2025 Oscars Craft Winners Analysis: ‘The Brutalist,’ ‘Wicked,’ and ‘Dune: Part Two’ Each Take 2 Awards
There was no Oscar crafts juggernaut at the 97th Academy Awards Sunday night, despite both “Wicked” and the embattled “Emilia Pérez” coming in with seven nominations. Instead, the winners were spread out with two Oscars apiece going to “The Brutalist” (cinematography and original score), “Wicked” (costume design and production design), and “Dune: Part Two” (visual effects and sound). This was expected, as they were the standout spectacles demonstrating epic work.
The remainder of the awards went to Best Picture winner “Anora” (editing), “The Substance” (makeup/hairstyling), and “Emilia Pérez” (the centerpiece song, “El Mal,” from the team of Clément Ducol and Camille Dalmais, with lyrics co-written by director Jacques Audiard).
The Oscar for animated feature, meanwhile, was awarded to underdog “Flow” over presumptive favorite “The Wild Robot” from DreamWorks. The wordless cat survival adventure from Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis is not only the second consecutive indie win (following “The Boy and the Heron” from Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, and GKids), it’s also a landmark indie triumph for the category (distributed by Sideshow and Janus Films). This means that the growing international voting bloc is an Oscar force to be reckoned with for animated feature.
The animated short Oscar went to “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” the gripping 2D drama from Iran about a former captain with PTSD who lives with his daughter and is pulled out of his isolation by the unexpected arrival of a stranded whale. Providing further drama, directors Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani obtained a last-minute visa to fly from Iran on Saturday to attend the ceremony.
For “The Brutalist,” director Brady Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley resurrected the old VistaVision widescreen 35mm format from the ’50s (“Vertigo”) with the assistance of Kodak for maximalist impact. This conveyed the grand scope of their post-war immigrant drama about Holocaust survivor and visionary Hungarian architect László Tóth (Best Actor winner Adrien Brody).
VistaVision provided a wider field of view of the massive blocks of concrete and steel that comprised László’s minimalist Brutalist style. The format also inspired composer Daniel Blumberg’s unnerving score, with his “slabs of sound” conveying László’s post-war trauma.
While Jon M. Chu’s populist “Wicked” musical underperformed, similar to last season’s “Barbie,” it came away with expected wins for Paul Tazewell’s costume design (the first Black man to win the category) and Nathan Crowley’s production design (his first win after seven nominations, including five with Christopher Nolan).
Tazewell’s imaginative shape language was a reflection of the inherent beauty of Oz itself: spiraling mushrooms for Elphaba (Oscar-nominated Cynthia Erivo) and effervescent pink bubbles for Glinda (Oscar-nominated Ariana Grande).
Crowley created a stunning tapestry of Americana for the Oz world-building, including the rainbow-colored Munchkinland, the exotic Shiz University, where Elphaba and Galinda first meet, and the Chicago-inspired Emerald City, where they travel to meet the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).
While “Dune: Part Two” underperformed compared to the six Oscars that went to “Dune,” the two wins for visual effects and sound were indicative of Denis Villeneuve’s more complex, action-packed sequel. Paul Lambert oversaw the eighth VFX win for his returning team from DNEG. They ramped up the sand-colored VFX screen innovation for live-action and digital integration, created more extensive views of the massive sandworms in battle, and contributed to the SFX practical shoot of Paul (Timothée Chalamet) riding atop the sandworm for the first time.
In terms of sound, the addition of supervising sound editor Richard King to the “Dune” team helped elevate the soundscape while rewarding him with his fifth Oscar (the most for a sound editor). Sand was still the big challenge, with many more recordings in the field and on the foley stage, and with an emphasis on low-end groans.
The editing Oscar for Sean Baker’s subversive Cinderella comedy, “Anora,” marked the third win in a row for a Best Picture winner. And Baker is only the third director to win for editing (joining Alfonso Cuarón for “Gravity” and James Cameron for “Titanic”), but the first to take solo credit.
With “The Substance” snagging the makeup/hairstyling Oscar, this marked the first horror win in the category since Rick Baker’s prize for “The Wolfman” in 2010. Coralie Fargeat’s brilliant satire of toxic beauty culture, earning Demi Moore a Best Actress nomination, benefited from the complex prosthetic transformation created by Pierre-Olivier Persin. When the youth miracle drug turns to body horror, Moore becomes the decaying mutation called Gollum, made to look like a slow-progressing disease, while Moore and her younger incarnation (played by Margaret Qualley), merge into the hideous Monstro.
