Netflix Queue | Ann Roth Has Done It All
Costume designer Ann Roth leans against a table, propping up her head with her hand. Behind her is a dressform. In front of her on the table is a binder with costume sketches.

Ann Roth

In honor of the costume designer’s fifth Academy Award nomination, Queue takes a look at some of the most memorable projects from her career.

Opening photo by Joan Marcus
2 April 202112 min read

With 130-some screen credits, over a hundred theater productions, three Emmy nominations, and 11 Tony nominations under her belt, it’s impossible to distill a simple list of Ann Roth’s achievements to date. This year, the costume designer has earned her fifth Academy Award nomination, for the 2020 drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (she already nabbed the Critics’ Choice Award), following up nods for Places in the Heart, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Hours, plus a win for The English Patient. To celebrate her nomination, we’re taking a look at a few of Roth’s most memorable costumes from over the years.

Director George C. Wolfe squats on the brick-paved gown, examining a costume board. Ann Roth sits in a director’s chair next to him, hand resting on her cheek as she listens to his thoughts.

Director George C. Wolfe and Ann Roth behind the scenes of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Photo by David Lee

Midnight Cowboy

1969
John Voight and Dustin Hoffman walk across a bridge in Midnight Cowboy. Voight wears a fringed jacket and cowboy hat while Hoffman walks a few feet behind him, bracing himself against the cold wind.

Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy

Image Courtesy of Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo

Jon Voight stands in his cowboy hat and jacket, with glowing neon lights blurred behind him.

Jon Voight as Joe Buck, wearing his signature hat and jacket

Image Courtesy of AF Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Midnight Cowboy was Roth’s sixth film project as a top-billed costume designer (she apprenticed for Irene Sharaff on A Star Is Born and Brigadoon before setting out on her own in 1964). With its Andy Warhol-inspired party scene, the project was perfect for Roth, whose time at Carnegie Mellon University overlapped with Warhol’s and placed her in the midst of the bohemian scene. (Several of Warhol’s friends actually ended up in that pivotal segment of the film.) Her skill for crafting transformative pieces is on display even at this early point in her career: the fringed suede jacket, those polished boots, and, of course, that black cowboy hat helped turn Jon Voight’s Joe Buck into a cinematic icon. The subversive subject matter that made Midnight Cowboy the first and only X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar proves Roth is no shrinking violet either.

Klute

1971
A young Jane Fonda walks down the sidewalk in a shot from Klute. She has on kneehigh black boots, a black mini-dress with a belt around the waist, and a beige trench coat. The collar of the coat is popped.

Jane Fonda on the set of Klute, 1971, in her character’s iconic trench coat

Image Courtesy of Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Jane Fonda looks into the camera in her black sequin dress. There’s a feather collar around her neck and she lays on her side with a slight smirk on her face.

Jane Fonda as Bree Daniels

Image Courtesy of Everett Collection

Roth took on the thriller Klute, which she says is one of her favorite movies, as Jane Fonda’s star was ascending in Hollywood. Fonda’s performance as Bree Daniels, an aspiring model/actress and high-class call girl who becomes involved in a missing persons case, earned universal praise and a Best Actress Oscar. Her signature looks in the film — tall boots, fringed bag, swaggering trench coat, and trendsetting shag haircut (credited to Roth) — have been endlessly reinterpreted on fashion runways and in magazine spreads. Roth keeps a black-and-white production still of Fonda on her desk, and even recreated Bree’s trench for the actor to sell at a charity auction. Fonda’s work in the film dovetailed with her nascent activism, and, as she recalls in her 2005 memoir My Life So Far, she decided she “wouldn’t dress for men anymore,” adopting Bree’s hairstyle and liberated braless look.

9 to 5

1980

Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Jane Fonda walk through the office in a still from 9 to 5. Tomlin has on a black jacket over a blue button-up and black trousers. Parton wears a blue shirt dress cinched at the waist with a belt. Fonda wears a pink long sleeved top with a scarf tied around her neck and a high waisted skirt.

Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Jane Fonda in a scene from 9 to 5

Image Courtesy of Picturelux / the Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Jane Fonda looks surprised in a still from 9 to 5. She is wearing a blue and pink floral blazer, a pink pussy bow blouse, large clear-framed glasses, and a light pink hat atop her short curly hair.

