Oscar Predictions: Best Production Design

This year, Oscar nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 22nd. I’ll be offering detailed predictions in most of the major categories.

Last year’s nominees: Beauty and the Beast, Blade Runner 2049, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water

My choices: Coming in February!

This year’s locks: Mary Poppins Returns, Roma, The Favourite

Very likely: First Man

Possible: Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, A Star is Born, Crazy Rich Asians, A Quiet Place

Unlikely: Annihilation, Bohemian Rhapsody, Welcome to Marwen

The rundown: One of the reference points for this category is the Art Directors Guild, which has three separate categories – period, fantasy, and contemporary. The strongest contenders from each of those lists are Roma, The Favourite, and First Man, Mary Poppins Returns, Black Panther, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and A Star is Born, Crazy Rich Asians, and A Quiet Place. Less likely to translate to Oscar are Bohemian Rhapsody and Welcome to Marwen. In terms of other contenders, watch out for If Beale Street Could Talk, which I still hope might place here and in other races despite egregious guild snubs, and Annihilation, which has its passionate fans.

One possible crazy scenario: A beautiful-looking film whose absence from awards season I can’t comprehend, Colette, receives a well-deserved mention.

Forecasted winner: I think that the colors and wonder of Mary Poppins Returns propel it to victory.