War for the Planet of the Apes and Blade Runner 2049 lead the feature nominees for the Visual Effects Society Awards, with seven nominations apiece.
This includes the top category of outstanding VFX in a photoreal feature, where those films are nominated alongside Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The outstanding supporting VFX category includes Dunkirk, along with Darkest Hour, Downsizing, mother! and Only the Brave.
In six of the last 10 years, the winner in the top VES category went on to win the VFX Oscar. Once, in 2011, the winner of the VES category for supporting VFX (Hugo) collected the VFX Oscar.
This year's VFX Oscar shortlist includes War for the Planet of the Apes and Blade Runner 2049, Kong: Skull Island and The Last Jedi (both with four VES noms), Guardians 2 (with three VES noms) and Dunkirk (one nom).
Unusually, four of the 10 films shortlisted for the VFX Oscar failed to earn a single VES nomination: Alien: Covenant, Okja, The Shape of Water and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
In 2016, Ex Machina won the Oscar in VFX, though it wasn't nominated by the VES.
The work on Apes was led by Weta; Last Jedi and Kong: Skull Island by Industrial Light & Magic; and Dunkirk by Double Negative. The bulk of the work of Blade Runner 2049 and Guardians 2 was shared by a collection of VFX houses.
Despicable Me 3 earned five VES nominations, the most for an animated feature.
On the TV side, Game of Thrones dominated with 11 nominations, the most for any of this year's contenders.
As previously announced, the Georges Méliès Award will be presented to Academy Award-winning VFX supervisor Joe Letteri, who is also nominated for War for the Planet of the Apes. The Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Jon Favreau.
The 16th annual VES Awards will be handed out Feb. 13 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
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The complete list of nominees follows.
