So what we do here each year as a warm up for the Oscars is, I break down each of the 24 categories. The idea is to both familiarize everyone with the category and its history. I look at what the major trends are throughout the past bunch of years, how the precursors tend to go, whether they matter or not, that sort of stuff. I look at how the category came to be this year, and just anything else that seems totally pertinent about it. Then I rank each of the nominees and tell you what their likelihood (at this particular moment in time) of winning is.
This is all prelude to my giant Oscar ballot that I’m gonna give you. But I figure, if you have these as the warmup, it’s not as intimidating. You’ll have seen a lot of the pertinent trends here and we’ll all be able to reference these as a sort of cheat sheet. Plus it shows you where my head is at for how I think each of the categories are gonna go, and you can see me working my way up to all the bad decisions I usually make while guessing. Pretty much, with this, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the category is gonna turn out.
Today is Makeup & Hairstyling, which admittedly we could have gone over a few days ago. Because it’s one of the most locked categories of the night. But I figured it would be better to write some of the other ones first and then treat myself with an easy day for the one with only three nominees.
| Year | Best Makeup Winners | Other Nominees |
| 1981 | An American Werewolf in London | Heartbeeps |
| 1982 | Quest for Fire | Gandhi |
| 1983 | No award given. | No category. |
| 1984 | Amadeus | Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
2010 |
| 1985 | Mask | The Color Purple
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins |
| 1986 | The Fly | The Clan of the Cave Bear
Legend |
| 1987 | Harry and the Hendersons | Happy New Year |
| 1988 | Beetlejuice | Coming to America
Scrooged |
| 1989 | Driving Miss Daisy | The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Dad |
| 1990 | Dick Tracy | Cyrano de Bergerac
Edward Scissorhands |
| 1991 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day | Hook
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country |
| 1992 | Bram Stoker’s Dracula | Batman Begins
Hoffa |
| 1993 | Mrs. Doubtfire | Philadelphia
Schindler’s List |
| 1994 | Ed Wood | Forrest Gump
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein |
| 1995 | Braveheart | My Family, Mi Familia
Roommates |
| 1996 | The Nutty Professor | Ghosts of Mississippi
Star Trek: First Contact |
| 1997 | Men in Black | Mrs. Brown
Titanic |
| 1998 | Elizabeth | Saving Private Ryan
Shakespeare in Love |
| 1999 | Topsy-Turvy | Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Bicentennial Man Life |
| 2000 | How the Grinch Stole Christmas | The Cell
Shadow of the Vampire |
| 2001 | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring | A Beautiful Mind
Moulin Rouge! |
| 2002 | Frida | The Time Mahine |
| 2003 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl |
| 2004 | Lemony Snicker’s A Series of Unfortunate Events | The Passion of the Christ
The Sea Inside |
| 2005 | The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | Cinderella Man
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith |
| 2006 | Pan’s Labyrinth | Apocalypto
Click |
| 2007 | La Vie en Rose | Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End |
| 2008 | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button | The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army |
| 2009 | Star Trek | Il Divo
The Young Victoria |
| 2010 | The Wolfman | Barney’s Version
The Way Back |
| 2011 | The Iron Lady | Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 |
| 2012 | Les Misérables | Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey |
| 2013 | Dallas Buyers Club | Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
The Lone Ranger |
| 2014 | The Grand Budapest Hotel | Foxcatcher
Guardians of the Galaxy |
| 2015 | Mad Max: Fury Road | The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
The Revenant |
| 2016 | Suicide Squad | A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond |
| 2017 | Darkest Hour | Victoria & Abdul
Wonder |
The precursors don’t really matter here. And even so, you generally know what’s gonna win just by looking at it. Even looking up there at 2016, it was 50/50. You generally know what the deal is. We don’t need to spend too much time on this one.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Border
Mary Queen of Scots
Vice
I could end this article right now with three words. But I won’t, we’ll go through the motions.
Vice won BFCA already. BAFTA has Vice and Mary Queen of Scots up in their category. Border got on and nobody knows what it is. No screener has, as of yet, been given out, and chances are no one will vote for it because they haven’t seen it.
So yeah, I think we know where this one’s headed.
Rankings:
3. Border — No joke, there hasn’t been a screener sent out of this movie. 90% of the Academy (and I’m being generous) doesn’t even know this movie exists. Hell, the only reason I know it exists (aside from the shortlist) is because… wait, why do I know about this movie? Let’s just go with I’m me and I find all sorts of crazy shit on my travels. Still, foreign nominees don’t win here in an open vote. Look at the previous winners. What’s the last remotely surprising thing you see in the win column? (Not what it beat. Just winners. I go back to 1999 before I even bat an eye. And even that’s like, “I honestly don’t even remember the makeup in that movie.”) Open votes favor “classier” nominees. Simple fact of nature.
2. Mary Queen of Scots — the makeup is good and the hairstyling is great. It’s completely worthy of being here. But it has no chance. Come on, now. We all know what the score is here. Maybe if Suspiria were the third film, then we could have a conversation. But not against Vice. This ain’t happening. Let me see it win BAFTA before I consider anything else. I’m not even counting the guild. That’s meaningless to me. I want to see BAFTA before I even consider possibly thinking about changing my mind. The rankings won’t change, but only then will I consider this as a possible winner.
1. Vice — Just look at last year. Gary Oldman wins an Oscar for playing Winston Churchill. The makeup team came with him. What the hell do you think is gonna happen this year? Even if Bale somehow loses Best Actor in the end (which is less than 50% at the moment), this should be the winner easily. And, let’s not forget — he LOOKS LIKE DICK CHENEY ON THE SCREEN. But also, Meryl Streep, Iron Lady. Took her makeup team with her. I’m no counting the DiCaprio win and Revenant loss here, because that wasn’t a real person he played. Dallas Buyers Club. McConaughey wins, makeup team comes with. Though that was a weak category, so that was fait accompli. Les Mis won over Hitchcock. Why? Best Picture nominee and Anne Hathaway won. This is the favorite. It’s going to win. Just take the easy win and move along. We’re four categories in and you basically have three guaranteed winners already, and have to feel pretty fucking good about the fourth. The key with the Oscars is to take the easy ones and focus your energy on the hard ones. This is one of the easy ones. Don’t overthink it.
– – – – – – – – – –