Fire and Ash’, ‘KPop Demon Hunter’ Lead

Another Avatar film, another domination at the VES Awards.

James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar: Fire and Ash took seven trophies during Wednesday night’s 24th annual ceremony at the Beverly Hilton, including the marquee Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature. It also won for Emerging Technology and Outstanding Model, Environment, Character, Effects Simulations and CG Cinematography.

James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar: Fire and Ash took seven trophies during Wednesday night’s 24th annual ceremony at the Beverly Hilton, including the marquee Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature. It also won for Emerging Technology and Outstanding Model, Environment, Character, Effects Simulations and CG Cinematography.

It was a near-sweep for the 20 Century Studios threequel, which came into the show with a leading 10 nominations. The 16th-highest-grossing film of all time, with more than $1.47 billion worldwide and counting, had those hopes dashed when Apple Original Films’ F1 won for Outstanding Compositing & Lighting in a Feature. That happened to be one of two categories where Fire and Ash was competing against itself.

It’s a sucker bet to pick against an Avatar movie at the VES Awards. The first film in the multibillion-dollar franchise won six prizes at the 2010 ceremony, and The Way of Water topped that with nine in 2023. That means the Na’vi now have 22 VES statuettes.

Several of Wednesday night’s winners for Fire and Ash called out the franchise’s late producer Jon Landau, who died in 2024 at 63.

The only other film to win multiple awards Wednesday was Netflix and Sony Animation’s streaming phenomenon KPop Demon Hunters, which won three for Outstanding Animation, Character (Rumi) and Effect Simulations in an Animated Feature. Hot off its sweep of the Annie Awards over the weekend, the anime-inspired pic has been viewed more than 482 million times, and its soundtrack has been streamed some 11 billion times (with a capital B).

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Sinners, which leads the Oscar race with a record 16 nominations, won the VES Award for Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature.

The Visual Effects Society and Movie Academy haven’t followed the same script much during the past decade-plus, with only five of winners of the top VES prize going on to score the FX Oscar since 2013. That trend held last year, when Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes won Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature — though it was the pic’s only win on six nominations — but Dune: Part Two went on to claim Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards. Denis Villeneuve’s sequel did, however, lead the live-action film field with four wins at the 2025 VES Awards.

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The first film prize of the Sklar Brothers-hosted ceremony — punctuated as usual by a classic rock soundtrack — went to Zoopotia 2 for Outstanding Environment in an Animated Feature. The highest-grossing Hollywood film in history came into the evening with five noms, tied for second-most with KPop Demon Hunters and Disney/Pixar’s Elio.

Later, an 87-year-old movie won a 2026 VES Award, sort of, when The Wizard of Oz at Sphere took the trophy for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project.

On the TV side, Disney+’s now-wrapped Star Wars series Andor and Apple TV/BBC Studios’ Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age were the only multiple winners with two each, the latter taking the marquee prize for Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode. Other series taking VES Awards were The Residence, IT: Welcome to Derry,, The Last of Us and Ghosts of Yōtei.

Netflix’s recently wrapped Stranger Things came in tied with Prehistoric Planet and The Last of Us with four VES noms each but went home empty-handed.

Elsewhere, BMW has won two VES Awards for its commercial titled “Heart of Joy: Meet Okto the Octopus.”

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Early on, the ceremony’s In Memoriam segment included VES professionals we lost during the past year including Roger Allers, Greg Cannom, Vince Zampella, Bob Burns, George Bloom, Loren Carpenter, Simon Cheung, Fabien Girodot, Jack Haye, Ian Jenkins, Jeremy Kendall, Tom Lynnes, Ralph S. Maiers, Con Pederson, Mike Schmitt and Dane Allen Smith.

This year’s VES Awards special honorees were prolific film and TV producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Wētā Workshop co-founder and COO Richard Taylor, who received the 2026 VES Lifetime Achievement Award and VES Visionary Award, respectively. 

