In the space of about a month, Emilia Pérez has gone from 13-time nominated behemoth to pariah to somewhere in between. As the backlash has slowly receded—and the cast and crew have distanced themselves from Gascón—I suspect the mob musical, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, the International Film BAFTA, the best-foreign-film Critics’ Choice Award, and Golden Globes for best motion picture: musical or comedy and international film, will still have enough support to take this prize. Having said that, I’d love to be proven wrong, and for Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here—which got a surprise best-picture nomination and is a significantly better film—to sweep in. The Girl with the Needle, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Flow are also all welcome additions to this category, but if a sixth spot could be added—and if India had, of course, submitted it as its official pick—it’d have been wonderful if Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light could’ve been here, too.
Best Production Design
Will win: Wicked
Should win: The Brutalist
Should’ve been a contender: Maria
The Brutalist’s jaw-dropping interiors and furniture design by Judy Becker and Patricia Cuccia would swing this one for me, though Wicked’s eye-popping Emerald City, as conceived by Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales, is, admittedly, no less impressive and the more likely winner. (At the Art Directors’ Guild Awards, the latter won the prize for excellence in production design for a fantasy film, but The Brutalist lost to Nosferatu in the period-film category.) Conclave, Dune: Part Two, and Nosferatu also come together to form a strong shortlist here, but it’s an outrage that Pablo Larraín’s Maria—and that incredible, baroque Parisian apartment, with its marble busts, intricately painted walls, and stained glass-filled kitchen, all created by Guy Hendrix Dyas—was left out. It is, without doubt, one of the most stunning sets from the last year in cinema.
Best Costume Design
Will win: Wicked
Should win: Nosferatu
Should’ve been a contender: Maria
Wicked’s costume designer, Paul Tazewell, has so far taken the BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, and the Costume Designers’ Guild Award for excellence in sci-fi or fantasy film for his extraordinary work in the musical blockbuster. (Wicked’s fellow Oscar nominees Conclave and Nosferatu took that guild’s contemporary and period film prizes, respectively.) Previously Oscar nominated for West Side Story and having lost out to Cruella’s Jenny Beavan, it does feel like Tazewell’s time—though I was, in truth, more blown away by Linda Muir’s ravishing velvet ballgowns and silk capes from Nosferatu, ensembles which are both staggeringly beautiful and terrifyingly austere, perfectly embodying the spirit of Robert Eggers’s Victorian spine-chiller. A Complete Unknown, Conclave, and Gladiator II round out this category, but Maria should really have gotten in too, for Massimo Cantini Parrini’s lavish and intricate recreation of Maria Callas’s wardrobe. Academy voters clearly didn’t connect with this film, but its sumptuous design elements deserved more acknowledgement regardless.
Best Make-Up and Hairstyling
Will win: The Substance
Should win: The Substance
Should’ve been a contender: The Apprentice
