The Top 25 Best Visual Effects Winners So Far (Updated for 2025)

Folks, another list is coming your way today! Continuing a tradition I’ve been keen on for years, I’m ranking the new crop of Academy Award winners. For nearly all of the Oscar categories, you’ll see me list the top 25 recipients of that prize. Sometimes, our newest winner will appear. Other times, they’ll be relegated to the Honorable Mention category. Who knows, maybe one or two won’t even make the cut? It’s a list series that I’ll do each and every single year, in the weeks after the ceremony concludes. So, while this is a fun way to think about the Oscars in the aftermath of the latest telecast, it’s also a beginning for another column here on the site. Of course, definitely show us your own lists as well, in the comments section below. We’re definitely keen to know what you think!

So, Best Visual Effects is the field that’s up to bat today, our first technical category for 2025, too. This category is a bit of an Oscar outlier, considering a lot of the films that win aren’t Best Picture contenders. There are exceptions, including 1917, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Dunkirk, First Man, Forrest Gump, Gladiator, Gravity, Inception, Life of Pi, and Titanic, to be sure (plus two of our most recent winners in the Dune films). However, you’ll just as soon see Academy Award winners here who barely show up in other categories. It’s part of what makes Visual Effects a fun field, but perhaps one slightly lacking in prestige. For my money, Jurassic Park is the tops in this category, but your mileage may vary. Where does the most recent Visual Effects victor fall here in Dune: Part Two? What about last year’s winner in Godzilla Minus One or the prior one in Avatar: The Way of Water? Does the first Dune even crack the list still? Find out where the Dune sequel ranks below, along with all of the rest…

Here are what I consider to be the 25 best winners of the Best Visual Effects Oscar, to date:

25. Life of Pi
24. First Man
23. Inception
22. Blade Runner 2049
21. Alien
20. Aliens
19. Superman
18. The Empire Strikes Back
17. Interstellar
16. The Abyss
15. Dune
14. Dune: Part Two
13. What Dreams May Come
12. Gravity
11. Forrest Gump
10. The Matrix
9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
8. Avatar: The Way of Water
7. Star Wars
6. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
5. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
4. Titanic
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Avatar
1. Jurassic Park

Honorable Mention: 1917, Ex Machina, Godzilla Minus One, Independence Day, King Kong (2005), and Spider-Man 2

Stay tuned for another category early next week!