Oscars: Will ‘Oppenheimer’ or ‘Poor Things’ win all three design awards?
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Some categories go together naturally, like Best Picture and Best Director. It’s no different in the below-the-line categories, either, with Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling having an interesting relationship with one another.
The three design awards are often paired or grouped together as a trio and awarded to the same film. Most recently, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” won both Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Let’s take a closer look at this trifecta of categories and examine the last 20 ceremonies to break down how often these awards overlap.
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As you can see, in the past two decades, there have been 11 instances where a film has won at least two of these three design categories.
Eight films have won both Costume Design and Production Design: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2004, “The Aviator” in 2005, “Memoirs of a Geisha” in 2006, “Alice in Wonderland” in 2011, “The Great Gatsby” in 2014, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” in 2015, “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2016, and “Black Panther” in 2019. This is the most common combination and strongly suggests that if you win one of them, you have a great chance at taking the other one home, too.
Five movies have claimed both Production Design and Makeup and Hairstyling: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2004, “Pan’s Labyrinth” in 2007, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in 2009, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” in 2015, and “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2016. Again, there’s a decent link here.
Four movies have prevailed for both Costume Design and Makeup and Hairstyling: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2004, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” in 2015, “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2016, and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” in 2021. This is somewhat surprising. Costumes and makeup and hair are the closest linked to each other out of these three categories. In fact, you could suggest makeup and hair design are an extension of costume in many cases. It’s intriguing, then, that there hasn’t been much overlap between these two categories in the last 20 years.
Only three films have won all three of these design awards: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2004 “The Grand Budapest Hotel” in 2015, and “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2016. The profile of these films are all the same, too, as they were all contenders for Best Picture (“The Return of the King” won) and all won the most Oscars overall in their respective years (“The Grand Budapest Hotel” won the joint-most along with “Birdman”).
So, could any film this year win two or even three of these races? Let’s take a look at our Oscar predictions for the design awards.
The nominees for Best Costume Design are “Barbie” (Jacqueline Durran), “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Jacqueline West), “Napoleon” (Janty Yates and Dave Crossman), “Oppenheimer” (Ellen Mirojnick), and “Poor Things” (Holly Waddington).
Coincidentally, the lineup for Best Production Design consists of the exact same five films: “Barbie” (Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer), “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Jack Fisk and Adam Willis), “Napoleon” (Arthur Max and Elli Griff), “Oppenheimer” (Ruth De Jong and Claire Kaufman), and “Poor Things” (James Price, Shona Heath, and Zsuzsa Mihalek).
Only two of those flicks are also nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, however: “Oppenheimer” (Luisa Abel) and “Poor Things” (Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier, and Josh Weston). The other three nominees in this category are “Golda” (Karen Hartley Thomas, Suzi Battersby, and Ashra Kelly-Blue), “Maestro” (Kazu Hiro, Kay. Georgiou, and Lori McCoy-Bell), and “Society of the Snow” (Ana López-Puigcerver, David Martí, and Montse Ribé).
So, five films could win a combination of Costume Design and Production Design and two films could win a combination of Costume Design/Makeup and Hairstyling and Production Design/Makeup and Hairstyling. Only two films could win all three design awards, too. Those two films are “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things.” If they did, it would be the first time since “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2016 when a movie won all three of these awards.
We don’t expect that to happen, however, as we are predicting two films will take home these three awards. We think “Maestro” will win Best Makeup and Hairstyling for the stunning work in transforming director-writer-producer-actor Bradley Cooper into Leonard Bernstein. However, we do think that a film will win both Best Costume Design and Best Production Design: “Barbie.”
Greta Gerwig‘s “Barbie” is the heavy favorite to take home both of these awards and is expected to become the ninth film in the last 21 years and first film since “Black Panther” in 2019 to do so. “Poor Things” lurks in second place in all three of these categories, however, so if any film is going to pull off this rare trifecta, it will be Yorgos Lanthimos‘ movie rather than Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer,” which sits in joint fifth in all three categories in our Oscars odds chart. We don’t think “Poor Things” has much hope of causing such a drastic upset in all three categories. Instead, it’s going to be “Maestro” and “Barbie” all the way.
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
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