2025 Oscars: Best Costume Design Predictions
Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. ET/ 4:00 p.m. PT. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.
The State of the Race
“Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.) is the early favorite in expanding the universe of Denis Villeneuve’s epic sci-fi trilogy with a greater range of costumes. Other preliminary standouts include “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (Warner Bros.), “Kinds of Kindness” (Searchlight Pictures), “Sing Sing” (A24), and “Deadpool & Wolverine” (Disney/Marvel).
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Among the major fall/holiday contenders are “Wicked” (Universal), “Gladiator II” (Paramount), “Megalopolis” (Lionsgate), “Nosferatu” (Focus Features), “Blitz” (Apple TV+), “The Piano Lesson” (Netflix), and “A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures).
In “Dune: Part Two,” costume designer Jacqueline West focused on the Harkonnen of Giedi Prime and Arrakis while introducing the Imperial world. This entailed creating looks for a whole new set of groups. In addition, the team came up with new costumes for the Bene Gesserits, particularly the southern Reverend Mothers of the Fremen, and a new color palette for the cave-dwelling Sietch, joined by Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson).
Egyptian art was the inspiration for the southern Reverend Mothers, which was ornate in a warm, sandy, organic color palette, with light olive greens, silver, and gold. The Sietch clothing contains simple organic fabrics fashioned into loose outfits, almost like pajamas. For Christopher Walken’s Emperor, West was guided by Mongol ruler Kublai Khan sitting on a throne. Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), like all Bene Gesserits, is based on medieval nuns. Her headdress was more ornate, and she had a close-fitting chainmail hood with a mesh-like metal grille.
For George Miller’s “Furiosa” prequel, costume designer Jenny Beavan (the Oscar-winning “Fury Road”) gives a brief glimpse of the Green Place with some decorative wardrobe, but mainly continues working within the world of the Wasteland. The guiding principle is dressing for survival built around bones and leather. Anya Taylor-Joy’s younger Furiosa sports a much looser, less defined look than Charlize Theron’s more badass character in “Fury Road” (but Beaven gave her more comfortable boots). Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus, leader of the Biker Hoard, was characterized by his bandleader’s vest and teddy bear mascot to emphasize his showmanship.
Greg Kwedar’s “Sing Sing,” the fact-based drama about an inmate theater troupe at Sing Sing led by Colman Domingo’s Divine G, is built around their attempt to stage the time-traveling comedy “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code.” Costume designer Desira Pesta not only reproduced the prison wear known as “The Greens” (which were purposefully ill-fitting for Divine G), but also the eye-catching costumes for the play. In studying videos of the actual production, she seized on the notion that the men had a childlike approach to creating their costumes.
For “Kinds of Kindness,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ twisted anthology set in alternate realities, costume designer Jennifer Johnson created striking delineations of power and control for the characters played by Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, and Willem Dafoe. Stone, who belongs to a sex cult in the third story, “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” wears a cheap Calvin Klein suit during her search for a woman who can resurrect the dead. Dafoe, who plays the cult leader, wears an orange Speedo. In the first story, “The Death of R.M.F.,” Dafoe plays a controlling CEO who wears suits modeled after ’70s fashion figure Agnelli.
For Shawn Levy’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” costume designed by Graham Churchyard and Mayes C. Rubio, Hugh Jackman wears the iconic yellow suit for the first time from the Marvel comics and “X-Men: The Animated Series.” This was part of a new take on Wolverine, with Jackman entering the MCU after the character’s dramatic demise in “Logan.” In addition, Ryan Reynolds sports a brighter shade of red and larger black circles on his mask, in keeping with the comic book design of the ’90s.
“Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 million epic sci-fi passion project, which draws parallels between the fall of Rome and the collapse of America, is set in a New York-like metropolis called New Rome. It involves Adam Driver’s idealistic architect rebuilding the city as a utopia and the resulting clash with the ruling elite. Costume designer Milena Canonero, in her flamboyance, strove for the look of a hopeful New World but with the remnants of ancient Rome that were disappearing.
As for the rest: In “Wicked,” Jon Chu’s adaptation of the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holtzman, we get the backstory between the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda. Before they become bitter enemies, an unlikely friendship forms at the magical Shiz University in the Land of Oz between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a misunderstood girl with green skin, and the popular Galinda (Ariana Grande). Inspired by the original drawings from L. Frank Baum’s novel, costume designer Paul Tazewell explores these two iconic characters through couture-level design.
“Gladiator II,” Ridley Scott’s sequel to his Oscar winner, takes place two decades later as the Roman Empire continues to implode, providing a legacy-building opportunity for go-to costume designer Janty Yates (who won the Oscar for “Gladiator”). It concerns Lucius (Paul Mescal), the former heir to the Empire, forced to enter the Colosseum as a ruthless gladiator. His armor appears inspired by Russell Crowe’s Maximus from the first film. Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, a former slave-turned-merchant, uses Lucius as part of his power play by pitting him against Pedro Pascal’s Roman general, Marcus Acacius, in the arena.
