FINAL 2024 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS

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No acting category has been quite as tough to suss out over the pre-season months than Best Actress. How do you not include Margot Robbie in the year’s biggest film? Or Emma Stone in her wildest performance? Lily Gladstone and Greta Lee in quiet but perfectly modulated offerings? The barn burner that was Carey Mulligan, the commitment of Annette Bening, Natalie Portman’s best ever, the debut performance from Fantasia Barrino, the late surge of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor or the terrifying coldness of Sandra Hüller in a Palme d’Or winner? How do you choose?

Thankfully I don’t have to but last week Academy voters did and out of the shadow of BAFTA, who just announced their nominations yesterday, giving them no impact on Oscar voters. Eyes on your own paper, actors. They did give us insight with SAG, choosing Mulligan, Robbie, Stone, Gladstone and Bening. Non-English language performances always have a hard time with SAG so no Hüller there but she showed up at Critics Choice and the Golden Globes and, of course, BAFTA. Oh BAFTA, what a delightfully messy group you are now. With six spots (mirroring CCA and GG) and splitting voting between three top plurality votes and three ‘jury saves’ from the longlist, we got a major snub yesterday with Gladstone, who didn’t make the cut on either side. But it wasn’t just her, Killers of the Flower Moon missed director for Scorsese, leading actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and adapted screenplay, among other slights. How much should we read into that at the end of the day? Not enough that I would see Gladstone miss here but something has been simmering for a bit now and that’s the case against her…by Gladstone herself.

Very early in the season, actually over a year ago when we thought the film was going to be released, the prevailing thought was that Gladstone would be in the running for supporting actress. While this was largely based on the unseen screenplay and its changed perspective from the nonfiction book (moving from the FBI’s point of view to Gladstone and DiCaprio’s Mollie and Ernest Burkhart) there was a sense that this is how it would play out until the film screened out of competition at Cannes. Sort of. Plenty of people thought she was a lead, others thought she was supporting. Critics awards started rolling out in November and December and she came roaring in with lead actress wins. Until LAFCA, who stopped her in her tracks by not only shuffling her to supporting, but giving her runner-up status there. This is all to say that there is a scenario, albeit a small one, where the idea of vote-splitting actually can happen; when a person is essentially in direct competition with themselves. Since the Oscars don’t require category submission for actors like SAG does, we’ve seen in the past where the Academy has made a deliberate choices, moving actors campaigned in one category to another, like Kate Winslet in The Reader and Keisha Castle-Hughes in The Whale Rider. But both of those went from supporting campaigns to leading nominations. Leonardo DiCaprio went from a supporting nomination at SAG for The Departed (where his status of lead or supporting was very fluid) to a lead Oscar nomination for Blood Diamond. The clear recent comparison we have is LaKeith Stanfield in Judas and the Black Messiah, who was pushed as the lead but nominated in supporting alongside his Oscar-winning co-star Daniel Kaluuya. Do I think this could happen to Gladstone? Or possibly even Mulligan? I’ve heard rumblings that Mulligan’s placement in lead isn’t where she should be competing but we heard similar arguments against Michelle Williams last year and she cleared through to a lead nomination.

One thing is all but sure and that’s that for the first time since 2000 we’re going to have an English-language Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup Best Actress winner not earn an Oscar nomination. Barring a wild surprise on Tuesday morning, Cailee Spaeny, who earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, will join Rose Byrne (The Goddess of 1967) in that small but unfortunate group.

I’ve been trying to figure out if the very 11th hour push for Ava DuVernay’s Origin during Oscar voting week by some very high profile stars would be able to manifest into a nomination for Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (recently nominated in supporting for King Richard) but this campaign is missing a crucial key factor. Unlike the push for Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie last year, which 100% zeroed in on her getting in and began in earnest weeks before voting, there doesn’t seem to be a specific focus with Origin. Is it for Best Picture? Adapted Screenplay? Best Actress? Even with, oh so ironically, Frances Fisher and Riseborough among the champions of the film the lack of driving voters to a single place feels like it will leave votes in the wind.

Oscar nominations will be announced on January 23 and the 96th Academy Awards will be held on March 10.

Here are my final 2024 Oscar predictions in Best Actress.

1. Emma Stone – Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) – BAFTA, CCA, GG, SAG
2. Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films) – CCA, GG, SAG
3. Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall (NEON) – BAFTA, CCA, GG
4. Carey Mulligan – Maestro (Netflix) – BAFTA, CCA, GG, SAG
5. Margot Robbie – Barbie (Warner Bros) – BAFTA, CCA, GG, SAG

6. Annette Bening – Nyad (Netflix) – GG, SAG

7. Greta Lee – Past Lives (A24) – CCA, GG

8. Fantasia Barrino – The Color Purple (Warner Bros) – BAFTA, GG

9. Natalie Portman – May December (Netflix) – GG

10. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Origin (NEON)