Ultimate voting is February 11-18. The 97th Oscars telecast shall be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air dwell on ABC at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT. We replace our picks all through awards season, so maintain checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.
The State of the Race
The Greatest Manufacturing Design nominees are “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Half Two,” “Nosferatu,” and “Depraved,” which is the favourite for its colourful and imaginative Oz world-building. However “The Brutalist” is getting loads of buzz for its meta architectural work.
Jon M. Chu’s “Depraved” tells the origin story of Elphaba/the Depraved Witch (Oscar-nominated Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda/Glinda the Good Witch (Oscar-nominated Ariana Grande). Manufacturing designer Nathan Crowley (a seven-time Oscar nominee) and set decorator Lee Sandales mapped out Oz utilizing fashions, illustrations, and visible references to create every setting: The highlights are the rainbow-colored Munchkinland, with its 9 million tulips, the Italian-looking Shiz College, the place Elphaba and Galinda first meet, and the elegant Emerald Metropolis. Crowley additionally designed the Emerald Metropolis Categorical, a mechanical automaton, and The Wizard’s massive, wood, mechanical head.
Brady Corbet’s post-Holocaust drama, “The Brutalist,” pits Oscar-nominated Adrien Brody as visionary architect László Tóth towards Oscar-nominated Man Pearce as industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren. The Brutalist architectural motion from the ’50s emerged from post-war trauma and works superbly within the VistaVision format. The minimalist type was comprised of daring shapes comprised of concrete or brick. Manufacturing designer Judy Becker made prop fashions for Tóth and precise fashions to construct the units and furnishings (from set decorator Patrica Cuccia). Essentially the most outstanding set was The Institute, which was Tóth’s unfinished ardour challenge, representing each the imprisonment of the focus camp barracks and the thought of freedom.
“Conclave,” Edward Berger’s follow-up to “All Quiet on the Western Entrance,” is a psychological thriller by which Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal searches for a successor to the deceased Pope, who harbored a darkish secret. Manufacturing designer Suzie Davies (“Saltburn”) and set decorator Cynthia Sleiter meticulously recreated the Vatican interiors at Cinecittà Studios, particularly the sequestered conclave contained in the Sistine Chapel. This was a mix of sunshine and darkish, conventional and fashionable, female and male. For instance, there’s a hermetically sealed, posh jail strategy to the fictional Casa Santa Marta Vatican residences, the place the cardinals reside, and barely extra freedom contained in the Sistine Chapel. Thankfully, Cinecittà had an current set for the latter in storage.
Oscar-winning “Dune” manufacturing designer Patrice Vermette and set decorator Shane Vieau (an Oscar winner for “The Form of Water”) take a deeper dive into the Fremen and Harkonnen cultures, with 40 % extra units to work with. The mysterious, hidden world of the nomadic Fremen is slowly being buried. That is the metaphor of the inside Sietch set, which is crammed with sand. A bone harmonica impressed the Cave of Birds, the inside of which appears to be like like big fingerprints. The Maker’s Temple is a determine eight, symbolizing eternity, by which sand represents demise and water life. The Cistern of Souls is the place the Fremen gather water from the useless to maintain them in preparation for his or her dream of a inexperienced Arrakis. For Giedi Primi, Vermette was impressed by septic tanks as a result of he related the Hardonnen with having the morals of a sewer. This grew to become the premise for his use of inky black plastic and silver.
Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” affords a extra folkloric tackle the vampire movie with pre-Victorian gothic horror. Shot all through Prague (together with Barrandov Studios, the 14th-century Rožmitál Citadel, and the Invalidovna advanced), manufacturing designer Craig Lathrop and set decorator Beatrice Brentnerová leaned into architectural authenticity as a method of grounding the horror. They recreate a Nineteenth-century German city and distinction that with a Fifteenth-century fortress in Romania, the place Invoice Skarsgård’s Depend Orlok lives.
Nominees are listed beneath so as of chance they are going to win.
Contenders
“Depraved”
“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Half Two”
“Nosferatu”