“Blitz” director Steve McQueen taps Oscar-winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran (“Little Women”) for his drama about Londoners during the Blitz of World War II. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, and singer/songwriter Paul Weller, it comes on the heels of McQueen’s World War II doc “Occupied City.” McQueen explores a true representation of what Londonders endured, and Durran should be very much at home dressing the cast of characters, particularly the working-class family desperate to be reunited during wartime.
“Nosferatu,” director Robert Eggers’ passion project, reworks the legendary silent vampire film by F.W. Murnau (remade by Werner Herzog in 1979), with Bill Skarsg?rd as the infamous Count Orlok, Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, and Nicholas Hoult as her husband. Go-to costume designer Linda Muir should have a field day re-imagining the iconic wardrobes for this gothic fest, feeding off of cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s desaturated 35mm cinematography, inspired by 19th-century Romanticism.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” (Warner Bros.) Todd Phillips’ musical thriller, picks up with Arthur/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) facing the death penalty for multiple murders and striking up a delusional romance with Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn while incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. Costume designer Arianne Phillips steps in for Mark Bridges, recreating and tweaking Arthur Fleck/Joker’s look while creating a wardrobe for Harley Quinn that works in the context of musically-inspired inner fantasies.
Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Warner Bros.), the sequel to his horror comedy, sees Michael Keaton’s foul-mouth ghoul return from the afterlife to torment the Deetz family 36 years later. Oscar-winning go-to costume designer Colleen Atwood gets her first crack at costuming Keaton’s Beetlejuice and happily puts him back in the iconic stripped suit, even though the actor thinks the burgundy tux is more quintessential.
Robert Zemeckis’ “Here” (Sony Pictures), based on the graphic novel by Richard McGuire about the inhabitants of a single house throughout time, offers go-to costume designer Joanna Johnston a creative way of chronicling changing fashions from the ’30s to the present day. The focus is a couple played by Tom Hanks and Robin Wright (reunited from “Forrest Gump”), who meet and marry in the late ’60s, raise a family, and grow old together. Zemeckis has adopted a virtual production methodology around Metaphysic Live, the generative AI software from Metaphysic, which face-swaps and de-ages the actors in real-time as they perform.
“The Piano Lesson,” Malcolm Washington’s adaption of the August Wilson play starring John David Washington and Samuel L. Jackson, explores the lives of the Charles family in 1936 Pittsburgh. Costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck creates the wardrobe for this Depression-era working-class family. The ensemble cast also includes Ray Fisher, Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Potts, and Corey Hawkins.
“Saturday Night,” from director Jason Reitman, chronicles the lead-up to the premiere of NBC’s iconic late-night sketch comedy show, starring Gabriel LaBelle (“The Fabelmans”) as “SNL” creator/producer Lorne Michaels. Costume designer Danny Glicker (“Ghostbusters: Afterlife”) creates the period wardrobes for these comic legends that come together for this momentous show.
“Conclave” (Focus Features), director Edward Berger’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front,” is a thriller adapted from the Robert Harris novel about a Cardinal (Ralph Fiennes) tasked with finding a successor to the deceased Pope, who harbored a dangerous secret. Costume designer Lisy Christl (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) dresses the papal trappings for a cast that also includes three other Cardinals (played by Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Lucian Msamati) and a nun (Isabella Rossellini).
“Emilia Pérez” (Netflix), the musical crime thriller from Jacques Audiard, stars Zoe Salda?a as a disgruntled lawyer who assists the titular escaped Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón) in undergoing sex reassignment surgery to evade capture and affirm her gender. The costumes for the opera-like film were designed by Virginie Montel.
“Maria” (Netflix), Pablo Larraín’s biographically-inspired drama about opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie), takes place during her final years in Paris in the ’70s. It continues the director’s cycle of psychological portraits (“Jackie,” “Spencer”) and contains a visual concept that fuses the ’40s through the ’70s period with surreal musical sequences. Costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini took inspiration from Callas’ original wardrobe; however, no new fur was sourced for Jolie’s garments.
“A Complete Unknown,” James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, chronicles the folk star’s rise in New York’s West Village in 1961 to the controversial 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he turned electric. Costume designer Phillips was responsible for dressing Chalamet as the freewheelin’ Dylan.
Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner until we have seen it.
Frontrunners
“Deadpool & Wolverine”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”
“Kinds of Kindness”
“Sing Sing”
Contenders
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”
“Blitz”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Gladiator II”
“Here”
“Joker: Folie à Deux”
“Maria”
“Megalopolis”
“Nosferatu”
“The Piano Lesson”
“Saturday Night”
“Wicked”
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