Here are the 2026 VES winners:

OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Richard Baneham
Peter Litvack
Eric Saindon
Nicky Muir
Steve Ingram

OUTSTANDING ANIMATION IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE
KPop Demon Hunters
Joshua Beveridge
Jacky Priddle
Benjamin Hendricks
Clara Chan

OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL EPISODE
Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age; “The Big Freeze”
Russell Dodgson
Tracey Gibbons
Francois Dumoulin
Gavin McKenzie

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE
Sinners
Michael Ralla
James Alexander
Nick Marshal
Espen Nordahl
Donnie Dean

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL EPISODE
The Residence; “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Seth Hill
Tesa Kubicek
John Nelson
Gabriel Vargas

OUTSTANDING CHARACTER IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE
KPop Demon Hunters; Rumi
Sophia (Seung Hee) Lee
Andrea Matamoros
Marc Souliere
Joshua Beveridge

OUTSTANDING CHARACTER IN AN EPISODIC, COMMERCIAL, GAME CINEMATIC, OR REAL-TIME PROJECT
It: Welcome to Derry; “The Thing in the Dark;” The Pickle Monster
Philip Harris-Genois
Pierric Danjou
Chloe Ostiguy
Jonathan Bourdu

OUTSTANDING CHARACTER IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE
Avatar: Fire and Ash; Varang: Leader of the Ash Clan
Stephen Clee
Stuart Adcock
Keven Norris
Joseph Kim

OUTSTANDING EFFECTS SIMULATIONS IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE
Avatar: Fire and Ash; Simulating Pandora
Nicholas Illingworth
Sarah C. Farmer
James Robinson
Ryan Bowden

OUTSTANDING EFFECTS SIMULATIONS IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE
KPop Demon Hunters
Filippo Maccari
Nikolaos Finizio
Daniel La Chapelle
Srdjan Milosevic

OUTSTANDING EFFECTS SIMULATIONS IN AN EPISODE, COMMERCIAL, GAME CINEMATIC, OR REAL-TIME PROJECT
Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age; The Big Freeze
Edward Ferrysienanda
Kevin Christensen
Guy Schuleman
Kevin Tarpinian

OUTSTANDING COMPOSITING & LIGHTING IN A FEATURE
F1: The Movie; Modern Race and POV Footage
Hugo Gauvreau
Chris Davies
Raushan Raj
Amaury Rospars

OUTSTANDING COMPOSITING & LIGHTING IN A COMMERCIAL
BMW; “Heart of Joy | Meet Okto the Octopus”
Alex Kulikov
Jack Harris
Adam Chabane
Nicola Borsari

OUTSTANDING COMPOSITING & LIGHTING IN AN EPISODE
The Last of Us; “Through the Valley;” A Storm of Ice, Fire and Flesh
Tobias Wiesner
Mark Julien
Owen Longstaff
Brendan Naylor

OUTSTANDING SPECIAL (PRACTICAL) EFFECTS IN A PHOTOREAL PROJECT
Andor; “Who Are You?”
Luke Murphy
Dean Ford
Jody Eltham
Darrell Guyon

OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A STUDENT PROJECT
Azimuth
Thomas Teisseire
Cassandre Cinier
Martin Bluy
Mathis Giraudeau

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AWARD
Avatar: Fire and Ash; Kora Fire Toolset
Alexey Dmitrievich Stomakhin
John Edholm
Murali Ramachari
Aleksandr Isakov

OUTSTANDING CG CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Steve Deane
AJ Briones
Zachary Brake
Andrew Moffett

OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A SPECIAL VENUE PROJECT
The Wizard of Oz at Sphere
Ben Grossmann
Tamara Watts Ken
Dr. Irfan Essa
Matt Dougan
Glenn Derry

OUTSTANDING MODEL IN A PHOTOREAL OR ANIMATED PROJECT
Avatar: Fire and Ash; The Windtraders’ Gondola
Michael Smale
Sam Sharplin
Joe W. Churchill
Jacqi Dillon

OUTSTANDING VISUAL ARTS IN A REAL-TIME PROJECT
Ghost of Yōtei
Jason Connell
Matt Vainio
Joanna Wang
Jasmin Patr

OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS IN A COMMERCIAL
BMW; “Heart of Joy | Meet Okto the Octopus”
Tom Raynor
Helen Tang
Jack Harris
Alex Kulikov

OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENT IN A PHOTOREAL FEATURE
Avatar: Fire and Ash; Bridgehead Industrial City
Gianluca Pizzaia
Steve Bevins
Dziga Kaiser
Zsolt Máté

OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENT IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE
Zootopia 2; Marsh Market
Limei Z. Hshieh
Alexander Nicholas Whang
Joshua Fry
Ryan DeYoung

OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENT IN AN EPISODIC, COMMERCIAL, GAME CINEMATIC, OR REAL-TIME PROJECT
Andor; “Welcome to the Rebellion;” The Senate District
John O’Connell
Falk Boje
Hasan Ilhan
Kevin George