One of my favourite categories at the Oscars is the visual effects award which recognises the use of special visuals in a motion picture. Usually most of these films tend to be either big blockbusters or ones that use CGI in a quality way. With the ceremony still a few months away, the Academy has managed to narrow the contenders for the award down to ten with four of the highest grossing films of the year making the list.

InContention has confirmed the following films are battling it out to make the final list of five.

The Amazing Spider-Man
Cloud Atlas
The Dark Knight Rises
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
John Carter
Life of Pi
The Avengers
Prometheus
Skyfall
Snow White and the Huntsman

Intriguingly most of those films are blockbusters with The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (still to be seen), The Avengers, Prometheus and Skyfall all make the cut along with box-office disappointments John Carter and Snow White and the Huntsman. Two non-action oriented films in Cloud Atlas and Life of Pi (both due out in the next couple of months in the UK) round off the group of impressive nominations.

However there was no place on the list for the likes of Dredd, The Expendables II, The Hunger Games, Total Recall, Breaking Dawn: Part 2 or the upcoming tsunami drama The Impossible.

Whilst we are still waiting for Life of Pi and Cloud Atlas, both films are looking like strong favourites to make the final five with their visual effects being strongly praised by the US critics. The Avengers, Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit should also make the grade though Prometheus could squeeze in at the expense of one of those three films.

The members of the Visual Effects Branch will be invited to view 10-minute clips from each of the ten shortlisted films on January 3rd with the final five nominations announced alongside the rest of the Oscar categories on January 13th 2013.