
Avatar: The Way of Water won the Best Visual Effects Oscar at the 95th annual Academy Awards. The Oscar went to Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett. This is Joe’s 5th Academy Award, having won previously for:
- 2010 Best Visual Effects Oscar – Avatar (2009)
- 2006 Best Visual Effects Oscar – King Kong (2005)
- 2004 Best Visual Effects Oscar – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
- 2003 Best Visual Effects Oscar – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Richard Baneham had also previously won an Oscar for his work on Avatar in 2010. This is Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett’s first Oscar wins, after multiple nominations each.

Click here for our Avatar interview with Joe Letteri and click here for our Eric Saindon Interview
The Other Visual Effects 2023 Nominees were
All Quiet on the Western Front
Frank Petzold, Viktor Müller, Markus Frank, and Kamil Jafar
Dan Lemmon, Russell Earl, Anders Langlands, and Dominic Tuohy
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Geoffrey Baumann, Craig Hammack, R. Christopher White, and Dan Sudick
Ryan Tudhope, Seth Hill, Bryan Litson, and Scott R. Fisher
In an incredibly strong year of VFX nominations, we congratulate all the artists who worked on each of this year’s films.
As A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once was one of the evening’s biggest winners, including three historic acting wins – check out our fxpodcast with their VFX crew.
Best Animated Feature Film
Congrats also to the winner of Best Animated Feature film: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix) with the Oscar going to Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley.