In Part 2 of our Film Awards 2026 series, we looked at the films officially recognised by the Academy Awards and BAFTAs for production design. But awards lists, by their nature, leave things out. This companion piece looks at what happens beyond the shortlist, because this year’s Production Design omissions tell their own story.

Here, we turn to the films that missed out on design nominations yet still use locations, houses, rooms and furniture in meaningful, story-shaping ways. From domestic interiors that quietly carry emotional weight to constructed worlds that shape tone and behaviour, these are films where design remains central, even without category recognition.

Not runners-up so much as alternative readings of what production design can be.

Sentimental Value
Production Designer: Jørgen Stangebye Larsen
Set Decorator: Catrine Gormsen

Sentimental Value is one of the most satisfying recognitions of the film awards season. This is a film in which an Oslo house sits at the emotional centre of the story. The interiors hold memory, inheritance and unresolved relationships. Rooms, furniture and décor evolve as the family does.

In a year dominated by scale and technical bravura, Sentimental Value quietly asserts that intimacy matters — and that everyday interiors can carry touching stories. A single vase gives the film its title and its meaning.

Awards context
Sentimental Value enters the awards season with 9 Oscar nominations and 8 BAFTA nominations, but missed out on a nomination for Production Design.

Bugonia
Production Designer: James Price
Set Decorator: Prue Howard

Bugonia is bonkers, beautiful, and built around contrast. Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest film moves between worlds that are visually distinct and psychologically opposed – spaces that shape how the story unfolds. This is a film where interiors do subtle but important work, where furniture signals power, paranoia or control, and where realism is slowly (and gleefully) abandoned. Not a production design frontrunner, but a film whose constructed world is integral to its tone. Three worlds, three logics.

Teddy’s house is chaotic, hoarded and tech-ridden, steeped in a 1990s sensibility and anchored by a kitchen assembled from multiple kitchens sourced on eBay. Michelle’s environments move in the opposite direction: a glass-box office and reception areas furnished with Barcelona chairs, and a pristine real house complete with spectacular gym and swimming pool. The Andromedan world abandons realism altogether, becoming abstract and biological.

Furniture signals paranoia, power and belief systems. Remove the rooms and the story collapses.

Awards context
Bugonia received 4 Academy Award nominations and 5 BAFTA nominations, but not for Production Design.

Take a look at our feature on Bugonia and go further behind the scenes in our video podcast interview with production designer James Price.

Avatar: Fire and Ash
Production Designers: Dylan Cole and Ben Proctor
Set Decorator: Vanessa Cole

Not Film and Furniture’s natural habitat, perhaps, but impossible to ignore.

Avatar: Fire and Ash presents ecological world-building, rope systems, suspended dwellings and communal living quarters which imagine an entirely different domestic logic. The achievement sits at the opposite end of the scale to this year’s Production Design frontrunner, Hamnet, yet the principle is the same: environments shape behaviour. Should civilisation fail, these are the designers you would want rebuilding it.

Awards context
The film received 2 Oscar nominations and 1 BAFTA nomination, though it was overlooked in the Production Design category.

Wicked: For Good
Production Designer: Nathan Crowley
Set Decorator: Lee Sandales

However one feels about the film itself, the ambition and coherence of Wicked: For Good‘s constructed environments are undeniable. Its absence from the production design conversation may reflect the fact that it was filmed alongside the first Wicked film, with similar worlds conceived and built as part of a single design effort — and one that was already handsomely rewarded during the 2025 awards season.

See our article on the design of Wicked “Macro to Micro Magic: Behind the Film Sets of Wicked with Nathan Crowley” and go behind the scenes in our Wicked video podcast with production designer Nathan Crowley.

Awards context
Wicked: For Good received zero nominations for the 2026 Academy Awards, and 2 BAFTA nominations. While its predecessor garnered seven nominations and two wins, the second installment was largely seen as “snubbed” in many major categories.

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Notable Oscar and BAFTA omissions

Fantastic Four: First Steps
Production Designer: Kasra Farahani
Set Decorator: Jille Azis

Superhero fatigue aside, this film made a conscious effort to establish a visual language rooted in mid-century futurism and domestic modernism. Compared with many of its genre peers, its design was considered and consistent. Tulip Tables orbit sunken seating; Cobra Lamps glow like planets; Calder-style mobiles float overhead. A coherent retro-futurist language that deserved closer attention.

Drawing inspiration from the curvaceous forms of Oscar Niemeyer, the clean lines of Eero Saarinen, and the sculptural flair of Verner Panton, the film’s design language implies a refined and elegant version of futurism.

Take a read of our article on the world building of the Fantastic Four First Steps film here and go deeper behind the scenes in our Fantastic Four video podcast with production designer Kasra Farahani.

Awards context
Fantastic Four First Steps was significantly overlooked during the 2026 major awards season, receiving zero nominations for both the Oscars and the BAFTAs.

The Phoenician Scheme
Production Designer: Adam Stockhausen
Set Decorator: Anna Pinnock

An unmistakably authored spatial world — grand staircases, opulent bathrooms and European art — where rooms define tone as much as dialogue. Its absence reinforces the sense that films with pronounced design identity do not always align neatly with awards-season momentum.

For us, Wes Anderson’s latest film is yet another visual tour de force from the one director we can rely upon for attention to detail and distinctive visual storytelling. The Phoenician Scheme’s design transports us to a fictional land of luxury, intrigue, and eccentricity.

Awards context
The film was largely overlooked by the major academies in 2026. It received no Oscar nominations and no BAFTA nominations, despite Anderson’s history of recognition in technical and design categories.

Taken together, these films remind us that production design is not only what wins awards, but what quietly shapes how stories are felt.

Which world stayed with you? Drop your comments below.

Where can I watch the Oscars (98th Academy Awards)?

Sunday 15 March 2026
USA: ABC and Hulu (live stream) – 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT
UK: ITV (delayed broadcast) – 1:00am GMT (early hours of Monday 16 March)

Where can I watch the BAFTAs (EE BAFTA Film Awards)?

Sunday 22 February 2026
UK: BBC One and BBC iPlayer – 7:00pm GMT
USA: BritBox – 2:00pm ET / 11:00am PT