With the rise of CGI, makeup is becoming a dying art, and I’m glad this category is still around, so that great makeup in film can be rewarded. However, it’s pretty silly to me how they only allow three nominees in this category. And with so much great makeup and hairstyling over the course of all the Best Picture winners, I decided I would have five nominees. Hopefully you guys don’t mind.

First, some of the also-rans.

25.) Forrest Gump (nominated)
24.) The Deer Hunter
23.) The Departed
22.) The Godfather Part II
21.) Cimarron (WON)
20.) The Life Of Emile Zola
19.) Rocky
18.) Platoon
17.) The Bridge On The River Kwai
16.) Driving Miss Daisy (WON)
15.) 12 Years A Slave
14.) Shakespeare In Love (nominated)
13.) The English Patient
12.) Unforgiven
11.) Ben-Hur

Now we have the runners up.

10.) Oliver

Mostly for Fagin, but the difference between the poor and the rich is well realized as far as makeup goes.

9.) Lawrence Of Arabia

The deterioration of Lawrence is evident throughout the film,

8.) Million Dollar Baby

Swank’s hospitilized condition is heartbreakingly realistic

7.) No Country For Old Men

The injuries are both realistic and plentiful.

6.) The Silence Of The Lambs

Corpses, blood, and a fem-body suit. Oh my.

And finally, the top five. Two of these films won, two were nominated, and one came out before the creation of the Best Makeup category.

“AMADEUS”

The very effective aging done on F. Murray Abraham is very good, but it may overshadow the more subtle work done on Tom Hulce, as well as the period work done on the cast.The makeup in this film is very worthy of this spot, especially if you include the ‘hairstyling’ part.

“A BEAUTIFUL MIND”

The designers made Crowe look as young as they could, and then gradually worked their way upward, until we have the image above. And yet through all of that, Crowe was almost unrecognizable throughout the entire process. There was also some great work done on Jennifer Connelly.

“GANDHI”

Obviously Kingsley’s acting has a lot to do with his transformation into Gandhi, but that makeup is pretty effective too. He looks so much like the real Gandhi that it becomes difficult to tell the two apart.

“THE GODFATHER”

It’s always important not to let the makeup do to much of the work, (luckily Brando truly does excel in the role.) But this is one of the most famous film transformations of all time. It’s great when the makeup and the performance blend together to create a believable transformation.

“THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING”

The other nominees focused primarily on one character. But here, we’ve got beards, injuries, lots of fantasy creatures and a pre-CGI Gollum. There’s lots of effects work to go around here, and the makeup department highly succeeds in both quality and quantity.

NOMINATION TALLY;

5.) Titanic

3.) The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

2.) Amadeus
2.) A Beautiful Mind
2.) Forrest Gump
2.) Platoon

1.) All Quiet On The Western Front
1.) Ben-Hur
1.) Casablanca
1.) Crash
1.) Gandhi
1.) Gigi
1.) The Godfather
1.) Going My Way
1.) Gone With The Wind
1.) Lawrence Of Arabia
1.) Midnight Cowboy
1.) Out Of Africa
1.) Rebecca
1.) Unforgiven