Oscars: Best Actress Contenders Include Blanchett, Yeoh, Robbie and McDormand

This year’s Best Actress race will again be dominated by biopic performances. Oscar loves that stuff. However, there also seems to be more than a few originally written characters that look like great Oscar fodder.

Unlike Anne Thompson’s predictions in this category, I am not sold on either Dakota Johnson (Cha Cha Real Smooth), Keke Palmer (Nope), or Tang Wei (Decision to Leave) being legitimate contenders. So let’s scratch them off our list.

Cate Blanchett (TAR) is almost a shoo-in to get nominated, and almost nobody has seen her performance. That’s how much of a great actress Cate the Great is. It helps that NYFF, in their description of Tar, solely, and weirdly, only focused on Blanchett. Almost no mention of Field or the film itself.

There’s a lot of talk about Ana de Armas (Blonde) possibly getting in for her performance as Marilyn Monroe. I’ll put it this way, the trailer has been released and there are some already complaining about her work as Norma Jean (“That accent!”)

Thompson weirdly lists Angel Bassett (Wakanda Forever) as a “contender.” What?! NO. I’ll also have to nix Regina King (Shirley) whose film got destroyed at a recent test-screening.

As for Carey Mulligan possibly contending for “She Said,” I’m hearing Zoe Kazan is the standout, and not her co-star. It also doesn’t help that the film will be skipping most of the fests this fall except for NYFF where it’s not even on the Main Slate.

Here’s where my head is at right now in terms of the actual contenders actually fighting it out for Best Actress:

• Cate Blanchett (TAR)

• Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

• Danielle Deadwyler (Till)

• Olivia Colman (Empire of Light)

• Margot Robbie (Babylon)

This is purely based on speculation, advanced screenings and the Academy’s past tastes. There are other performances that look good, on-paper at least …

Greta Gerwig (White Noise), Jessica Chastain (The Good Nurse), Florence Pugh (The Wonder), Vicky Krieps (Corsage), Naomi Ackie (I Wanna Dance With Somebody), Sally Hawkins (The Lost King)

It’s obviously still way too early to truly get a good sense of what to expect, but this is the way the category currently stands as of August 2022.