Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy on Academy's 10-Strong VFX Award Shortlist

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that the number of films in the running for next years Visual Effects Oscar is down to 10. The 10 films, listed alphabetically below, were selected by the Executive Committee of the Academy's Visual Effect branch and will now be screened to the entire branch before a selection of 5 official nominees are made.

2015 Visual Effects Academy Award Shortlist:

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier"

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"

"Godzilla"

"Guardians of the Galaxy"

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"

"Interstellar"

"Maleficent"

"Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb"

"Transformers: Age of Extinction"

"X-Men: Days of Future Past"

It's no surprise to see the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar in this shortlist, and many believe the race for the award will come down to these two movies. But even though the Academy is clearly getting a case of Middle Earth Fatigue, Battle of the Five armies should also make the shortlist and when WETA is involved, there's always a chance for an upset. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes could be considered as having an outside chance of causing an upset in an Oscar race that never gets much attention, but is always hotly contested. Matt Reeves and his Dawn of the Planet of the Apes team committed to filming their entire movie in real life sets, which when you consider the extensive mo-cap work needed to bring the ape army to life, is an impressive feat. The last spot on the official nominee list is less certain, but I would expect Godzilla and Maleficent to be battling out for this one.

In a recent interview, Academy Visual Effects branch member, Scott Squires revealed that when considering films for Visual Effects awards, members are looking for "technical achievement, quality, difficulty, volume of work and story support." So with that in mind, which film do you think deserves to win this year?

The official Oscar nominations will be announced on January 15th at 8:30am ET.