Oscar Nominations 2021: 7 Ups & 8 Downs

4. The Baffling Best Visual Effects Nominees

Best Visual Effects is a category which leaves film fans mystified year in and year out, and 2021 is clearly no exception.

Though there wasn't much arguing with the likes of Love and Monsters, The Midnight Sky, The One and Only Ivan, and Tenet receiving nominations, the decision to throw Mulan a bone rings totally hollow.

Despite its $200 million budget, one of the chief complaints leveled against Mulan was its sub-par visual effects, too often devolving into blurry, ugly, scarcely coherent nonsense.

This fifth slot could've gone to so many other deserving films - Mank, Birds of Prey, Soul, or Welcome to Chechnya - yet voters instead made the mistake of springing for Most Visual Effects rather than Best Visual Effects.