2025 Oscar Predictions: Another Best Actress Bloodbath?

If you’re a grade-A homosexual like me, then you follow Best Actress closely more than almost any other category at the Oscars. Okay, fine, fine, the gays don’t “exclusively” own it (we do…), but it always feels like the lineup is typically packed with the queens of cinema or ladies that we adore until the race takes more shape. As the festival season winds down and the fall season sets in, we seem to always ask the same question: How are we going to whittle down this year’s Best Actress race? With Telluride and TIFF now behind us and Mill Valley, NYFF, and AFI on the horizon, who has the most buzz going into the early days of autumn?

Venice and Telluride and TIFF–oh my!
It feels like Angelina Jolie’s performance in Pablo Larraín’s Maria hit the ground running when the film debuted at Venice at the end of August, and predicting her in the lead spot makes total sense. Of Larraín’s entries in his “biopic trilogy,” both Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart earned Oscar nominations in the Lead Actress category for Jackie and Spencer, respectively. Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana are women that popular culture has obsessed over for literal decades, but some might argue that Maria Callas is not at the same level of fascination–just don’t ask the gay men who devotedly parked themselves at the stage door to get a mere glimpse of her after a performance.

Critics were a little cooler on Maria itself, but Jolie’s performance seems to be the solid center for some. The Contending’s Frank J. Avella was captivated by Jolie’s turn. Jolie’s latest directorial effort, Without Blood, also debuted at TIFF this year.

Speaking of Venice, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door now has two leading contenders since Sony Pictures Classics announced that both Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore are campaigning in lead for the director’s English-language debut. It’s a bold move since there still hasn’t been two women nominated for Best Actress together since 1991’s Thelma & Louise and only four other times before that. Having seen the film at TIFF, I would give Swinton the edge over Moore since her character’s decision drives the entire engine of the film. They complement each other very well.

If you want to talk about festival darlings, one name springs to mind: Mikey Madison. Anora‘s journey started off quite strong when Sean Baker was awarded the Palm d’Or ahead of Telluride and Toronto. Madison is ferocious on screen, and Baker’s film was my favorite thing that I saw at this year’s TIFF. Sometimes the Academy will honor a younger talent as they break out wider into the industry, and Madison’s turn could easily become that kind of awards run. Everywhere Anora goes, people fall in love with it.

Some audiences on social media have criticized Nicole Kidman’s television work for its fluffiness, its wigs, its Target book section universe-ness. If she gets to have a blast with a big ensemble cast and then turn in work like in Babygirl...we should be grateful. Let Kidman run around on a sunny locale and then return to the big screen for far riskier, edgier material. Hey, a Volpi Cup ain’t so bad either, is it?

The Volpi Cup has aligned with Best Actress in the last decade or so, but it’s not always a surefire stop. It runs more parallel to the race than really being a part of it. Last year, Cailee Spaeny won the award for Priscilla, but it didn’t translate to a nomination. Since 2000, only three women have won both the Volpi Cup and Best Actress at the Oscars (Emma Stone for La La Land, Olivia Colman, and Helen Mirren), but quite a few recent Volpi winners have gone on to be nomined–Vanessa Kirby for Pieces of a Woman and Cate Blanchett for Tár, just to name a few. Babygirl, according to early word-of-mouth, is a dark tale that explores sexual power dynamics between her character and a younger work colleageu. Is it too twisted for The Academy? Some of Kidman’s most heralded work (like Dogville, The Paperboy or Birth) didn’t result in a nomination whereas some of her more accessible films like Lion and Being the Ricardos snatched her mentions.

I was blown away by Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. I had seen the trailer a few days before I saw it at TIFF, but what she unearths in this role is rather extraordinary. I had heard someone joke that her character’s curmudgeonly behavior in the trailer reminded them of Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, but that’s not what the performance is at all. Leigh does not share out same concern about a character’s “likability” since he is more interested in reaching the deepest corners of ourselves.

Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy might test the patience of some viewers, but my audience at a public screening at TIFF ate her up. She seethes and rages at the world in an almost constant barrage of discontent, and you might find yourself gasping for breath as Pansy lays into almost everyone before looking inward with the help of her sister, played by the divine Michele Austin.

Like Mikey Madison, the Academy could go for a more break out performance with Karla Sofía Gascón from Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez. I haven’t seen the film yet, but some of our staff here has, and they have told me what a surreal, unique experience this movie musical is. Gascón shared the Best Actress prize at Cannes with her co-stars Selana Gomez, Adriana Paz, and Zoe Saldaña, and expect her to pop up all season nominated for breakout prizes.

