FINAL 2023 Oscar Nomination Predictions: COSTUME DESIGN

Babylon, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Elvis and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery have all gotten on the BAFTA longlist and received nominations from the Costume Designers Guild (CDG) and Critics’ Choice.

While the first three, being period or fantasy designs, seem likely to get in, the contemporary designs of Glass Onion might prove to be more difficult as the costume design branch tends to veer away from contemporary films, the only real example in more than a decade of nominations being 2016’s La La Land, swept up as a part of its record-setting 14 nominations. But the real surprise this season has been the absolute blanking of the two most-nominated, winningest and most name-checked living designers working today: Colleen Atwood (12 nominations, 4 wins) and Sandy Powell (15 nominations, 3 wins). For Atwood, her work on the sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has missed everything. While she won for the first in the Harry Potter prequel series, 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she also missed for the first sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, so maybe her name-checking days are over. It might be odder than Powell has missed everything for Living, with Best Actor contender Bill Nighy. A double nominee at BAFTA, CDG and the Oscars three times – for 1999’s Shakespeare in Love and Velvet Goldmine, 2015’s Carol and Cinderella and 2018’s The Favourite and Mary Poppins Returns – and the low threshold for a nomination, she’ seems like’s normally an easy prediction. But is she this year?

One thing is for sure; it’s a branch that loves movies about the art of design itself. Whether it’s Coco Before Chanel or The Devil Wears Prada or last year’s winner, Cruella, it’s a bit of a safe bet. This season’s Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, designed no less than by 11-time nominee and three-time winner Jenny Beaven (Cruella) has what it takes to make the cut.

The smallest branch of the Academy with its own category at just 169 members (down two from last year), a Costume Design nomination can be secured with just 29 votes.

Oscar nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24. Here are my final 2023 Oscar nomination predictions for Costume Design.

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.

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