The 23 Best Visual Effects Oscar Winners Of The 21st Century, Ranked

When people talk about movie magic, they usually don't mean monologues. It's often the captivating visuals and fantasy worlds that give the phrase "movie magic" a ring of truth. None of this would be possible without visual effects, an ever-evolving field that encourages directors like James Cameron and Peter Jackson to push themselves even further in their quest to create that special spark.

The films that won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects of this century represent the most innovative visual stories of the past two decades. Using motion capture technology, computer-generated imagery, miniatures, and giant puppets, these films create fantasy worlds and creatures beyond our wildest fantasies.

Here are the Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects for the 21st Century, ranked in order of their visual storytelling. please note. Weta Digital changed its name to Wētā FX in 2022. IndieWire retained its original name for films made prior to this change.

23. Compasso d'Oro (2007)

In the story "The Golden Compass" there was a problem with visual effects - a world in which each person has a personal demon in the form of an animal - the physical embodiment of his soul. "Demons" is a 3D animation created by Rhythm & Hues under Visual Effects Supervisor Michael Fink who had to deconstruct human-animal interaction, movement, fur care, and a key action scene based on bear fights. The sheer scale and breadth of the world-building was enough to give New Line (the Lord of the Rings trilogy) another golden statue for visual effects. - Chris Offalt

22. "1917" (2019)

Sam Mendes' World War I extravaganza caused a major upset by beating The Lion King in the Oscar nomination for Special Effects. This was especially surprising since her role was a supporting role. The production, special effects and visual effects, directed by MPC's Guillaume Rocheron, played an important role, constantly following the characters on their intense journey across the battlefields. It took a unique collaboration to weave the series into one continuous framework. In addition, many visual and special effects improvements have been made. The village's nightly scavenger hunt included fireworks from a burning church (thanks to legendary Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Dickens, 2,000 1K lights are installed throughout the building). There was also a series of special magnesium rockets that flew 170 feet every 22 seconds. - Bill Desovitz

21- Gladiator (2000)

In 2000, Ridley Scott revived the sword-and-sandal scene for the modern age (directed by John Nelson), bringing the latest digital technology to a genre that had not appeared on American cinema screens in decades. Where previous filmmakers had to spend huge amounts of time and money on crowd scenes using thousands of extras, Scott was able to achieve epic proportions by combining human actors with digital versions and turning several thousand people into 70,000 computer-generated actors. For the big Colosseum scenes in the movie. Many of Scott's shots had to span the entire arena, the most impressive of which was the 360-degree Steadicam action that followed the wrestlers as they entered the arena; For all these moments, visual effects company Mill Film has created digital fans that move, nod and clap like real extras. The Colosseum itself was a marvel of digital effects interspersed with functional set design, as the artists at Mill Film created flawless computer-generated accessories for Arthur Max's beautiful set design. Jim Hemphill

20. Outside the Car (2015)

This list of recent VFX Oscar winners is filled with big blockbusters, many of which are franchises with visual effects budgets larger than what this indie A24 cost to film. And the 2015 release calendar saw some major competition, including visual effects nominees for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Resurrection (remember that month?!), Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian. What the reward predictors didn't anticipate was how attracted Academy voters would be to the relatively minor secondary effects that were extraordinarily effective. Writer-director Alex Garland's sci-fi thriller is based on Alice Vikander's poignant performance as an artificially intelligent robot who falls in love with a programmer. This performance is backed by superb CGI work from Double Negative (Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris and Mark Ardington, with Milk VFX's Sarah Bennett) and relies on body tracking without the use of green screen, allowing the actors to focus and live the action. course during -cho

19. Life of Pi (2012)

Just as Life of Pi's protagonist finds his faith shaped by the values and myths of many religions, the look of the film continues and contributes to various streams of technical innovation in the 21st century. Apparently, the main star of Siraj Sharma, tiger Richard Parker, along with a group of zoo animals, were stranded in a lifeboat with shipwreck survivor P. Patel. Rhythm & Hues (led by visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer) had to create a CG animal that worked convincingly in 3D, capturing subtle micro-expressions and substantial non-human motion. The film's realism rests on Rhythm & Hues' ability to create the most realistic computer monster ever created. But the spirit of Ang Lee's film is also drawn from the expressive and highly emotional seascapes in which Pi and Richard Parker are captured. Pi's life never strays away from the possible — mine isn't the first or only director to boil in 3D water, enable negative parallax or extol the wonders of open wave phosphorescence — but Rhythm & Hues' work on how to dramatize this setting is an Inner State Pi is a bar any other movie has taken so long to get to. Sarah Shahat

18. "The Principle" (2020)

