The Visual Effects Society just locked in its next wave of industry legends. They are setting up their annual Los Angeles ceremony for September 4 at the Skirball Cultural Center. This isn’t just a standard list of executives. The 2026 VES Honors class brings a heavy dose of nostalgia mixed with structural recognition for the people who actually built modern blockbuster cinema.
Let’s talk about the Hall of Fame inductions first. The society is posthumously honoring producer Jon Landau, who passed away in 2024 after fundamentally altering the box office with James Cameron on the Avatar films and Titanic. And in a deeply cool move that acknowledges the international roots of practical effects, the VES is also inducting Japanese filmmakers Ishirō Honda and Tomoyuki Tanaka. These are the guys who launched the original Godzilla franchise. Throw in British television pioneer Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds fame, and you have an official Hall of Fame roster.
But the living honorees taking the stage this fall are the backbone of global VFX pipelines. Susan Zwerman is walking away with the VES Founders Award for her sustained industry service. She also picks up a Lifetime VES Membership alongside computer graphics pioneer Jeff Kleiser.
The recognition spreads pretty wide this year. The society is structurally elevating several global studio leaders. Here is exactly who else is getting tapped for 2026:
- Honorary VES Members: Academy Award-winning supervisor Scott Stokdyk (Spider-Man 2) and Framestore co-founder Sir William Sargent.
- 2026 VES Fellows: SpinVFX founder Neishaw Ali, international marketing executive Rita Cahill, creative technology executive Barbara Ford Grant, and longtime VES leader Susan Thurmond O’Neal.
Recognizing executives like Sargent and Ali specifically highlights the ongoing influence of European and North American visual effects houses in a highly competitive global market. The September 4 event will formally cement these names into the society’s permanent record.