Final 2020 Oscar Predictions – COSTUME DESIGN

A tight race and it’s most likely between BAFTA winner Little Women and Costume Design Guild winner Jojo Rabbit. These two films are going tooth and nail in more than one category and this one’s gonna be close.

Why? Because of the main costume design precursors of the season, no film has earned more than one win, the only time this decade that’s ever happened. Dolemite Is My Name won Critics Choice and then was Oscar-snubbed (the only time this decade that’s happened). Jojo Rabbit won CDG (Period) where Little Women wasn’t even nominated (late release, screener issues, etc) and BAFTA went for Little Women over Jojo Rabbit. Even though it is most likely to be LW or Jojo, it opens the door to a surprise win from elsewhere.

If you check out the chart of wins below you’ll see that the combination of Critics Choice and BAFTA is almost a solid lock. Only Jackie earned both and still ultimately lost the Oscar (more on that in a minute). There hasn’t been an Oscar winner from the CDG (Contemporary) but it’s good to have the visual of it here to see just where Academy voters lean when it comes to the CDG’s three categories. Three times they’ve gone for the Fantasy winner there, including Black Panther just last year. BP also had Critics Choice in it pocket and pulled out a win against BAFTA-winner The Favourite.

CDG (Period) has surprisingly only lined up with Oscar twice and both times it was first in perfect alignment with Critics Choice and BAFTA (Alice in Wonderland and Mad Max: Fury Road).

Earlier I mentioned the near-lock combo of Critics Choice and BAFTA and that Jackie is the only outlier this decade for that. I bring it up again because that year gave us one of the decade’s biggest upsets when Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them won despite zero precursors going in, the only film to accomplish that. How did it do that? Colleen Atwood is how. She’s a 12-time nominee and four-time Oscar winner for costume design and the reigning queen of the category. Sidebar: Atwood’s first nomination came from the 1994 version of Little Women. What does all of that mean for this year? In my eyes, it means there is a path for a surprise win here very similar to Atwood’s and that comes from her friendly rival in this category, 15-time nominee and 3-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell for The Irishman. I’m not saying it’s going to happen – The Irishman missed out on a CDG nomination where Fantastic Beasts did not – but keep it in your back pocket.

Here are my ranked Final Oscar predictions in Costume Design with a chart of a decade of related precursors and history.