Christopher Nolan's upside-down thriller only has 300 visual effects shots, but it took Oscar-winning agency DNEG (produced by Andrew Jackson) to figure out how to time its back-and-forth so the fights and chases blend seamlessly into one another. . They used progression to freeze the movement and were on hand to supervise rehearsals with the cast. A highlight occurred during a reverse carjacking, when they soaked up tire dust instead of spitting it out, and pushed the exploding car backwards with great force to dip it back into the car. - db

17. "First Man" (2018)

Damien Chazelle decided to rethink the camera footage for "First Man," a re-enactment of the NASA moon mission starring Ryan Gosling as astronaut Neil Armstrong. The Oscar-winning film was directed by DNEG's Paul Lambert (Blade Runner 2049). The work included a variety of visual and special effects, archive footage and scale models that helped create a 1960s documentary. It was decided that filming the spacecraft in front of a curved LED screen (90 minutes of footage) would be the best option for capturing as many images as possible on the camera. The amount of skill in a shot is determined when they design a shot to use full scale practice, miniatures, or full CG. For the iconic episodes of X-15, Gemini 8, and Apollo 11, they had full working models drawn by production designer Nathan Crowley (Dunkirk, Interstellar) and the technical department, placing the actors on a six-axis gimbal. LED screen. - db

16. Hue (2011)

There is something so beautiful about the way Scorsese's love letter charmed Georges Méliès and dawned the first cinema to appear nearly 100 years later with the same inventive and magical array of 3D graphics. Pixomondo's ability to seamlessly integrate live action, CG extras, and full animation into visual effects work spread across nine locations around the world and rendered on 1,000 computers is made possible by the unique talents of a VFX Production Supervisor and a second. Divisional Director Rob Legato. Using a pre-gravity virtual camera and a groundbreaking visualization of the first Avatar, Legato allowed Scorsese, cinematographer Robert Richardson, and the cast and crew to view the footage in live 3D on set. The result is a film that is performed and interpreted according to the spatial reality of how the audience perceives it. This means that the right creative choices and adjustments can happen in real time, resulting in a magical movement of the camera and the start of a scene in space that conveys the dread of entering the first cinematic version of a storyboard. -cho

Pictures of primary interest

15. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

In the Pirates sequel (visual effects director John Knoll), ILM took a giant leap forward with groundbreaking animation of sea-clad villain Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) with a fearsome beard. The animation team has unveiled Imocap's new patent-pending system that uses video footage of the actors playing Nighy and his Flying Dutchman crew to generate the movements of the skeletons on a computer. For actors playing computer characters, special sensual costumes have been created. The tentacle itself was seen as a group of characters with individual behaviors controlled by small mechanisms in resolution. The other big character was the Kraken squid monster, which was in keyframe animation with some improvements to the Flash simulation thanks to the new creature creation pipeline. Meanwhile, for more complex CG waters, ILM used a new fluid dynamics engine developed in collaboration with a Stanford University research program in which a set of beautiful algorithms are processed by multiple processors and controlled by multiple particle controllers. -db

14- Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Notably, this sequel is the latest Academy Award-winning visual effects take on a superhero film. Under the direction of John Dykstra, Visual Effects Supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks raised the standards in the integration of live action and CGI. Tobey Maguire's spider suit has been improved through a series of improved texture simulations that intertwine, and the digital version has a more believable complexion in unmasked extreme close-ups, as well as improved musculature. Imageworks has also improved New York's digital build pipeline, taking full advantage of the cable-mounted Spydercam to give Spidey a better perspective. Because of this, her highlight was how she walked around the city, showing strength and grace. But the standout animated character was Alfred Molina's Doc Ok Ok, whose mechanical claws were part animated puppet and part CGI without interfering with facial expression. -db

13. The Interesting Wisdom of Benjamin Button (2008)

David Fincher's long-running Reverse Aging project (adapted from the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald) with Brad Pitt was a breakthrough in performance animation under Eric Barba, Visual Effects Supervisor at Digital Domain. After years of research and development, Digital Domain shaved Pete's aging face icon with the help of a diverse cast. Using the studio's 3D sequencer, the animators used micro-expressions to control individual movements. This can be fixed with keyframe animation or image analysis, being generated from Pete's face. The trick was to let a house be a home. In addition, Lola FX has perfected its new approach to aging by breaking it down into animation, tracing, and compositing. -db

12. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Denis Villeneuve's ambitious sci-fi sequel to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner features two stunning female character creations overseen by MPC Visual Effects Supervisor John Nelson: a human digital recreation of the original Rachel (Sean Young) and the hologram of Lover by Ryan Gosling's Joy (Anna d'Army) . Villeneuve wanted to convey Rachel's confidence, desire, and refusal when she met Deckard Harrison Ford. MPC scanned Young and his sexy wife Lauren Peta, who starred alongside Ford and Jared Leto, then hand-animated the entire character. In contrast, creating an atmosphere was more analog. Nelson, along with DNEG visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert and his team, shot the actress with a small set of cameras and then created an exposed front cover-up effect. Then, for a sex scene with prostitute Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), DNEG filmed de Armas, Davis, and Gosling separately and joined them together. But the pairing of two characters was unusual, and the random sync quality was fortuitous. The director wanted them to unite and become the third wife. -db

11- King Kong (2005)

Weta Digital VFX master Joe Letteri (who won his third Academy Award as VFX supervisor for production) is played by Andy Serkis, who redraws advanced digital animation for the characters as well as Gollum with Jackson's giant ape. He wore a dummy suit decorated with ticks and stripes that matched his movements to digital codes on a computer as they were captured by cameras. Even though Gollum's face was fully animated by hand, "King Kong" felt like the third shot in a row where Serkis perfected the action and emotion. Of course, computers capture his muscle movements through strategically placed points and sensors, and animators work using complex algorithms to translate those movements into the monkey's advanced, intelligent movements. Yes, "View". But the actor's performance is undeniable. - Ann Thompson

10. "Begin" (2010)

Christopher Nolan's challenge for Double Negative, led by visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin, was daunting: take a photorealistic, location-based world depicting iconic cityscapes like the streets of Paris and make them look real, often on camera. - Self-reflective time for different sleep states. From the wrinkles of the streets of Paris to the towering spiers of Limbo, every transition from reality to fantasy will not only be executed, but fine-tuned to capture the essence of the character's dreamy state of mind. As with all of Nolan's films, some advance planning between visual effects, production design (Jay Deas) and cinematography (Wally Pfister) resulted in a meticulous hour-long production in which actors and department heads knew how the visuals would hit each key. Compositions and work distribution in milliseconds. What made the images truly organic was that each dramatic transition was based on an exploration of the movement and power of natural phenomena, from glaciers to waves, resulting in a sense of real impact in every little detail. building. Inception expanded the experience by incorporating realistic daytime environments and dynamic visuals. -CO

9. Dune (2021)

Achieving the believable strength of the desert was essential to the natural-looking dunes of director Denis Villeneuve, who filmed in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Budapest in IMAX with Academy Award-winning cinematographer Greg Fraser. This also extended to the excellent visuals directed by DNEG Oscar-winning producer Paul Lambert (First Man, Blade Runner 2049). They came up with several ways to capture the desert experience, including a sand screen for use on Arrakis, which helped a lot to blend the different layers of the background maps or desktop environment. Texturing allowed me to add realistic blended images to these paintings with all shades of the brightly colored desert background. Medium theme, the central characters can be very popular in the world major. The visual effects team approached him like a whale gliding along the water trying to catch the wings. After all, he lived in the city, so he didn't know how to make a big deal and didn't want to look at the dynamics. When the worms approached, the sound effectors built a vibrating plate buried in the sand. When he hesitated, the actors sank into the sand, signaling the worm's approach. The effect was in the "Челюстей" style. - B.D

8. Властелин колец: Братство кольца (2001)

It's hard to count how many new digital demons Peter Jackson had to create for his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, but from Balrogs to cave trolls and everything in between, Weta Digital has created the necessary sense of mythology with its creativity and imagination. Ovisil redezemeh in epicheskih with ego razuancioneskimi and anasticheskim vide- poristin. The memorable technical jump from VFX supervisor Jim Rygel and the Weta team can only be seen in "Brotherhood of the Rings," but even a brief look at Gollum matches Weta's amazing work on all the animals in the first movie. And the tiny motion capture stage not only saved Andy Serkis' game in digital form, Weta used a mockup to capture data during rehearsals, after which the live actors could perform in front of the fictional Gollum in real time. «Братство Кольца» - This is just the beginning of how Weta has wonderfully changed the way we view and perceive. - SS

7. Властелин колец: ве башни (2002)

Two decades later, an episode in which a computer character argues with itself remains material to memes—you know you're doing something right. While The Fellowship certainly references Gollum, the use of Weta Digital's tech tools in The Two Towers, including underground lighting software to achieve realistic transparency of human skin and Andy Serkis' performance, opened the door to all kinds of cool creations. With live digital twins and photo-realism. This will be a great achievement. But Weta (under the direction of visual effects supervisor Joe Leteri, who won his first Academy Award) also improved Massive, creating massive crowds that "believably" moved and moved semi-autonomously, allowing the camera to pan through battle scenes unnecessarily. . List of all New Zealand residents as apps. The tools Weta developed working with Jackson Night Video for four months elevated the bar for the large armies and stunning 3D environments everyone from the MCU to The Last of Us has used. - SS

