AirVuz has been celebrating the very best drone video content material because it launched in Minneapolis in 2015, and The Drone Woman has been alongside for the trip nearly for the reason that starting — from judging the annual contest to attending the reside awards ceremony in individual again when it was nonetheless a Minneapolis winter occasion. And as soon as once more, I used to be a choose for the AirVuz 2025 Drone Video of the 12 months contest, and the outcomes are in.
The 2025 area displays two clear developments: the continued dominance of cinematic journey footage, and the regular rise of FPV as a severe inventive self-discipline reasonably than only a area of interest sport.
AirVuz is a aerial video-focused web site that has grown to develop into one of many largest drone video communities on the planet. Its annual Video of the 12 months contest is likely one of the key benchmark for what’s doable in aerial filmmaking. Listed here are the winners, how they have been chosen and the way you may win subsequent yr.
How the competition works
Each video you add to AirVuz.com is routinely entered into the weekly Drone Video of the Week contest — no further steps required. Every week, 5 movies are chosen and one wins $250. That weekly winner advances to a month-to-month contest, the place one other spherical of voting awards a further $500. Month-to-month winners routinely earn a spot within the year-end contest.
From there, the AirVuz crew evaluations high-ranking movies from all year long and selects 30 extra wild playing cards to spherical out the sphere. This yr’s pool was 42 nominated movies, judged by an exterior panel together with yours actually. Different judges included my associates Elena Buenrostro of Ladies Who Drone, prolific author and photographer Kara Murphy and Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE.com. All of us voted utilizing star ranking throughout a number of standards.
In line with AirVuz, seven of the 9 acknowledged movies have been wild playing cards — that means the judges incessantly diverged from the inner crew’s preferences. Entry is totally free.
Oh, and by the way in which, the 2026 contest is already underway, that means something you add now may win subsequent subsequent.
The 2025 AirVuz winner
Muhamad AbuShakra took high honors for the AirVuz 2025 drone contest with “Namibia | Land of Contrasts”, an aerial portrait of the southwest African nation filmed over 14 days. The video strikes from the Namib Desert (one of many oldest on Earth) to the Atlantic shoreline the place the desert runs straight into the ocean, to the rusted shipwreck Zella half-buried within the sand at Henties Bay, to safari wildlife footage that rounds out the portrait of a rustic that doesn’t get practically sufficient consideration from drone pilots.
The runners-up
Jay Christensen of JayByrd Movies earned a runner-up spot with “When You Fly – JayByrd Movies Reel”. Christensen is likely one of the pioneers of cinematic FPV content material creation, and his resume contains main shopper names such because the MLB All-Star Sport, the White Home and U2 concert events contained in the Las Vegas Sphere. His bowling alley video stays one of many most-watched drone movies ever made. In the event you haven’t seen his work earlier than, this reel is an effective place to begin.
Makhorov took the second runner-up spot with “The North Pole Journey”, which was filmed from a Russian icebreaker at probably the most distant places on Earth. The North Pole sits atop an Arctic Ocean practically 14,000 ft deep, coated by constantly-shifting ice.
The finalists
Timelab.professional introduced a drone tour of Kazan, Russia — a reputation Drone Woman readers will acknowledge, as Timelab.professional received the very first AirVuz Drone Video of the 12 months again in 2017 with aerial footage of Moscow. Almost a decade later, they’re nonetheless within the finals.
Different finalists included:
- FADAH_FPV, who captured Greenland’s icebergs.
- Eneour, who filmed Norway’s Svalbard Archipelago with a Purple Komodo, a DJI Mavic 3 Professional, and a GoPro on an FPV drone.
- onlythenico created “Iceland: A Symphony of Seasons” — hitting Gullfoss waterfall, the Dynjandí waterfall, the Vatnajökull icecap, the Dyrhólaey rock arch, the Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon, and an erupting volcano throughout 5 minutes.
- Skynamic — one other returning identify from the 2023 contest — delivered an FPV flythrough of the Thyssenkrupp metal manufacturing unit in Duisburg, Germany, one of many nice heavy industrial websites in Europe.
- zimydakid rounds out the finalists with “The Nice Outdoor.”
What’s price watching on this yr’s area
The AirVuz 2025 contest is proof that FPV has matured from a racing pastime right into a reputable cinematic device. And I count on 2026 to be much more fascinating. The Antigravity A1 — the world’s first 360-degree FPV drone — launched in late 2025.
After which in fact, the DJI Avata 360 arrived in March 2026. Each drones seize full spherical footage in flight and permit pilots to reframe any perspective in submit.
Filmmakers who enter contests like this one could have widespread entry to a completely new inventive device versus the same old slate of recent drones that are typically nothing greater than a small spec improve. With these new drones, which provide the power to seize each angle concurrently then select your framing after the actual fact, count on to see extra potentialities that weren’t obtainable to any of this yr’s finalists. Whether or not that interprets into higher contest entries or simply completely different ones is an open query, however count on the 2026 area to look meaningfully completely different from what we’ve seen earlier than.
For now, congratulations to Muhamad AbuShakra, Jay Christensen, Makhorov, and all of the finalists and nominees. You possibly can watch all of the successful movies on AirVuz’s web site right here.
And simply bear in mind, each add to AirVuz.com is routinely within the operating for subsequent yr’s contest — and it’s free.
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