2024 Oscar Predictions – The Best Actress and Best Picture Connection

Over the course of Oscar history, the Best Actress winner has matched with Best Picture 13 times:

1934 — Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night
1936 — Luise Rainer, The Great Ziegfeld
1939 — Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind
1942 — Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver
1975 — Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1977 — Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
1983 — Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment
1989 — Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy
1991 — Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs
1998 — Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love
2004 — Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
2020 — Frances McDormand, Nomadland
2022 — Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Meanwhile, Best Actor has matched with Best Picture 26 times:

1934 — Clark Gable, It Happened One Night
1944 — Bing Crosby, Going My Way
1945 — Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend
1946 — Frederic March, The Best Years of Our Lives
1948 — Laurence Olivier, Hamlet
1949 — Broderick Crawford, All the King’s Men
1954 — Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront
1955 — Ernest Borgnine, Marty
1957 — Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai
1959 — Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur
1964 — My Fair Lady
1966 — Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons
1967 — Rod Steiger, In the Heat of the Night
1970 — George C. Scott, Patton
1971 — Gene Hackman, The French Connection
1972 — Marlon Brando, The Godfather
1975 — Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1979 — Dustin Hoffman, Kramer vs. Kramer
1982 — Ben Kingsley, Gandhi
1984 — F. Murray Abraham, Amadeus
1988 — Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man
1991 — Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs
1994 — Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks
1999 — Kevin Spacey, American Beauty
2000 — Russell Crowe, Gladiator
2010 — Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
2011 — Jean DuJardin, The Artist

Even though Best Actor and Best Picture has matched twice as often as Best Actress and Best Picture, we’ve never really lived through anything like what we’re living through now. In the past, going all the way back to the very beginning, the market of audience interest drove the Oscars. Stars were valuable ONLY if they brought in ticket sales. Movies were deemed successful ONLY if they brought in profits for the studios.

Now, we know that is no longer the case. Winning an Oscar now doesn’t mean what it used to. Male-driven films (especially if they star white males, or are directed by white males) aren’t really the kind of thing a lot of voters will feel any urgency to vote for. What they seem to be more interested in is moving the needle for marginalized groups, which is why so many out there now believe that the Oscars have lost what used to make them valuable: a measure of success in showbiz.

They are now more of a revival meeting or spiritual cleansing for those who run Hollywood. But also, the expanded membership of the Academy is now such an eclectic mix, it’s hard to really define the industry anymore in the ways we used to. The Academy, more and more, looks like a jury at Cannes or the Spirit Awards when anyone and everyone can be invited in.

That tells me that Oscar choices are never going back to what they once were, and this is the new normal. Maybe you love that, maybe you hate it, but it’s most definitely changed, and probably permanently. The reason being is box office success no longer matters. That happened a long time ago. Also, Oscar broadcast ratings don’t seem to matter much. Even though the AMPAS has a contract for a few more years with ABC, the future of the Oscars is probably a streaming deal with someone. Then it can exist in its own private universe without any pesky pressures from box office or ratings.

All of this is to say that things have changed dramatically enough that female-driven films have a much better chance of winning now, with the possible exception of films by or about people of color. The combo of both is the Rapture (Everything Everywhere All At Once).

Even though I have slated Oppenheimer as the strongest frontrunner heading into the race, a part of me knows that it can’t win simply because it’s a “white guy” movie. I know that as sure as I can breathe in and out because I have been doing this a long time and you’d have to have been asleep on another planet to not know. Everyone knows. To quote Al Pacino in The Insider, “The cat, totally out of the bag…”

So if it’s not going to be Oppie because of these conditions under which we find ourselves, what else could it be and are there are any female-driven films that might win?

Looking at the race from this early out can be incredibly deceptive. Because he does a very disciplined job of making a record of his predictions, here are Erik Anderson’s July predictions from last year:

1. Margot Robbie – Babylon (Paramount Pictures)
2. Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24)
3. Olivia Colman – Empire of Light (Searchlight Pictures) ↑
4. Naomie Ackie – I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Columbia Pictures)
5. Cate Blanchett – TÁR (Focus Features) ↑

Only two of those actresses made it, obviously. But Erik gets it close to right with Yeoh at number two, which is fairly impressive, I’d say.

On his long list he foresaw Ana de Armas for Blonde, but not Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans nor Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie.

1. Regina King – Shirley (Netflix) ↓ – 2022 or 2023?
2. Helen Mirren – Golda (Bleecker Street)
3. Carey Mulligan – She Said (Universal Pictures) – lead or supporting?
4. Ana De Armas – Blonde (Netflix)
5. Viola Davis – The Woman King (Columbia Pictures)
6. Danielle Deadwyler – Till (UAR/Orion)
7. Emma Corrin – Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Netflix) ↑
8. Anamaria Vartolomei – Happening (IFC Films)
9. Jessica Chastain – The Good Nurse (Netflix) ↓
10. Jennifer Lawrence – Causeway (Apple Original Films)
11. Tang Wei – Decision to Leave (MUBI) ↑
12. Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films) – lead or supporting?
13. Vanessa Kirby – Napoleon (Apple Original Films) – lead or supporting? / 2022 or 2023? ♦
14. Rooney Mara – Women Talking (MGM/UAR) – lead or supporting? ♦
15. Greta Gerwig – White Noise (Netflix) – lead or supporting?

