These Are the Films Nominated for Best Production Design at the 2022 Academy Awards

Set DesignThese Are the Films Nominated for Best Production Design at the 2022 Academy AwardsThe sets range from futuristic to Art Deco

By Rachel Davies

February 8, 2022

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Nightmare Alley stars Cate Blanchett and Bradley Cooper and was nominated for an Academy Award for production design.Photo: Kerry Hayes

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It’s that time of year again, and the Oscar nominations for 2022 have been announced. After 2020 brought us movie theater closures and delayed release dates as we adjusted to our new normal, 2021 was a relatively splendorous year for the cinema. With new flicks from such big name directors as Guillermo Del Toro, Joel Coen, Jane Campion, Steven Spielberg, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Lana Wachowski, there was no shortage of great films to watch and plenty of work from new directors to discover too.

Dune, Nightmare Alley, The Power of the Dog, The Tragedy of MacBeth and West Side Story were nominated as the films with the best production design of the past year. Whether you’re partial to the subtleties of the The Tragedy of MacBeth set or the wide open ranch of The Power of the Dog, tune into ABC on Sunday, March 27, at 8 p.m. EST to find out which film will take home the trophy, and read about the creation of the lauded sets below.

Dune

A scene from Dune.

Photo: Chia Bella James / Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures

To create the set for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, production designer Patrice Vermette went back to the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name. Vermette imagined how the described weather and wind conditions would affect the architecture the characters moved through, which resulted in angular buildings with thick stone walls to keep out the extreme heat.

Nightmare Alley

Rooney Mara and Bradley Cooper in Nightmare Alley.

Photo: Kerry Hayes

Set in the 1930s, Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is a period-appropriate Art Deco wonderland. CGI was only employed for falling snow and flying bullets, so production designer Tamara Deverell had her work cut out for her in creating the rich environment. With an authentic 1930s carousel acquired from a Northern California family as its centerpiece, the carnival set is particularly standout.

The Power of the Dog

Kirsten Dunst in The Power of the Dog.

Photo: © 2021 Cross City Films Limited/Courtesy of Netflix

Montana in the 1920s was recreated by production designer Grant Major for Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. Inspired by Ken Burns’s documentary series The West and Evelyn Cameron’s photographs, Major created masculine, wood-heavy environments that showcased the mountains and surrounding nature of the New Zealand location, where the film was shot.

The Tragedy of MacBeth

Joel Coen and Frances McDormand on the set of The Tragedy of Macbeth.

Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa

Done entirely in black and white, the minimalism of Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of MacBeth allows the source text to do all the talking. Production designer Stefan Dechant brilliantly selected simple elements—a door handle that looks like a dagger when lit properly, for instance—to create a spare yet evocative environment.

West Side Story

Ariana DeBose as Anita in West Side Story.

Photo: Niko Tavernise / © 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Known largely for his work on numerous Wes Anderson films, production designer Adam Stockhausen is very familiar with crafting rich environments. Stockhausen used color purposefully to reflect the differing attitudes represented in the big screen adaptation of this classic musical and worked to ensure even the smallest elements felt truthful to the film’s ’50s setting.

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