With congratulations to all, check out our annual top 10 list for best production design of 2017 including The Shape of Water, Blade Runner 2049, and Beauty and the Beast.

You can find our new list: Best Production Design of 2018, here.

Another awards season is nearly gone so here is my annual top ten best production design of 2017 list on this beautiful Oscar Sunday. Below I’ve chosen my top ten picks for best production design of any film released in 2017 that I have personally seen and I’ve seen a lot of films this past year.

Does the environment fit the story, characters, and tone? Can you picture the environment of the film any other way? These are the things I ask myself before making a list like this and I hope you do too. I’ve taken into account the story, characters, genre, tone, direction, originality, technical difficulty, budget size, size of team, as well as the principles of design. It’s still very subjective of course. My personal taste may largely differ from your own so please take it for what it is with a healthy grain of salt.

I also want to reiterate something I say a lot- I do not care for the most production design, I care about the best production design. The best production design is that which is well suited to the story, enhancing the characters, advancing the plot, and setting the tone. In some films these sets are vast and intricately detailed like Beauty and the Beast and Blade Runner 2049, in other films these sets are shot on location using understated dressings like Call Me By Your Name, and in a film like The Shape of Water the sets are a perfect bifurcation of big and small to define their world.

Congratulations to all involved in every production and keep striving to do great work everyday. If no one else appreciates it, please know that I do.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN OF 2017

10) DUNKIRK

Dunkirk

Logline: Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German Army, and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Production Designer: Nathan Crowley

Supervising Art Director: Kevin Ishioka & Eggert Ketilsson

Set Decorator: Gary Fettis

Total Budget: 100MM

9) CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

Logline: In 1980s Italy, a romance blossoms between a seventeen year-old student and the older man hired as his father’s research assistant.

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Production Designer: Samuel Deshors

Supervising Art Director: Roberta Federico

Set Decorator: Sandro Piccarozzi & Muriel Chinal

Total Budget: €4MM

8) LADY BIRD

Logline: In 2002, an artistically inclined seventeen-year-old girl comes of age in Sacramento, California.

Director: Greta Gerwig

Production Designer: Chris Jones

Art Director: N/A

Set Decorator: Traci Spadorcia

Total Budget: $10MM

7) LOGAN

Logline: In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X, somewhere on the Mexican border. However, Logan’s attempts to hide from the world, and his legacy, are upended when a young mutant arrives, pursued by dark forces.

Director: James Mangold

Production Designer: François Audouy

Supervising Art Director: Chris Farmer

Set Decorator: Peter Lando

Total Budget: $97MM

6) DARKEST HOUR

Logline: During the early days of World War II, the fate of Western Europe hangs on the newly-appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler, or fight on against incredible odds.

Director: Joe Wright

Production Designer: Sarah Greenwood

Supervising Art Director: Nick Gottschalk

Set Decorator: Katie Spencer

Total Budget: 30MM

5) PHANTOM THREAD

Logline: Set in 1950’s London, Reynolds Woodcock is a renowned dressmaker whose fastidious life is disrupted by a young, strong-willed woman, Alma, who becomes his muse and lover.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Production Designer: Mark Tildesley

Supervising Art Director: Denis Schnegg

Set Decorator: Véronique Melery

Total Budget: 35MM

4) LADY MACBETH

Logline: In 19th-century rural England, a young bride who has been sold into marriage discovers an unstoppable desire within herself as she enters into an affair with a worker on her estate.

Director: William Oldroyd

Production Designer: Jacqueline Abrahams

Art Director: Thalia Ecclestone

Set Decorator: N/A

Total Budget: N/A

3) BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Logline: An adaptation of the fairy tale about a monstrous-looking prince and a young woman who fall in love.

Director: Bill Condon

Production Designer: Sarah Greenwood

Supervising Art Director: Niall Moroney

Set Decorator: Katie Spencer

Total Budget: 160MM

2) BLADE RUNNER 2049

Logline: A young blade runner’s discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to track down former blade runner Rick Deckard, who’s been missing for thirty years.

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Production Designer: Dennis Gassner

Supervising Art Director: Paul Inglis

Set Decorator: Alessandra Querzola

Total Budget: 150MM

1) THE SHAPE OF WATER

Logline: At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Production Designer: Paul D. Austerberry

Supervising Art Director: Nigel Churcher

Set Decorator: Jeffrey A. Melvin & Shane Vieau

Total Budget: 19.4MM

Honourable Mentions: WONDERSTRUCK, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, A GHOST STORY, THE GREATEST SHOWMAN, and WONDER WOMAN.

Wonder Woman Murder on the Orient Express Wonderstruck A Ghost Story The Greatest Showman

Which films were your picks for best production design? As usual, I’d love to know what you think in the comments below.

Rose Lagacé | @artdepartmental

Check out our Top 10 Films of 2017, here.

You can also check out our picks for Best Production Design of 2016, here.

For more awards season highlights and news on Art Departmental, click here.