Who could have predicted all the way back then that Babylon would bomb catastrophically and that both Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis would be left off the list? Who could have figured She Said would not be in play? Or that Empire of Light would (sadly) fall flat?

These things are, quite simply, not knowable anymore, because the bottom has dropped out of the business. We don’t really have what we used to think of as “Oscar contenders.” Now, we have a kind of odd crapshoot where the biggest movies may not matter at all and films you might have never imagined being Oscar contenders emerge much stronger.

Finally, let’s look at which films Michael Patterson thinks might be going to Telluride to see what, if anything, we can grab from that intel:

1. The Holdovers/Payne
2. May December/Haynes (Potential Best Actress – Natalie Portman)
3. Nyad/Chin & Vasarhelyi (Potential Best Actress — Annette Bening)
4. Strangers/Haigh
5. Poor Things/Lanthimos (Potential Best Actress — Emma Stone)
6. Monster/Kore-eda
7. Anatomy of a Fall/Triet
8. El Conde/Larrain
9. Saltburn/Fennell
10. The End/Oppenheimer

Here are Erik Anderson’s Best Actress predictions as of June 29, 2023:

1. Fantasia Barrino – The Color Purple (Warner Bros)
2. Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
3. Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall (NEON)
4. Greta Lee – Past Lives (A24)
5. Annette Bening – Nyad (Netflix)
6. Carey Mulligan – Maestro (Netflix)
7. Kate Winslet – Lee (TBD)
8. Cailee Spaeny – Priscilla (A24)
9. Natalie Portman – May December (Netflix)
10.  Zendaya – Challengers (MGM)

And adds these two sections:

Other top contenders: Merve Dizdar – About Dry Grasses (Janus Films/Sideshow), Kirsten Dunst – Civil War (A24), Phoebe Dynevor – Fair Play (Netflix), Sandra Hüller – The Zone of Interest (A24), Nicole Kidman – Holland, Michigan (Amazon Studios), Regina King – Shirley (Netflix), Jessica Lange – Long Day’s Journey Into Night (MGM), Jane Levy – A Little Prayer (Sony Pictures Classics), Trace Lysette – Monica (IFC Films), Helen Mirren – Golda (Bleecker Street), Margot Robbie – Barbie (Warner Bros), Emma Stone – Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures), Teyana Taylor – A Thousand and One (Focus Features), Alicia Vikander – Firebrand (Amazon Studios/MGM/UAR)

Lead or Supporting dilemma: Uzo Aduba – The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat (Searchlight Pictures), Jessica Chastain – Mothers Instinct (NEON), Jodie Comer – The Bikeriders (20th Century Studios), Aunjanue Ellis – The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat (Searchlight Pictures), Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures), Anne Hathaway – Mothers Instinct (NEON), Vanessa Kirby – Napoleon (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures), Sanaa Lathan – The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat (Searchlight Pictures), Carey Mulligan – Maestro (Netflix)

I sympathize with the Lead or Supporting dilemma and agree that it’s a perennial problem. I expect it might change as the season progresses. My instincts tell me that if Jessica Lange is doing Eugene O’Neil, there’s a good chance that performance is recognized with a nomination. That’s quite the role and she’s quite the actress. So that pops out at me immediately.

When I think about Best Actress, I often think about it in three ways:

Likability of Star
Likability of Role
Likability of Movie

It’s rare that a performance gets through if people hate the movie, though we saw that last year with Blonde because de Armas still had 2/3 of those. Ideally, you have all three. The most expendable of these three is likability of movie. In the case of The Color Purple, for instance, Fantasia Barrino could still shine and still get in and even still win if people aren’t hot on the film itself.

To that end, here are ten actresses that I think might have a shot at a lead nomination:

1. Fantasia Barrino — The Color Purple 
2. Lily Gladstone — Killers of the Flower Moon 
3. Emma Stone — Poor Things
4. Greta Lee — Past Lives
5. Emily Blunt — The Pain Hustlers
6. Jessica Lange — Long Day’s Journey Into Night
7. Regina King — Shirley
8. Kate Winslet — Lee
9. Natalie Portman — May December
10. Annette Bening — Nyad

Here is a Best Picture list from Erik:

1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
2. The Color Purple (Warner Bros)
3. Maestro (Netflix)
4. Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
5. The Zone of Interest (A24)
6. The Holdovers (Focus Features)
7. Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros)
8. Past Lives (A24)
9. Barbie (Warner Bros)
10. Saltburn (Amazon Studios)

But I don’t see it quite that way. The heat, at least at the moment, is not on female-driven films this year, but on male-driven films. I see it this way instead:

1. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, BA)
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Leonardo DiCaprio, BA)
3. The Killer (Michael Fassbender, BA)
4. The Holdovers (Paul Giamatti, BA)
5. The Boys in the Boat (Callum Turner, BA) — this is a 1936 Olympics movie directed by George Clooney.
6. Poor Things
7. Next Goal Wins (Michael Fassbender, BA)
8. Past Lives
9. Ferarri (Adam Driver, BA)
10. Dune: Part Two (Timothee Chalamet, BA)

Alts: Priscilla, Napoleon, The Pain Hustlers, Barbie, Saltburn, Spider-Man: Across the Universe

This is obviously stupidly early. We haven’t even gotten to festival season yet. Let’s see how the rest of the summer unfolds.