Pixel Effects

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24th Annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards, Los Angeles, The Beverly Hilton

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The ballroom at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles filled with a familiar mix of nerves, pride, and inside jokes as the Visual Effects Society marked its 24th Annual VES Awards, a night that tends to feel less like a red-carpet spectacle and more like a family reunion for people who spend their lives making the impossible look routine. Across 25 categories spanning film, television, animation, games, technology, commercials, and student work, the ceremony offered a snapshot of where visual effects sit right now: technically audacious, emotionally ambitious, and increasingly central to how stories get told.

The clear gravitational center of the evening was Avatar: Fire and Ash, which walked away with seven awards, including Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature, the night’s top film honor. The wins traced a wide arc of craft, from Outstanding Character in a Photoreal Feature for Varang, portrayed by Oona Chaplin, to Outstanding CG Cinematography, and the Emerging Technology Award for the Kora Fire Toolset, a reminder that behind every lush frame sits a stack of tools quietly reshaping what’s possible. It was the kind of sweep that didn’t just celebrate spectacle, but underlined how deeply integrated performance, cinematography, and technology have become in modern VFX-heavy filmmaking.

Animation had its own moment in the spotlight, with KPop Demon Hunters leading the category with three awards, including Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature and Outstanding Character in an Animated Feature for Rumi. The recognition felt especially telling in a year when animated projects continue to blur stylistic boundaries, borrowing the language of live-action cinematography while pushing character expressiveness further than ever. Elsewhere, honors spread across a diverse field: Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age claimed Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode, Sinners earned Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature, BMW’s Heart of Joy: Meet Okto the Octopus took the commercial prize, the video game Ghost of Yōtei won for Outstanding Visual Arts in a Real-Time Project, Andor was recognized for Outstanding Special (Practical) Effects, and the student award went to Azimuth, a small but important nod to the next generation stepping into an increasingly demanding field.

Hosting duties returned to comedy duo The Sklar Brothers, whose easy rhythm kept the evening light without undercutting its sense of craft-first seriousness. One of the emotional anchors of the night came when legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer received the VES Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by longtime collaborator Joseph Kosinski. Bruckheimer’s remarks cut straight to the point, crediting the artists in the room for creating the magic audiences come to theaters for, a sentiment that landed with particular weight in a room full of people more accustomed to being invisible than applauded. Another standing ovation followed as Richard Taylor accepted the VES Visionary Award, speaking about love for oneself, the work, collaborators, and the audience, a deceptively simple framework that felt hard-earned rather than platitudinous.

By the end of the night, as winners drifted toward the exits clutching statues and swapping stories about shots that almost broke them, the broader picture came into focus. The VES Awards aren’t just about crowning winners; they function as a yearly checkpoint for an industry in constant motion, balancing artistry with rapidly evolving technology. As VES Board Chair Kim Davidson noted, the craft keeps pushing against the limits of imagination, and this year’s honorees reflected that tension beautifully. Walking out into the Los Angeles night, you could sense it wasn’t just a celebration of what visual effects have achieved, but a quiet promise of how much further they’re about to go.

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