Celebrating the below-the-line UK talent behind this year’s Oscar contenders

Home to a highly-skilled crew base, the UK boasts world-class craftspeople, musicians, innovators and technicians who are key to attracting award-worthy productions to film in the country.

This year saw two British craftspeople take home Oscars; Frankenstein hair and makeup designer Mike Hill and F1 sound mixer Gareth John. Amongst the below-the-line nominees were several individuals from across the UK working across high-profile titles which filmed or did post/VFX work in the UK, which also included Bugonia, Hamnet, The Lost Bus, and Jurassic World Rebirth. Here, we celebrate a selection of that home-grown talent.

Best make-up and hairstyling

Mike Hill – Oscar winner: Frankenstein
British prosthetics master Hill first teamed up with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro in 2017 for The Shape Of Water, and has since contributed to all del Toro’s subsequent work including Nightmare Alley and Netflix show Cabinet Of Curiosities. He is now an Oscar winner for his work on Del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein, in which he turned Jacob Elordi into a stylized, memorable version of Mary Shelley’s classic monster.

Best sound

Gareth John – Oscar winner: F1
Production sound mixer John is one of a five-strong sound team who won the Oscar for their work on F1. This is John’s second Academy success in a row, having last year been a member of the Oscar winning sound team behind Dune: Part 2, and has most recently worked on features including Masters Of The Universe and Dune: Part 3.

Best casting 

Nina Gold – Oscar nominee: Hamnet
It’s no surprise that the nominees for this year’s inaugural Best Casting Oscar included the UK’s Nina Gold for her work on Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet. Gold’s extensive plaudits include multiple Primetime Emmy Awards for the likes of Game Of Thrones, The Crown, Wolf Hall and Baby Reindeer, and a BAFTA Special Award in 2016 for her outstanding contribution to casting. A go-to casting director for high-profile international and domestic productions, Gold’s feature credits include Conclave, Back to Black, Wonka, Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny and The King’s Speech. Her HETV credits are no less impressive, with Slow Horses, Andor and The Power all on her work sheet.

Best VFX  

British technicians were also represented this year’s Best Visual Effects Oscar category. It is also worth noting that, while the primary nominees for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners are international, the British-based outposts of post-production houses Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Outpost VFX also contributed extensive work. 

Robert Harrington & Keith Alfred Dawson – Oscar nominees: F1
British duo Harrington and Dawson were nominated (alongside fellow team members Ryan Tudhope and Nicolas Chevallier) for their work on Joseph Kosinski’s F1. Harrington’s other VFX credits include HETV shows His Dark Materials and The Sandman, while Dawson’s previous work includes as a special effects supervisor on Seth Gordon’s Netflix actioner Back In Action. 

Charlie Noble, David Zaretti – Oscar nominees: The Lost Bus
Noble and Zaretti were nominated as part of the VFX team for Paul Greengrass drama The Lost Bus. Noble’s previous credits include No Time To Die, Wonder Woman 1984 and Captain America: The First Avenger, while Zaretti, who works out of ILM’s London HQ, was VFX supervisor on The Running Man and HETV shows The Acolyte and Willow.

David Vickery, Stephen Aplin, Neil Corbould – Oscar nominees: Jurassic World Rebirth
Nominated for their VFX work on Gareth Edwards creature feature Jurassic World Rebirth, Vickery, Aplin and Corbould are no strangers to the Academy. SFX supervisor Corbould has been nominated for multiple Oscars (including three in 2024 along for The Creator, Napoleon and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning), winning two for Gravity and Gladiator, while Vickery was nominated for his VFX work on Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
Vickery joined ILM’s London studio in 2015 as a VFX supervisor and also provides creative oversight for the studio’s other projects. Aplin joined ILM London in 2016, having previously worked in the company’s San Francisco studio, and has worked on films including Star War – Episode I: The Phantom Menace and Sleepy Hollow. Corbould’s long career as a SFX supervisor includes Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Naopleon and HETV show Masters Of The Air, exec-produced by Steven Spielberg.

Best score

Jerskin Fendrix – Oscar nominee: Best Score, Bugonia
Fendrix was first Oscar nominated in 2024 for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, his debut score, and has since collaborated with the filmmaker on Kinds Of Kindness and Bugonia. As a musician, Fendrix has released two studio albums, 2020’s ‘Winterreise‘ – which first caught the attention of Lanthimos – and 2025’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Shropshire‘.

Johny Greenwood – Oscar nominee: Best Score, One Battle After Another
Greenwood, who is the lead guitarist of Radiohead as well as a celebrated film composer, was nominated for his score for Paul Thomas Anderson’s winner One Battle After Another, having composed all of Anderson’s scores since 2007’s There Will Be Blood. This is the third time Greenwood has been Oscar nominated, folllowing his work on Jane Campion‘s The Power Of The Dog and Anderson’s Phantom Thread.

Max Richter – Oscar nominee: Best Score, Hamnet 
Receiving his first Oscar nomination for his work on Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet, composer and pianist Max Richter is known for minimalist, neo-classical, and electronic film scores; among them Ad Astra, Mary Queen of Scots and Waltz with Bashir. He has also created the music for HETV shows like The Leftovers and My Brilliant Friend.

Best song 

Nicholas Pike – Oscar nominee: Best Original Song, Viva Verdi
The British composer has previously won Emmy awards for his work on documentaries Baghdad ER and In Tahrir Square. He was Oscar nominated for the original song ‘Sweet Dreams of Joy’ for Yvonne Russo’s Viva Verdi, a look into the lives of opera singers and musicians living out their ‘third act’ while mentoring music students at Casa Verdi Milan.

Best production design 

Alice Fenton – Oscar nominee: Hamnet
British set decorator Fenton was previously Oscar-nominated for Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite alongside Australian production designer Fiona Crombie, with whom she shares the nomination for Hamnet. Fenton and Crombie previously worked together on productions including Cruella, The King and Macbeth.