Visual Effects Society Sets 25th VES Awards for February 2027, Adds Short Project Category and Restructures Several Awards
The Visual Effects Society will hold its 25th annual VES Awards on Wednesday, February 17, 2027, at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, with nominations unveiled on Tuesday, January 19, 2027. The silver-anniversary edition arrives with a reshaped categories list that broadens what the society recognises — and who can enter. (Deadline)
Submissions open September 15 and close October 31. To be eligible, a project must have been released during calendar 2026. Nominations will be announced across roughly two dozen categories.
The most eye-catching addition is a brand-new category: Outstanding Visual Effects in a Short Project. It covers photoreal and animated works up to 45 minutes long, including narrative short films, documentary shorts, music videos, native social media content, and experimental films. That opens the door to creators working outside the feature-film and episodic-television formats that have traditionally dominated the awards.
The society has also restructured several existing categories. Its former Outstanding CG Cinematography award — CG meaning computer-generated imagery — has been split into two: Outstanding CG Cinematography in a Photoreal Project and Outstanding CG Cinematography in an Animated Project. The Animated Feature category has been renamed Animated Project, a change that lets episodic animation (toon series) compete alongside other animation work. And what were called the Simulation categories are now Procedural Effects, a name the society says better reflects visual effects artistry achieved through system-driven processes rather than manual animation.
Lopsie Schwartz chairs the VES Awards Committee, which oversees the rules and categories.
The 24th VES Awards, held in February 2026, were dominated by Avatar: Fire and Ash, which won seven trophies from ten nominations. The film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Since 2013, however, only six winners of the top VES prize have matched that with an Oscar win — the two ceremonies do not always agree on what counts as the year's best visual effects work.
For fans and industry watchers, the new Short Project category is the change most worth tracking. Social media content, music videos, and experimental shorts have never had a VES lane of their own. Whether that draws new entrants or simply gives existing work a clearer place to be judged will become apparent when nominations land in January.
