Imagine a metropolis in which every animal’s needs are met through efficient urban planning. In Zootopia 2, the titular setting is just that—a place that seems to have achieved harmony through thoughtful design. But what happens when some animals are forgotten? What if the built environment reflects inequality?

On-screen, the spaces in which stories unfold can signal deeper themes to the audience. In Frankenstein, the unnamed creature Dr. Frankenstein creates seeks refuge in the woods and later in a rustic house adorned with foliate heads, motifs that typically symbolize a connection to the earth and its cycles. His surroundings quietly communicate that, despite his unusual origin, he is very much a part of the natural world. Similarly, in Zootopia 2, the city's design casts doubt on the idea that all animals are valued, as there is no district for reptiles. In both films, physical spaces and structures intensify the story’s meaning.

Read on to explore how five of this year’s Academy Award-nominated films use the built environment to tell their stories. For more on the relationship between historic preservation and the silver screen, check out our film and television stories.

Gothic Labs, Juke Joints, and Buried Districts: Built Environments That Expose Injustice

Frankenstein (2025)

Nominated for nine Academy Awards, Frankenstein is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. The fateful scene in which Dr. Frankenstein awakens his unnamed creature unfolds in the doctor’s Gothic laboratory, inspired by the National Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland. A towering structure, it stands alone. This remote setting is a fitting origin point for a story about profound loneliness. Both Dr. Frankenstein and the creature struggle to forge connections in society, and while they share that experience, they fundamentally differ. The doctor, raised in opulent Baroque homes by his dysfunctional aristocratic family, chooses to isolate himself in his lab. The creature is born there but escapes and seeks refuge in a simple mill house near a family he becomes attached to from afar. Neither character comfortably exists in society, and the built environment highlights why.

Zootopia 2 (2025)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature, Zootopia 2 explores how the built environment can reflect and reinforce systemic inequality. Organized into districts that cater to the needs of different animals, the city of Zootopia initially seems to have achieved harmony through urban planning. However, that belief is challenged when Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde meet a displaced pit viper. As they investigate, they discover that reptiles have been surviving in a secret settlement they constructed underground. While safe, the reptiles are removed from Zootopian society and effectively erased from its history. As the story progresses, Judy, Nick, and pit viper Gary work together to expose the prejudice and corruption behind the reptiles' displacement and reclaim the land that was stolen from them.

Observatories and Racetracks: Built Environments That Slow Us Down and Speed Us Up

Perfectly a Strangeness (2024)

Nominated for Best Documentary Short Film, Perfectly a Strangeness follows three donkeys as they traverse La Silla Observatory in the Coquimbo region of Chile. The observatory, enigmatic and nonthreatening, provides a place for the donkeys to rest and scratch their necks against its barrier posts. As night falls, the donkeys watch as the facility seems to wake up: it hums quietly, equipment begins to move, and its astronomical purpose is suddenly contextualized under the starry sky above it. The observatory’s round dome mirrors the round domes of the donkey’s eyes, which are frequently focused on. This unusual short film serves as a reminder that the built environment humans create is one that animals must also navigate and inhabit.