Best Visual Effects

Only 5 women have been nominated in the category of Best Visual Effects, with the most recent nomination occurring in 2024.* This is less than 1% of the 858 nominees in this category and a ratio of 171 men to every one woman nominee. Four of the women nominated were white women: Suzanne M. Benson (1987), Pamela Easley (1994), Sara Bennett (2016), and Genevieve Camilleri (2021). In 2024, the first woman of color was nominated in this category (Kiyoko Shibuya). Three women have won, the first in 1987 (Suzanne M. Benson), the second in 2016 (Sara Bennett), and the third in 2024 (Kiyoko Shibuya). No women were nominated more than once; 39% of men were nominated 2 or more times.

There were 858 nominees for Best Visual Effects, and 4% were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group.* Of the 33 underrepresented nominees in this category, the first was nominated in 1978 (Gregory Jein). There have been 8 underrepresented winners of the Best Visual Effects Award. Four of the winners got their win in 2024 for Godzilla Minus One. Thirteen of the nominees were Asian, 10 were Hispanic/Latino, 5 were Black/African American, 2 were Middle Eastern/North African, and 3 were multiracial/multiethnic.

The percentage of one-time nominees was higher for underrepresented (70%) than white  (61%) nominees. The most nominated underrepresented individuals were (Pablo Helman) had four total nominations followed by R. Christopher White with three. In contrast, the white individuals with the most nominations had 13 nods (Daniel Sudick, Dennis Muren).