6. Властелин колец: Возвращение короля (2003)

The way Weta Digital used Massive to expand the army at Helm's Pad is much like a test drive of battle on the Pelennor Fields, factoring in the movement of daylight, more and more factions attacking each other, and thousands of horses and soldiers. неистовствующие oliffonts - not very popular armies of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen). It is quite logical that in the third part of this trilogy there are more visual effects than this; У Korolya (for kotorotenti rukovovitel professional VFX processors жо leyttieri polachil with uvtoroy orar) or 1488 caserte Vfx. Then there is Gollum. Weta has mastered the tools he uses to create Gollum's facial expressions, and the ability to add subtle detail to Gollum's facial movements and muscles helps Andy Serkis' productivity increase. Сешаннное облетентчение, еFORIA и MANIIA, койtoй melкают на лице г reuke в ео состение мsetto, дение It is one of the Wostroranie. - SS

5. "Interstellar" (2014)

Christopher Nolan wanted "Interstellar" to be the most realistic sci-fi movie ever made, and this prompted the company Double Negative Effects (visual effects production provided by Paul Franklin) to create a revolutionary wormhole renderer for the film. First, this is why physics is real in the way you cook. Despite this and some of the film's other more striking effects - Matthew McConaughey's Tesseract crashing into a black hole (a physical collection of interconnected cubes stretched out by computer graphics, from which you can observe how they move through a series of time warps) or ripples on a water planet with a height of 4000 ft. باستخدام التقنيات الرقمية المتقدمة ، يعد "Interstellar" أيضًا صفًا رئيسيًا في استخدام التأثيرات التناظرية للمدرسة القديمة لإبهار المشاهدين. الإسقاط الأمامي والمنمنمات والتصوير الشقي ، التي اخترعها كوبريك في حلقة "Zvezdnye vrata" عام 2001 - كل هذا يلعب دورًا في إنشاء الكون المادي واللمسي لنولان ، مما يؤدي إلى الرؤية الأكثر إقناعًا للكون منذ تحفة كوبريك . - Ж. Х.

وارنر بروس.

4. Gravity (2013)

«равитация» Альфонсо Куарона - ето «осмическая одиссея 2001» XXI veka. إنه أيضًا فيلم نظيف يجمع بين التأثيرات المرئية المبتكرة لـ Framestore وتصميم "الأوسكار" الذي رشحه Andy Nicholson والتصوير السينمائي المبتكر بنفس القدر لـ Emmanuel «Chivo» Lubetsky. أخيرًا ، كانت هناك حاجة إلى بعض التقنيات الجديدة لرسم مثل هذه المغامرة الواقعية في nevis. ля доставчите такой плавной визуальной поезии по производству визуальных эффектов من المثير للاهتمام ، أن pi في «gothictulato» تم تحريكهم مسبقًا ، ثم في vtoolante حتى أزياءهم وخوذاتهم كانت محوسبة. كانت المجموعات العملية الوحيدة هي التصميمات الداخلية لكبسولتين وأجزاء من محطة الفضاء МКС. то поревовало доработки الرسوم المتحركة с автомобильный игр эктеров. هناك تقارب سينمائي جديد من أجل التواجد معه داخل خوذة بولوك ، ومراقبة تنهداته المذعورة ورؤية انعكاس المكوك في عينيه. وهكذا ، أصبح "Gravitation" علامة فارقة أخرى في الإنتاج الافتراضي. شخصيات نيكي المعقدة ، باسم «زيزني باي» في كون النادي في دور النمر. - BD

3. «كتاب الأدغال» (2015)

