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

As we enter the fall/holiday season, “Wicked” (Universal) is gathering early buzz for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Other standouts include “The Substance” (MUBI), “A Different Man” (A24), “Longlegs” (Neon), “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.), “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix), and “Maria” (Netflix). But the race will heat up with the arrival of “Nosferatu” (Focus Features) on Christmas.

“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 Cynthia’s skin tone, making sure the product looked good in all lighting.

“The Substance,” Coralie Fargeat’s body horror fairy tale, turns toxic beauty culture inside out. Demi Moore plays Elisabeth, a movie star quote-unquote past her prime and fired from her fitness TV show, who gets a shot at being reborn as 20-something Sue (Margaret Qualley), thanks to a miracle drug. However, there’s a catch: Time needs to be split between bodies. Prosthetics makeup designer Pierre Olivier Persin conjures a series of bizarre transformations for the two women. The horrifying metamorphosis finds Elisabeth becoming the decaying mutation called Gollum and both of them transforming into the hideous Monstro Elisasue. For Gollum, they immersed Moore’s upper body in thin silicone prosthetics and then applied thicker appliances to build up some of the bones, knuckles, knees, and elbows. For Monstro Elisasue, the look is enormous, grotesque, and almost Picasso-like with displaced body parts.

“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 (the 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.

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.

Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs” transforms Nicolas Cage into a creepy serial killer for the ages, courtesy of head of makeup Felix Fox and special makeup effects artist Harlow MacFarlane. The androgynous, disfigured Marc Bolan glam rock vibe was topped off with powdered makeup inspired by Bob Dylan. The seven-piece prosthetic application provided the damaged and puffy skin that was seemingly derived from a series of botched surgeries.

“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 transformation.

“Maria,” 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 fuses the ’40s through the ’70s period with surreal musical sequences. Makeup and hair designer Heike Merker and prosthetics designer Arjen Tuiten lead the way.

“Nosferatu,” director Robert Eggers’ reworking of F.W. Murnau’s legendary silent vampire film (remade by Werner Herzog in 1979), is a new take on the pre-Victorian haunted tale of gothic horror. 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 as he becomes increasingly more involved Ellen and Thomas. They become devastated, which shows in their MUAH.

Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Warner Bros.), the sequel to his horror comedy, resurrects Michael Keaton’s foul-mouth ghoul from the afterlife to torment the Deetz family 36 years later. “Beetlejuice” won the makeup/hair Oscar, which sets a high bar. Christine Blundell serves as makeup and hair designer, but it’s a deep prosthetics team for all of the creature work.

For George Miller’s “Furiosa” prequel, hair and makeup designer Lesley Vanderwalt (from the Oscar-winning “Fury Road”) assembled an army of craftspeople to handle all of the Wasteland looks. But the standout was Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus, leader of the Biker Hoard, with a prosthetic nose, contacts, and a long beard.

“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 of song and dance with Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn while incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. Oscar-nominated makeup and hair designers Nicki Ledermann and Kay Georgiou return to enhance Joker and imagine a complementary Harley Quinn.

Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 million epic sci-fi passion project that draws parallels between the fall of Rome and the collapse of America, is set in a New York-like metropolis called New Rome. Oscar-winning makeup department head Valli O’Reilly (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”) and hair department head Terrie Velazquez Owen lean into the director’s theatricality and Roman style.

“Nightbitch,” Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel, sees Amy Adams mutate into a dog. The metaphor about the changing female body is treated in the spirit of the novel’s magical realism. Thomas Floutz, the special makeup effects department head, provided extra dog-like nipples, among other prosthetics to facilitate the transformation. 

Robert Zemeckis’ “Here” (Sony Pictures), based on the graphic novel by Richard McGuire about the inhabitants of a single house from the ’30s to the present day, offers an experiment in time, space, and aging. The focus is on Tom Hanks and Robin Wright (reunited from “Forrest Gump”), who meet and marry in the late ’60s, raise a family, and grow old together. Metaphysic Live, the generative AI software from Metaphysic, offers face-swapping and de-aging in real-time as the actors perform. But there is lots of prosthetic work as well, led by Nick Williams and a team of special effects makeup and hairstylists.

“A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures), James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, chronicles the folk star’s rise in the early ’60s in New York’s West Village, where he arrived at 19 from Minnesota. Co-head of the makeup department, David Presto, and several hair stylists handle the transformation.

“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. The MUAHS team (led by makeup department head Tricia Sawyer and several hair stylists) transforms the actors into the comedy legends who come together for this momentous show.

“Gladiator II,” Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning sequel, takes place two decades later as the Roman Empire continues to implode. Lucius (Paul Mescal), the former heir to the Empire, is forced to enter the Colosseum as a ruthless gladiator and rises to face Pedro Pascal’s Roman general, Marcus Acacius. There’s plenty of period MUAHS opportunity, along with blood and gore. The head of departments and designers in charge of the look of the film are Jana Carboni (makeup designer) and Giuliano Mariano (hair designer).

Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner until we have seen it.

Frontrunners

“A Different Man”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Longlegs”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”

Contenders

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”
“Gladiator II”
“Here”
“Joker: Folie à Deux”
“Maria”
“Megalopolis”
“Nightbitch”
“Nosferatu”
“Saturday Night”