Jane Fonda in that unforgettable pussy bow blouse

Image Courtesy of Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

Roth designed for Fonda again — plus co-stars Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton — in 9 to 5, a 1980s box-office hit that has become a pop-culture favorite. The film is beloved for the comedic chemistry between its contrasting leading ladies — Fonda’s straitlaced divorcée, Tomlin’s jaded office manager, and Parton’s bombshell secretary — and for its elaborate fantasy sequences in which they exact revenge on the lecherous Mr. Hart (Dabney Coleman). One can’t imagine a 9 to 5 character without visualizing the outfits — Judy’s pussy-bow blouse! Violet’s Snow White costume! Roth turns even a tiny accessory into a scene-stealer. We’re talking about that silk scarf Mr. Hart asks Violet to buy for his wife and ends up gifting to his secretary, who uses it to gag him in one of the most hilarious comeuppances in movie history.

Working Girl

1988
Olympia Dukakis sits behind an office desk, next to a row of filing cabinets, as she speaks to Melanie Griffith in a scene from Working Girl. Melanie clutches a folder to her chest as she listens. She is wearing a blue short-sleeved blouse and a black skirt with nude-and-black polka dot tights.

Olympia Dukakis and Melanie Griffith in Working Girl

Image by 20th Century Fox Film Corp. / Courtesy Everett Collection

Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford sit at a table with paperwork sitting in front of them. Griffith has on an all-white suit and red-framed glasses.

Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford, dressed for success

Image Courtesy of Allstar Picture Library Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo

Working Girl, another corporate farce, brought Roth together again with Mike Nichols, her friend and most frequent director-collaborator, for whom she costume-designed a dozen films. Tess McGill’s (Melanie Griffith) metamorphosis from big-haired Staten Island secretary to glamorous executive is one for the ages. So is Sigourney Weaver’s sophisticated, duplicitous boss Katharine Parker. Great acting and directing aside, the best part of the movie is watching Tess co-opt her boss’s fabulous wardrobe in order to work on a big business deal with Harrison Ford’s suave Jack Trainer. As Katherine relates to Tess at the beginning of the film, “Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice the woman. —Coco Chanel.”

The Mambo Kings

1992
Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas stand with their arms around each others shoulders in a still from The Mambo Kings. Assante’s white button-down shirt with polka dots in black, orange and tan is unbuttoned far down his chest. Banderas’ cream-colored hat tops off his all white suit.

Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas play brothers trying to hit the big time in The Mambo Kings

Image Courtesy of Album / Alamy Stock Photo

Talisa Soto sits in a robe. Behind her there is a circle-mirrored vanity with lights bordering the mirror. Armand Assante stands to the left.

Talisa Soto and Armand Assante as Maria Rivera and Cesar Castillo

Image Courtesy of Af Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

The Mambo Kings marked Antonio Banderas’s Hollywood debut and is still notable today for its vibrant portrayal of the Latin music scene in 1950s New York. Adapted from Oscar Hijuelos’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the film follows two brothers, played by Armand Assante and Banderas, from Havana to New York, where they strive to become the next Tito Puente or Desi Arnaz. Puente and Arnaz Jr. (playing his father) also appear in the film. In 2000, Roth told Live Design that she remembers the era well because it was a period when she frequented El Morocco and the Peppermint Lounge: “There was a certain air about town which had to do with Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani and dancing all night,” she explained. “And I was right there.” The jet-set brought flair to the otherwise staid 50s, and musical performers were among the best at delivering the razzle dazzle. The ritzy white suits in which the Mambo Kings perform are a testament to pure glamour.

The English Patient

1996
Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes stand together in a scene from The English Patient. Scott Thomas has a billowy tan scarf hung loosely around her neck. They smile, lit by the sun.

Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient

Image Courtesy of Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

Juliette Bincohe holds the hand of Naveen Andrews in The English Patient. She wears a blue floral dress; he is in a dark jacket with red trimmed lapels and wears a beige turban. They look at each other fondly.

