Oscar Predictions: Best Makeup and Hairstyling

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.

I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominees from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

---

 

Previously:

Documentary 

Production Design

Original Song and Score   

Film Editing

Cinematography 

Supporting Actor

Supporting Actress 

Animated Feature 

Foreign Film 

Visual Effects

Director  

Lead Actor
Lead Actress

Glossary:

BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards

M&HG - Hollywood Makeup and Hair Stylist Guild Award

Say what you will about the Suicide Squad win two years ago – it certainly took some of the fun out of this post for me – but it did follow a pattern. This is the 6^th year that the Hollywood Makeup and Hair-styling Guild has given out awards. In the first 5 years, they gave an award to the movie that won the Oscar every time. The problem this year is that the two front runners for the Oscar both won a guild award. The BAFTA Award isn’t that much help either this year. They gave the award to The Favourite, which wasn’t even nominated for the Oscar. 15 of the last 20 Oscar winners were BAFTA nominated, but that doesn’t help much. Those same two front runners were both nominated for the BAFTA. I guess that means I’ll have to follow a hunch.

Vice

BAFTA - Makeup - Nominee

M&HG - Period/Character Makeup - Winner

More often than not, the Makeup & Hair-styling winner is the film that has actual Oscar aspirations elsewhere. That’s just Vice this year. Ever since the trailer dropped Christian Bale’s transformation has dominated the press for this movie. This feels like one of the bigger locks of the night.

Mary Queen of Scots

BAFTA - Makeup - Nominee

M&HG - Period/Character Makeup - Nominee

M&HG - Period/Character Hairstyling - Winner

Much to my surprise, there isn’t much history of Oscar voters awarding films for making people uglier or otherwise making things disgusting. So, it looks like Margot Robbie’s boils will go un-awarded.

Border

From what I understand, Border probably deserves the award, but it didn’t get any BAFTA love, it didn’t get any guild love, and it didn’t get any other Oscar nominations. That kind of film winning doesn’t really happen unless there are no viable alternatives. This year, there are two viable alternatives.