Oscar predictions: What do last decade of Best Production Design winners tell us about this year?

“Saltburn,” “Oppenheimer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Barbie,” “Poor Things,” and “Asteroid City” all earned nominations from the Critics Choice Awards for Best Production Design. That bodes well for each film’s Oscar chances this year. But before we get too ahead of ourselves by predicting who might win this category, let’s take a look back at the last 10 Oscar winners for Best Production Design.

We’re going to take a look at the academy’s tastes here to see what type of films in what type of setting they nominate most. Then, we’ll try to apply those findings to this year’s race as we scrutinize the movies hoping for a nomination in this design category. Here we go.

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These 10 winners seem like totally different movies but a closer look does show some similarities. Firstly, seven out of the 10 are set in the real world. “The Shape of Water” (Paul Denham Austerberry, Shane Vieau, and Jeff Melvin) depicts a fictional facility and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Adam Stockhausen and Anna Pinnock) is set in a fictional hotel, sure, but they are grounded in real life. Only “Mad Max: Fury Road” (Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson), “Black Panther” (Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart), and “Dune” (Patrice Vermette and Zsuzsanna Sipos) are outright set in a fictional world. So the academy seems to prefer production design depicting the real world. That’s one thing.

How about genre? Well, there are three sci-fi movies that have won in the last 10 years and four period movies (three dramas and one comedy). The sci-fi movies are “Dune,” “Black Panther,” and “The Shape of Water.” The period movies are “Mank” (Donald Graham Burt and Jan Pascale), “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh), “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” and “The Great Gatsby” (Catherine Martin and Beverley Dunn). So they are the two prevalent genres.

Time period is also an important factor. Two of the 10 winners are set vaguely in the future (“Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Dune”) while two are modern day:  “La La Land” (Davis Wasco and Sandy Reynolds-Wasco) and “Black Panther.” However, it should be noted that “Black Panther” has a futuristic element to it, and “La La Land” definitely has a period feel to it. Those two elements likely helped both pictures win. There are two set in the 60s and three movies set between the 20s and 40s. That seems to be the sweet spot there. “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper) is the only war movie and is also the film set in the earliest time period (the 1910s).

So, an ideal Best Production Design contender should either be a period film set in real-life in the 1920s-1960s or a sci-fi movie set in an alternate modern-day or in the future. Based on the last 10 winners, those are the two groups that seem to produce the best results.

But what does that mean for this year? Well, according to Oscars odds chart for Best Production Design, our predicted nominees in this category are “Barbie,” “Poor Things,” “Oppenheimer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and “The Color Purple” with “Asteroid City” just on the precipice.

Firstly, there are four period dramas set in real-life that could be up for the award: “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Oppenheimer,” “The Color Purple,” and “Asteroid City.” “Killers of the Flower Moon” is set in the 1920s — Jack Fisk is the production designer while Olivia Peebles and Adam Willis are the set decorators. Fisk was nominated in 2008 for “There Will Be Blood” and in 2016 for another Leonardo DiCaprio movie, “The Revenant.” Peebles and Willis are looking for their first bids.

Those two also worked on “Oppenheimer,” which is set in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Ruth de Jong is the production designer for that movie. She is also looking for her first Oscar nomination.

“The Color Purple” production designer Paul D. Austerberry, set decorator Larry Dias, and costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck recreated the American South in the early 1900s with this remake. Jamison-Tanchuck has never been nominated for an Oscar, but Dias was nominated for Best Art Direction for “Inception” in 2011 and Austerberry won Best Production Design for “The Shape of Water” in 2018. The original 1985 movie won this category, too (J. Michael Riva, Bo Welch, and Linda DeScenna).

“Asteroid City” is set in the 1950s. Stockhausen is the production designer here while Kris Moran is the set decorator. Moran has never been nominated for an Oscar but Stockhausen has three bids to his name (“12 Years a Slave” in 2014, “Bridge of Spies” in 2016, and “West Side Story” in 2022) to go with that win for “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” However, Wes Anderson‘s movies curiously don’t do as well in this category as you might think, given the meticulous design in his movies. Only “The Grand Budapest Hotel” has been nominated in this category.

“Poor Things” is set in a heightened version of the Victorian/Edwardian era. So it has some qualities that make it feel like a period film but also a certain style that makes it seem otherworldly and fantastical (which is certainly no bad thing). Shona Heath and James Price are the production designers while Zsuzsa Mihalek is the set decorator. None of them have been nominated for an Oscar.

And then there is “Barbie,” which fits the “La La Land” and “Black Panther” mold as a film set in an alternate modern-day as well as in a fictional world. Production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorators Katie Spencer and Ashley Swanson bring Barbie Land to life in spectacular style. Longtime collaborators Greenwood and Spencer have both been nominated for six Oscars together: “Pride & Prejudice” in 2006, “Atonement” in 2008, “Sherlock Holmes” in 2010, “Anna Karenina” in 2013, and “Beauty and the Beast” and “Darkest Hour” in 2018. Swanson is hoping for her first Oscar bid.

However, the academy seem to prefer production design based in the world, which gives a big boost to “Oppenheimer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and “The Color Purple,” which are all also period films set in the 1900s. Those three seem like the strongest contenders based on this test but “Barbie” has an individual quality — films and production design like this don’t come around often. Voters may be drawn to this one. Let’s see how things pan out.

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