Washington, Dec 17: ‘Beowulf’ and ‘Ratatouille’ have been picked as the eligible contenders for the Academy Awards' Best Visual Effects category.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released a preliminary contender list of fifteen films that will be nominated in the category.

While ‘Beowulf’ is performance-capture-based, ‘Ratatouille’ is computer-animated.

"It's great for animation people, especially in computer graphics films, where there's a huge amount of visual effects that is very similar in complexity to the kind of work we find in live action, " The Hollywood Reporter quoted Jim Morris, Pixar production executive and producer of upcoming ‘Wall-E, ’ as saying.

"It shows the inclusiveness and professionalism of the visual effects branch that looks at that stuff and new technology and see how it's affecting films, " he added

Awards administration director Rich Miller revealed that the list of 15 was created by the visual effects steering committee from a list of 307 eligible films.

The list also includes ‘The Bourne Ultimatum, ’ ‘Evan Almighty, ’ ‘The Golden Compass, ’ ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, ’ ‘I Am Legend, ’ ‘Live Free or Die Hard, ’ ‘National Treasure: Book of Secrets, ’ ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, ’ ‘Spider-Man 3, ’ ‘Sunshine, ’ ‘300, ’ ‘Transformers’ and ‘The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. ’

The nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 22.