2021 Oscar Predictions: PRODUCTION DESIGN (January)

Erik Anderson January 26, 2021

I think I slept on Tenet for too long here. Nathan Crowley is a 5-time nominee in this category, four of them for Christopher Nolan films. Even if Tenet doesn’t quite feel like a feat of production design in the same way as Interstellar or The Dark Knight or Dunkirk, I can’t discount that track record, not in this year.

For some films, sheer scope will be the key to their success. Mulan and News of the World traverse multiple landscapes with art direction that is either extravagant and fantastical or rustic and lived in. For others, it will be minute period details like Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Personal History of David Copperfield or the space and interplanetary world of The Midnight Sky.

Here are my ranked 2021 Oscar predictions in Production Design for January.

Green – moves up; Red – moves down; Blue – new entry this month

1. Mank (Netflix)
Donald Graham Burt (production designer), Jan Pascale (set decorator)

2. Mulan (Walt Disney Pictures)
Grant Major (production designer), Anne Kuljian (set decorator)

3. The Personal History of David Copperfield (Searchlight Pictures)
Cristina Casali (production designer), Charlotte Dirickx (set decorator)

4. News of the World (Universal Pictures)
David Crank (production designer), Elizabeth Keenan (set decorator)

5. Tenet (Warner Bros)
Nathan Crowley (production designer), Kathy Lucas (set decorator)

6. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)
Mark Ricker (production designer), Karen O’Hara and Diana Stoughton (set decorators)

7. The Midnight Sky (Netflix)
Jim Bissell (production designer), John Bush (set decorator)

8. Emma. (Focus Features)
Kave Quinn (production designer), Stella Fox (set decorations)

9. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)
Shane Valentino (production designer), Andrew Baseman (set decorator)

10. The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Paramount Pictures)
Daniel T. Dorrance (production designer), Pascale Deschênes (set decorator)

Other Contenders (alphabetical by film)

Ammonite (Neon)
Sarah Finlay (production designer), Sophie Hervieu (set decorator)

Da 5 Bloods (Netflix)
Wynn Thomas (production designer), Jeanette Scott (set decorator)

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix)
Gavin Bocquet (production designer), Rob Cameron (set decorator)

Judas and the Black Messiah (Warner Bros)
Sam Lisenco (production designer), Rebecca Brown (set decorator)

The Prom (Netflix)
Jamie Walker McCall (production designer), Gene Serdena (set decorator)

Rebecca (Netflix)
Sarah Greenwood (production designer), Katie Spencer (set decorator)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.