How Often Does a Modern-Day Film Win the Best Costumes Oscar?

If there's one nominee that I'm really rooting for in the Best Costume Design category at the Academy Awards, it's Monique Prudhomme for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. It isn't simply that she managed to channel Terry Gilliam and make iconic ensembles that could withstand an onslaught of special effects and hastily subbed-in actors, it's that she was nominated for outfitting a film set in the present day, and that happens so rarely. Does she have a shot at a win? If history is any judge, the odds against her are steep.

Decades ago, it wasn't uncommon for a film set in contemporary times to be nominated for an Oscar or even win one. Helping matters was the fact that until 1966, the category gave out awards in both black and white and color, ensuring ten total nominees (with two special exceptions in 1957 and 1958 when only one Oscar was awarded).

Ironically, it was the black-and-white winners during that era that were most likely to be contemporary, including films such as Darling, The Night of the Iguana, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The color films that took home the Oscar were almost always lush period pieces like Cleopatra and Spartacus that managed to marshal hundreds of extras and outfit them in flashy historical garb, and since the two categories were combined, it's exactly that type of film that's most likely to win out.

In fact, in the years since 1966, only three modern-day films have won the Best Costume Design Oscar (excepting films set in another world, like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings):

Travels with My Aunt (1972)

All That Jazz (1979)

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

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