2025 Oscar Predictions – Best Actress Tea Leaves

It goes without saying that predicting the Oscars this early out is a fool’s errand. It is also not so great for the health of the Oscars themselves. You don’t want to put the cart before the horse, to narrow the offerings too soon. Ideally, you wait for performances to jump out at you and then predict them, rather than predicting based on project + pedigree.

In general, the Best Actress race is always about three things:

1. Likability of actress.
2. Likability of role.
3. Likability of movie.

It’s possible to win without all three but in general, you want them, as we saw with Emma Stone last year.  But if voters actively dislike the movie, or like it less than they like another movie, that can make it much harder for an actress to win.

There will be another one “making history” moment in the Best Actress race that is going to be a major controversy that lands in the middle of the culture war heading into a contentious presidential election.

This year, there will be very likely the first transgender actress in the race with Karla Sofía Gascón in Emilia Perez. The whole team of actresses won Best Actress at Cannes this year, perhaps for political reasons they did not single any one of them out for the honor. The film was buzzy enough and with Netflix backing it we’re looking at an inevitable first.

The question is whether Gascon will go in Lead or Supporting. I don’t think it matters. Whatever category she goes in, she will win, I figure, given where the Left is overall but especially in the film industry. And yes, I realize I said the same thing about Lily Gladstone, and voters opted out, choosing Stone to win her second Oscar.  But I think this is slightly different, given the type of part Gascon is playing and this moment so many have been waiting for. Straight actors are not allowed to play transgender characters so when one comes along that is award-worthy, it’s going to be an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

I have not yet seen it so I can’t say who has the biggest part. Is it like The Favorite – an ensemble piece where they must choose lead and supporting? Maybe. If so, Gascon will likely be given lead.

And yes, the same was true for Lily Gladstone. Only Native Americans are allowed to play those parts, and Native American actors are always going to be playing Native Americans. Welcome to the Great Awokening. Have a seat, get comfortable, it’s going to be a while.

Gascon probably “goes lead” if I know Netflix and their awards strategy, so let’s slot out a place in the top five for her.

One word of caution – this is an election year that very well might end up with Donald Trump as the president again in 2025 when the Oscars take place. You don’t need me to tell you how that one is going to go. But if anything it makes it even more likely that the awards community doubles down in supporting the making history option.

Trump and everyone else will make a big deal out of this, so prepare yourselves. The Oscars are already seen as an “obelisk of woke” by the majority of Americans but it doesn’t seem like they want that to change. There are tiny cracks in the obelisk of late, like Andrew Stanton being brought back to direct Toy Story. But overall, it’s still a very fundamentalist movement rooted in prioritizing identity over everything else.

Some women are starting to feel resentful that biological men are winning in areas where they have not been able to dominate, like Chess, or Jeopardy. If a biological man is winning there, and women can’t possibly beat them, how is that fair? On the left, they mandate you say “trans women are women,” but they aren’t. They are still biological men presenting as women.

At the same time, putting Gascon in the Best Actor category also seems wrong. And this is why we have the “gender-neutral” categories that drive me insane.

The Oscars might opt for “gender neutral” after this controversy blows up, and something tells me it will. I guess we’ll have to see how that one goes.

What other contenders might there be this year?

First up, Lady Gaga in Joker: Folie a Deux:

Gaga missed for House of Gucci but was a strong contender for A Star is Born. She could roll in strong.

Next up would be Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s Maria. Here is some footage of filming:

Next up would maybe be Mikey Madison for Anora, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. She plays a sex worker, which is always an strong sell with the mostly male Academy.

Saiorse Ronan stars in Steve McQueen’s Blitz, and again, no info online but here is a set video: JustJared has some photos and info.

Wicked looks better and better with each trailer, and probably Cynthia Erivo has a good shot for Best Actress.

Next up, we have the bravura Jessica Lange in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which will be released this year. She already won the Tony for it. Here is a bit of her stage work.

Tessa Thompson will star in Hedda, an updated version of Hedda Gabler, directed by Nia DeCosta

We also have Amy Adams starring Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch. No info online yet, but here are some dudes talking about it.

One of the titles the pundits have snubbed early on is Lee with Kate Winslet. I am not prepared to abandon it completely, however, and will consider it and her. You can’t base every decidion off of what a handful of tastemakers think. They have their tastes. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

And since everyday in Hollywood now is some version of Caligula, we have the trope of Nicole Kidman as older woman sleeping with younger man in two films this year. One is A Family Affair only on Netflix and the other is Babygirl from A24 which has Kidman sexually harassing a young male intern. What’s hilarious about this is how the only kind of sexuality that has been erased from film would be heterosexual males. It looks like Kidman plays the predator here maybe? It’s called having your cake and eating it too, so to speak? All the sexy time but then the right people pay the price.

Oh, Hollywood. Fix it. FIX IT.

Kidman is a great actress and I’m sure she’ll be fantastic in the film and could earn a nomination, especially since it’s A24 and they often have major success with the Oscars now that the Oscars have mostly become – give or take a Barbenheimer — the Spirit Awards.

Given this very early preliminary list, it seems kind of silly to predict just five. We have no idea how these movies are going to play, whether there are any other performances not on our radar as of yet. But since I’ve brought you here, let’s give it a whirl. Just for fun, how do I see the race right now sight unseen?

1. Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Perez (if in lead – if in supporting, then) / Lady Gaga, Folie A Deux
2. Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey into Night
3. Saoirse Ronan, Blitz
4. Angelina Jolie, Maria
5. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
6. Mikey Madison, Anora
7. Tessa Thompson, Hedda
8. Amy Adams, Nightbitch
9. Nicole Kidman, Babygirl
10. Kate Winslet, Lee

That’s about how I see it at the moment, which means absolutely nothing. The more open our minds, the better the race will be.