If there is one element that characterizes the 2024 Academy Award nominations - event scheduled for this Sunday, March 10 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, L.A. - it is the massive presence of biographical films and docufilms devoted to more or less well-known historical figures, from the world of entertainment to science and beyond.

Vintage furnishings therefore take center stage this year among film sets and sets; and while these kinds of films test filmmakers from the point of view of human involvement, they offer insiders ample room to recreate artful settings. So let us review together what we think are the most successful interiors in the Oscar nominated biographical films.

Maestro

The legendary, yet turbulent life of Leonard Bernstein captured and played by Bradley Cooper as director and lead actor. The 30-year career of America's first great composer and conductor is set from the 1940s to the years up to the 1970s mainly at the Bernsteins' homes located in Litchfield, Connecticut, and in New York City - although the film was actually shot in both the U.S. and the U.K.-The decorative cues are partly recreated, especially for the New York house, an apartment overlooking Central Park in the famous Dakota Building, and partly original. In the country house, still owned by the Bernstein family, for example, the original wallpapers were placed side by side with revival furniture refurbished designed according to the taste of the high society of the time. Tiffany's large hanging lamp as well as bamboo chaises dominated some of the Connecticut scenes, while damask draperies and brass bar carts were not missing during receptions held at the Upper West Side residence. Finally, the houses could not lack the master's original Steinway piano and vinyl radios, a true luxury at the time. A script play that, like music, creates a harmony of shapes and colors that are still valid today.

Barbie

An equally well-known and legendary character, but of an entirely litterally of a different nature, Barbie is, along with her Ken, the star of another film in nomination this Sunday. In this case, the film's designer Sarah Greenwood along with set decorator Katie Spencer tried to keep the setting accurate and therefore playful. Of course, there are no stairs in Barbie's house: the protagonist descends through a pole styled after the legendary American firehouse and climbs back up into her rooms by flying or at most using an elevator. A surrealist environment with amplified and plasticized utilitarian objects may seem like a joke, but in fact they are the archetypal the open-plan layout that became widespread right around the time of the iconic doll's launch. Designed in the Mid-century Modern style, Barbie's house reflects the linear aesthetic of Palm Springs, in contrast to the postmodern house surrounded on the hillside owned by Weird Barbie in which asymmetry of shapes and colors reigns, a kind of Memphis house, which in its reluctant originality hides great charm. A testament to the success of Barbie who in her myriad guises always remains an inspiration.

Oppenheimer

We now turn to the Los Alamos desert in New Mexico, where historically in the early 1940s the citadel was secretly created for the experiments that led to the development of the atomic bomb. Christopher Nolan director of the film Oppenheimer confesses, "We wanted to find a setting that would help the audience understand what it meant for Oppenheimer to have brought his team to the middle of nowhere, with nothing around, but today in Los Alamos there's a Starbucks on every corner and things like that." In 1942 the U.S. government spent $2 million to build the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but in this case reproducing the set from scratch would have cost too much so set designer Ruth De Jong combines original interior settings from the period, including the house where Oppenheimer lived with his wife, with outdoor scenes shot on a Ranch in northern New Mexico. The simplicity of the furnishings reflects the director's purpose: clumsily arranged books on wooden bookshelves serve as a backdrop for folksy domestic settings depicting a life on the fringes of society where comfort is represented by crocheted ornaments and large armchairs with squared-off arms on which to spend the days waiting for the result of one of the most complex experiments achieved by humankind.