Juliette Binoche and Naveen Andrews as Hana and Kip

Image Courtesy of Allstar Picture Library Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo

Anthony Minghella’s sweeping period epic The English Patient won a whopping nine Oscars, including one for Roth. The romantic wartime drama fell into Roth’s sweet spot, requiring meticulous historical research, weeks of prep on foreign sets, and swoon-worthy costumes, all fueled by a detail-rich script from Minghella and source material from the original novel’s author, Michael Ondaatje. Roth even managed to come up with military uniforms for an enormous cast of extras. She told The Morning Call in 1997 that to make her leading men’s dinner costumes she secured the services of a Savile Row tailor who had designed suits for the Duke of Windsor. And in a stroke of brilliance, she created the white ensemble that is so memorably removed in the seduction scene between Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas. “Many directors would say, ‘Don’t make me go through a dress with a lot of buttons. Don’t make me worry about a zipper. Make it easy.’ But that’s not how it happens in real life, especially in the context of the 1940s,” she explained to the paper. “So, I put Kristin in a dress, a slip, and a bra. And I think the scene is more interesting because it’s so complicated — and you get to see Ralph [Fiennes] going through all that underwear.” Leave it to Roth to turn more clothing into a better love scene.

The Hours

2002
Nicole Kidman sits in a red armchair in a scene from The Hours. She wears a floral dress and low, strapped heels.

Nicole Kidman in The Hours

Image Courtesy of Paramount / Everett Collection

Meryl Streep carries a large bouquet of flowers wrapped in brown paper. She wears sunglasses, a blue scarf, and a tan jacket with a fur collar.

Meryl Streep costumed as a New York City editor

Image Courtesy of Paramount / Everett Collection

Time travel through film can be a dizzying delight to watch, especially for the costumes. The Hours is the interwoven tale of three women — one an editor in contemporary New York, another a 1950s housewife in California, and the third the author Virginia Woolf in 1920s England. Roth created three distinct women and three distinct worlds for the film, the color palette for which was based on Bloomsbury stationary. Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman were each transformed for their respective roles, and Kidman, outfitted in floral dresses and with that extra Roth touch — a handkerchief stowed away in a pocket that she could play with to communicate Woolf’s emotional state — won the Best Actress Oscar.

Doubt

2008
Viola Davis wears a tan pillbox hat and beige peacoat in a scene from Doubt.

Viola Davis in Doubt

Image by Miramax / Courtesy Everett Collection

Meryl Streep and Amy Adams wear nuns habits in a still from Doubt.

Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in character, sporting heavy black shawls over habits

Image by Miramax / Courtesy Everett Collection

The function of costuming for film is to create a character — not necessarily clothes — that stand out onscreen. Roth has noted that her own skill lies in making characters look like real people, not like movie stars. This was especially true in Doubt, in which three of the most kinetic actors of modern times — Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Philip Seymour Hoffman — play nuns and a priest at a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964. The black-and-white habits and robes convey the sanctity of these vocations but also act as a backdrop for the drama. Roth actually let Streep do the work for one of her costumes: “All the actresses playing nuns wanted to make those heavy knitted shawls they wear,” she told Variety in 2020. “Meryl knitted hers, and she finished hers first.” Meanwhile, Viola Davis portrays the mother of the school’s first Black student, and it was Roth’s job to use costume to reflect the class and racial tensions of the era. The collaboration also set the pair up to work together again on Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2020
Taylour Paige, Viola Davis, and Dusan Brown descend a staircase in a shot from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Paige wears a brown low-waisted dress and carries an embroidered purse in her white-gloved hands. Davis holds onto Paige’s arm. She wears a gold brocade dress with a big fur collar. Brown wears a blue three-piece suit.

Taylour Paige, Viola Davis, and Dusan Brown make a glamorous entrance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Image by David Lee

Ann Roth stands on a set crowded with extras and crew from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Her hands are stuffed into the pockets of her beige coat as she looks around at the actors dressed in period clothing appropriate to 1927.

Ann Roth surveys her work

Photo by David Lee

This year, Roth earned her fifth Academy Award nomination for the drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Portrayed in the film by Viola Davis, the real-life blues singer Ma Rainey was a commanding, larger-than-life personality. She was frequently decked out in her signature necklace of 20 gold-dollar coins, which Roth painstakingly replicated from period-appropriate, pre-1927 currency. The costume designer also commissioned a foundation piece that added a hundred pounds to Davis’s figure and was worn under her striking ensembles. Roth was tasked with costuming all the extras as well, including those who appear in the audience for the film’s tent-show scene. “Even during the tent scene, which must’ve had over a hundred extras, she went up to each and every one of those extras and had her hands on them,” Davis recalls. “She explained where each part of their costume came from and what it meant to be in that tent. They listened intently. Ann Roth is not just a costume designer, she’s an artist and she’s a teacher. That’s what makes her extraordinary.”