Border - 1 nomination

Makeup and Hairstyling - Göran Lundström and Pamela Goldammer

Every year, there is an Oscar nominated film that I've only heard of because of the nomination, and it becomes my sleeper favorite movie.  I call these films my "hidden gems."  Examples of my hidden gem winners have included Lars and the Real Girl, A Man Called Ove, and The Hunt.  (all films you should see)  Border is a film I hadn't heard of before it was nominated for Makeup and Hairstyling, and it is most decidedly NOT a hidden gem.  Border might be the most bizarre Oscars film I've seen (though I'm taking nominees).

Border's central character is a woman named Tina who looks more cro magnon than human.  She works for the border patrol in Sweden and is able to smell people's feelings, so when they walk by her and they are nervous because they are trafficking something illegal, she knows right away to pull them aside.  She grabs everything from people carrying more alcohol than the legal import limit to a man carrying child pornography on a flash drive.  One day, a stranger comes through customs who looks like the male equivalent of Tina.  She grows obsessed with him and invites him to stay in her back house as a boarder. He helps her discover her true identity and learn of her origin story, all while she is helping local police solve a child pornography mystery happening in their town.  But the suspicious man knows more than he should about this horror happening around them, and Tina must decipher more than one mystery in her world.

The makeup and hairstyling in this film are incredible, though.  In addition to their faces (you'll be shocked if you look at Tina's face in the film versus the beautiful actress Eva Melander who plays her), there is an indescribable scene with genitals that I can't erase from my memory.  Even still, makeup and hairstyling prowess aside, this is a film worth skipping.