2025 Oscars: Best Makeup and Hairstyling Predictions
Bill Desowitz
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 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT. We update our picks throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.
The State of the Race
The Best Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar shortlist from December 17 includes “The Apprentice,” “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “A Different Man,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Maria,” “Nosferatu,” “The Substance,” “Waltzing with Brando,” and “Wicked.”
“Wicked,” Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, delivers 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). Oscar winners Frances Hannon (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”) and Mark Coulier (“Poor Things,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Iron Lady”) handle makeup/hair and prosthetics inspired by the original drawings from L. Frank Baum’s novel. Hannon was tasked with creating makeup and hair that could withstand singing, dancing, flying, and 14-hour shoot days. The meticulous transformations for Elphaba and Glinda took over two hours each day of filming. She went through a thorough testing process to create the perfect shade of green for Erivo’s skin tone, making sure the product looked good in all lighting.
“Nosferatu,” director Robert Eggers’ reworking of F.W. Murnau’s legendary silent vampire film, is a new take on the pre-Victorian haunted tale of Gothic horror and the occult. It stars Bill Skarsgård as the infamous Count Orlok; Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, the object of his desire; and Nicholas Hoult as her husband, Thomas. It was led by David White, prosthetic & makeup FX designer. For Skarsgård’s Orlok, this involved carefully manicured 19th-century hairdos and facial hair, which soon devolves into full bodywork as he becomes increasingly more involved with Ellen and Thomas. They become devastated, which shows in their MUAH.
“A Different Man,” the black comedy from Aaron Schimberg, stars Sebastian Stan as an aspiring actor who undergoes experimental facial reconstructive surgery to cure his Neurofibromatosis (NF). After his successful transformation, he tries to land a part in a play based on his former self wearing a mask but loses out to the charismatic Adam Pearson (a British actor with NF). Oscar-nominated prosthetic makeup designer Mike Marino (“The Batman,” “Coming 2 America”) creates multiple layers with realistic detail to emulate the look of NF, using Pearson as a visual connection.
“Emilia Pérez,” the Spanish-language musical crime thriller from Jacques Audiard, stars Zoe Saldaña as a disgruntled lawyer who assists the titular escaped Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón) in undergoing gender confirmation surgery. The makeup and hair departments were overseen by makeup department heads Julia Floch-Carbonel and Simon Livet, as well as hair department head Romain Marietti. The centerpiece is our introduction to Gascón as the cartel leader prior to the surgery.
In “Dune: Part Two,” the Oscar-nominated makeup and hair designer Donald Mowat returns to transform Stellan Skarsgård into the horrifying Baron Harkonnen while introducing the Baron’s nephew, Feyd-Rautha, a bald, sociopathic gladiator played by Austin Butler. In addition, Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica boasts more elaborate makeup when she joins the Fremen’s cave-dwelling Sietch.
For “The Apprentice,” with Stan portraying Donald Trump during his reality TV heyday, prosthetic and makeup artist Brandi Boulet applied the transformation. They altered his sideburns at different ages, changed the color of his wig and eyebrows, and gave him a bald plate to make his hair start to thin.
For “Waltzing with Brando,” prosthetics designer Jerry Constantine and co-prosthetics designer Michael Mekash transformed the unrecognizable Billy Zane into the iconic movie star during his early ’70s comeback in “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.”
Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner until we have seen it.
Frontrunners
“The Apprentice”
“A Different Man”
“Dune: Part Two”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”
Contenders
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Maria”
“Nosferatu”
“Waltzing with Brando”