حقق كبير المشرفين على المؤثرات المرئية Rob Legato تطورات كبيرة في تكنولوجيا الإنتاج الافتراضية مع هذا الهجين من الحركة الحية والرسوم المتحركة ، مما يضع الممثل Neil Sethi في دور Mowgli في بيئة رقمية مليئة بالحيوانات الرقمية التي أنشأتها MPC (مع WETA يتعامل مع حلقة King Louie المستقلة) . تحت قيادة آدم فالديز ، أنشأت MPC 54 نوعًا و 224 حيوانًا فريدًا باستخدام برامج كمبيوتر جديدة لتحسين نمذجة العضلات والجلد والفراء. بالإضافة إلى ذلك ، في الاستوديو في بنغالور ، تم إجراء دراسات مكثفة عن الأدغال قبل إحياء النباتات والأشجار والكروم والصخور ، وكذلك الأنهار الحالية والانهيارات الأرضية والعشب الذي تهب عليه الرياح. لكن البطولة الحقيقية للفيلم أصبحت الرسوم المتحركة لشخصيات عبادة ، مثل النمر الأسود باجيرا (بن كينغسلي) ، والدب بالو (بيل موراي) ، والثعبان كا (سكارليت جوهانسون) والنمر البنغالي شير خان (إدريس إلبا) . . بالنسبة لهم وللملك لويس من WETA (كريستوفر والكن) ، ابتكر فنانو المؤثرات المرئية تعبيرات وإيماءات متطورة تجمع بين الوجوه الشيطانية المختلفة للممثلين لإنشاء شخصيات متحركة واقعية بشكل لا يصدق في بعض الأحيان. большое влечения на можее أفلام طموحة مع تأثيرات بصرية. - Ж. Х.

ديزني

2. «الصورة الرمزية» (2009)

بفضل عملية عمل "المخرج" التي ابتكرها روب ليجاتو ("The Lion King" ، "The Jungle Book") ، تمكن جيمس كاميرون من تصوير مغامرته الهجينة والخيال العلمي في شكل فيلم لعبة. تم إحضار التقاط الأداء (أو التقاط الحركة الإلكترونية) إلى المجموعة الكاملة باستخدام Simulcam ، مما سمح لكاميرون برؤية والتقاط كل شيء في العالم الافتراضي مع ممثليه في المجموعة. Он наблюдал прямо на ЖК-мониторе, как компьютерные персонажи актеров взаимодействуют в реальном времени с компьютерным инопланетным миром Пандоры. Таким образом, цифровое и живое действие стали одним целым.

Тем временем Weta Digital (во главе с супервайзером по визуальным эффектам Джо Леттери, получившим свой четвертый «Оскар») разработала рабочий процесс VFX, поддерживающий компьютерную анимацию персонажей для биолюминесцентных видов и виртуальных сред Пандоры. Это потребовало совершенно нового уровня создания персонажей и окружения. Что касается анимации, Weta приложила много усилий к разрешению лиц и отслеживанию. Новозеландская студия также создала новый оптический решатель для отслеживания взгляда. Вместо процедурного создания всего этого мира Weta нарисовала все вручную, чтобы убедиться, что он имеет высочайшее качество и согласованность в трехмерном пространстве. Они дополнительно внедрили систему глобального освещения для хранения информации о влиянии каждого источника света на сферические сферы. - БД

1. «Аватар: Путь воды» (2022)

После того, как в 2010 году «Аватар», изменивший правила игры, произвел революцию в виртуальном производстве и захвате перформанса, Джеймс Кэмерон и старший супервайзер по визуальным эффектам Wētā FX Джо Леттери (который получил свой пятый «Оскар» за последний фильм) сразу же начали работу над «Аватар: Путь мертвых». начал разрабатывать стратегии технического прогресса. Вода." Режиссер хотел, чтобы научно-фантастический сиквел выглядел как документ NatGeo, который расширил бы мир Пандоры, включив в него рифовое племя Меткайна и их великолепную подводную культуру. В течение десяти лет Wetā и Cameron's Storm of Light создавали идеальное представление как для объема, так и для новаторских подводных кадров, которые были центральными в сиквеле. Bundan əlavə, Yeni Zelandiya studiyası üz animasiya yanaşmasını əsaslı təmir edərək, animatorlar üçün daha uyğun olan və xarakter performanslarından daha böyük nüansa nail olan yeni əzələ əsaslı üz sistemi yaratdı. Wētā əlavə olaraq ənənəvi iş axını həllərini genişləndirdi ki, təkcə etibarlı və miqyasda təkrarlana bilən deyil, həm də su əsaslı performansın əldə edilməsi və canlı fəaliyyətə uyğunlaşmaq üçün möhkəm inteqrasiya olunub. Nəhayət, studiya saç, parça, dəri və sərt səthlər üçün realizm və qarşılıqlı əlaqənin yeni səviyyəsini təmin edən qlobal metodologiyadan istifadə edərək bütün simulyasiya yanaşmasını yenidən qurdu. Bu, həmçinin su və yanğın üçün Loki adlı yeni FX simulyasiya alətini əhatə edirdi. -BD

Qeydiyyatdan Keçin: Ən son film və televiziya xəbərlərindən xəbərdar olun! E-poçt bülletenlərimiz üçün buradan qeydiyyatdan keçin.

Hər Ən Yaxşı Vizual Effekt Qalibi. Heç vaxt. (1929-2016 Oskar)

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