 and a 1/2 weeks.

Anyway, let's quickly predict the finalist lists, shall we? You can use this cheat sheet to laugh at me or praise me later, depending on my success rate. If there's a link we've previously written about the picture...

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