2025 in Review: Perfect Costumes & Other Visual Delights

by Nathaniel R

I had briefly hoped to do a huge post in each awards category but in the interest of time and availability thereof, we have to wade into the deep end. Herewith a random shout out to 4 costumes from the film year that I think are special in some way. ONLY THE FIRST IS A NOMINEE for Best Costume Design (here at TFE) but in the interest of spreading the wealth I really wanted to shout out some films randomly and these were the first four I thought of.  I love costume designers with all my heart. They regularly elevate and enrich storytelling and especially when costumes aren't the focus of the picture, they get way too little credit for it. 

Willa's Act Three Ensemble - One Battle After Another
If you ask me four time Oscar winner Colleen Atwood had been running on fumes for some years trapped as she was in Burtonisms and puffy shoulder fetishes. Something in Paul Thomas Anderson's near future battlefields -- not her usual type of assignment - set her imagination free again. She makes one inspired choice after another...

Willa's act three look which takes her from an ordinary high school dance to a getaway car to a nunnery (!) and then to a desert shoout out is just one of the many unexpected but perfect choices, that works in every scene despite this being surely the weirdest day of the girls' entire life. The ensemble is a strange but telling mix of don't-look-at-me affectation (those combat boots), surprising girlishness (the dress that's almost a tutu), and even inner strength as outerwear (that leather jacket). These kind of great character details abound and that's even true when the characters are dressing up to pretend to be someone else like Ghetto Pat & Perfidia's bank outfits that are meant to read as "normie day job wear" but feel weirdly costumey, like they're doing a Category at a drag ball rather than just pulling something from their closets. The same could easily be said for Lockjaw and his too-tight black tee and uniform fetish. Category is "Military Macho -- No Homo!"

Wagner Moura's first outfit in The Secret Agent
I chose this one for display on account of how fucking unassumingly sexy it is. (Props to Wagner Moura for that, too, obviously). But all throughout the Brazilian Oscar finalist, the costumes feel authentic in all ways: textiles, color, fit, how comfortable or uncomfortable they appear, whether or not that character would wear them, and how sweaty they do or do not get while wearing said outfit in the Carnival heat. I do not remember the 70s well (though I was alive) but something about the work of Rita Azevedo here (with the assist of the movie's many Jaws references) transported me back to childhood like a fucking time machine.

The fraternal twin sweaters of Twinless 
Honestly this one is just an excuse to post a photo of Twinless, which shares the dubious distinction of being the "Most Undersung Yet Excellent American Film of 2025" with Roofman. I love the costume choices above because the movie is all about forcing a connection or the unspoken desire to belong to someone else fully in some way... and it's just perfect that the sweaters match in a very obvious way but also don't. Erin Aldridge Orr did the costumes. Her previous credits include All the Real Girls (2002), Leave No Trace, and costume supervision on TV series like Grimm and Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists.

Ellen Lovborg's party gown in Hedda
I was happy to see Lindsay Pugh honored with a CCA nomination and her costumes throughout Hedda are exciting. I was particularly drawn to the gown worn by Nina Hoss. It's certainly not beautiful in the way Tessa Thompson's evening wear is -- in fact it's kind of garish with its top-heavy bosom first silhouette... but it's a bullseye when it comes to characterization and plot. Lovborg is respected but not well liked due to her gender in a man's profession. Yet she's confrontational and aggressive enough that this is exactly a style of gown she'd wear to remind everyone of her sex. Later when the party goes awry her outfit conspires against her. It's the most sexual costume of the year aside from everything in Pillion, once Alexander Skarsgård and Harty Melling are "dating".

Frankly I've often wished I could have 15 nominees in Best Costume Design each year and grumble about how rote the nominations from the CDG are when they have all these different categories and still mostly stick only to films that are in the Best Picture conversation. I hope this brief list and the actual finalists and nominees remind you of some of your own favourite costumes this year, even if they aren't cited.

Now on to the Film Bitch Awards. Nominations have been announced in all of the traditional visual categories:  

CLICK HERE FOR NOMINATIONS IN THE SIX VISUAL CATEGORIES...

• Best Costume Design
• Best Cinematography
• Best Production Design
• Best Film Editing
• Best Visual Effects
• Best Makeup

From the six visual categories Fantastic Four and Hamnet lead landing in half of the races, while Kokuho, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, and Sinners receive nominations in two categories each. While I fully expect Frankenstein to receive a lot of these nominations with Oscar voters, it receives just one nomination in my own awards (Best Makeup). I feel bad about leaving it out the insane maximalism of its Costume Design but there can be only five nominees (it came in sixth in my own rankings). Ah well, Kate Hawley will find ample consolation when she wins the Oscar in that category!