AirVuz has been celebrating one of the best drone video content material because it launched in Minneapolis in 2015, and The Drone Lady has been alongside for the journey 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 decide for the AirVuz 2025 Drone Video of the 12 months contest, and the outcomes are in.
The 2025 discipline displays two clear developments: the continued dominance of cinematic journey footage, and the regular rise of FPV as a critical inventive self-discipline quite than only a area of interest sport.
AirVuz is a aerial video-focused web site that has grown to grow to be one of many largest drone video communities on this planet. Its annual Video of the 12 months contest is among the key benchmark for what’s attainable in aerial filmmaking. Listed below are the winners, how they had been chosen and the way you would possibly win subsequent yr.
How the competition works
Each video you add to AirVuz.com is mechanically entered into the weekly Drone Video of the Week contest — no additional 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 mechanically earn a spot within the year-end contest.
From there, the AirVuz workforce critiques 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 really. Different judges included my pals 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 had been wild playing cards — which means the judges steadily diverged from the inner workforce’s preferences. Entry is totally free.
Oh, and by the best way, the 2026 contest is already underway, which means something you add now may win subsequent subsequent.
The 2025 AirVuz winner
Muhamad AbuShakra took prime 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 among 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 live shows contained in the Las Vegas Sphere. His bowling alley video stays one of many most-watched drone movies ever made. Should 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 one of the vital distant places on Earth. The North Pole sits atop an Arctic Ocean practically 14,000 toes deep, lined by constantly-shifting ice.
The finalists
Timelab.professional introduced a drone tour of Kazan, Russia — a reputation Drone Lady 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 facility 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 discipline
The AirVuz 2025 contest is proof that FPV has matured from a racing interest right into a respectable cinematic software. And I anticipate 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 put up.
Filmmakers who enter contests like this one can have widespread entry to a wholly new inventive software versus the same old slate of recent drones that are usually nothing greater than a small spec improve. With these new drones, which supply the flexibility to seize each angle concurrently then select your framing after the very fact, anticipate to see extra prospects 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 anticipate the 2026 discipline 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’ll be able to watch all of the profitable movies on AirVuz’s web site right here.
And simply keep in mind, each add to AirVuz.com is mechanically within the working for subsequent yr’s contest — and it’s free.
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