And then there’s…

…Nightbitch…

I am all in for Marielle Heller’s dissection of motherly frustrations with Amy Adams tearing into the material. There was some odd receptions to the trailer that made some folks on Film Twitter declare that they were removing Adams from consideration. I would warn people not to be so hasty because their personal reactions are different from what they initially though. Nightbitch is a carefully constructed celebration of being a mom while acknowledging the society pressures put on them by Mommy blogs, social media, and the stares of other people. I wonder if people need to get over their own expectations to absorb the rather ambitious order Heller and Adams set out for themselves. Nightbitch is wildly entertaining, and Adams should be in the conversation. She was awarded a tribute at TIFF for her work in Heller’s film. Will it spark more complex debate or will people not wag their tails at it?

If we are talking about festivals, maybe we should go back and take a look at a performance that got positive notice out of Sundance at the beginning of 2024: Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun. You can never really count out Ronan whenever she has a new film coming out, and pundits like Clayton Davis and Matt Neglia have Ronan in their top five. When Neglia and I were in line to enter a screening at TIFF a few weeks back, he seemed very confident that Ronan isn’t missing a nomination for her performance of a recovering addict.

Waiting in the Wings?
What other contenders haven’t we seen yet or haven’t been widely seen?

• Florence Pugh’s performance in John Crowley’s We Live In Time received good notices at TIFF. More of a Golden Globe play?
• Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl? I was a big fan of Gia Coppola’s film and Anderson’s best performance to date. It is still waiting distribution.
• Can Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, translate to more than first-time director prizes? Roberto Benigni directed himself to win Best Actor for Life is Beautiful while Laurence Olivier nabbed nominations three times and Clint Eastwood did it for Million Dollar Baby. Kendrick’s film is a riveting thriller that just dropped a trailer. No woman has directed herself to a nomination.
• Azazel Jacobs’ His Three Daughters comes out in just a few days, and either Carrie Coon or Natasha Lyonne could find themselves in the mix (Elisabeth Olsen is Supporting).
• Fernanda Torres received strong reaction out of TIFF for her performance in I’m Still Here. People still talk about how her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, should’ve been given more serious consideration in this category when she was nominated for Central Station in 1998.
• Like a lot of women previously mentioned, you cannot count out Kate Winslet for Lee. The film premiered at last year’s TIFF with sturdy notices. It’s a biopic. It’s about World War II. It’s about journalistic integrity. It’s Winslet.
• Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see June Squibb return to the Oscar fold with Thelma?

There are two other performances that we should seriously consider. One is for a film that comes out this week and the other will, surely, be a huge box office draw around the holidays. Demi Moore is everywhere right now promoting the body horror flick The Substance. It won the TIFF Audience Award in the Midnight Madness category, and everyone that I spoke to said that it delivers. You know those kinds of movies where people talk it up and swear to you that it’s as good as they’ve heard? That’s the vibe I have gotten about this movie. Yes, it’s horror, but it’s also a comeback story. Moore was on the cover of Variety, and she’s really working the talk show circuit. It deals with body image and how the industry tells people, especially women “of a certain age,” that they constantly need to do more. Or Moore? If Moore starts showing up with critics groups, maybe we should consider edging her closer to that top five.

Wicked is sure to be the movie of the holiday season. Jon Chu’s adaptation will surely get notice for the design and crafts (Paul Tazewell, call me…), but what about performances? The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Cynthia Erivo, as Elphaba, will be campaigned as lead while Ariana Grande will be in Supporting Actress–a smart move to announce it early enough to snuff out any “but there’s two of them!” chatter. The role of Elphaba carries strong themes of finding oneself and standing up for what’s right. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Erivo can sing anything and “Defying Gravity” is going to be blasted all over the country. Sorry, parents. For the Broadway production both Idina Menzel (who won the Tony as Elphie) and Kristin Chenoweth, as Glinda, were nominated in Lead Actress. You have to go back to the early 2000s to find a performance nominated from a proper musical–I’m talking Chicago not Walk the Line, La Vie en Rose or Judy.

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In terms of predicting, you have to remember how disconnected Best Actress is from Best Picture, so don’t always couple them together. Michelle Yeoh (for Everything Everywhere All At Once), Frances McDormand (for Nomadland), and Hilary Swank (for Million Dollar Baby) are the only three Actress winners that match up with Best Picture since 2000. Yeesh. None of the nominees from 2021 were in a film nominated for Picture. YEESH.

I might play it a little safe and lean on the festival circuit as this season unfolds. Here’s my current top 10.

1. Mikey Madison, Anora
2. Angelina Jolie, Maria
3. Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
4. Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun
5. Nicole Kidman, Babygirl
6. Amy Adams, Nightbitch
7. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
8. Tilda Swinton, The Room Next Door
9. Demi Moore, The Substance
10. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked