15 Best Actress contenders for the 2024 Oscars
Emma Stone, Margot Robbie, Natalie Portman, and Carey Mulligan are among the actresses in the mix for Academy Award nominations this year
Film Features the 2024 Oscars
We’ve already identified 22 films competing for a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, and 15 actors in the running for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. Now, we’re turning our attention to the actresses whose names could be called when nominations are announced in January. As with the actors list, we’ve narrowed the field to 15 contenders who gave extraordinary performances this year in comedies, dramas, biopics, thrillers, and even a musical.
Look for return showings by previous Oscar nominees and winners, like Emma Stone, Margot Robbie, and Jessica Chastain. There could also be several talented newcomers (at least when it comes to the Academy Awards) in mix, including Lily Gladstone and Jodie Comer. Read on to find out which actresses, listed here in alphabetical order, we predict will be part of this season’s awards conversation. And look for our final predictions, for the category of Best Director, coming in early December.
41 Comments
Why are all these best actress nominees women? Sexism is alive and well in Hollywood. What about the women who identify as men? What about them, eh?
I’m just gonna assume your dumb ass died from eating turkey bones on Thanksgiving bc a liberal told you not to.
I voted for Hillary. Isn’t that us American’s idea of “liberal”? Wishing death on me because I made a joke you don’t like is a very un-progressive thing to do. I feel cyber bullied. You should cancel yourself. Because you’ve been so toxic with me I have no recourse but to beat my wife and call the cops on an innocent Black man. I hope you feel good about yourself, evil hatemonger. Robo Duck is a terrorist.
I haven’t seen the film yet so can’t comment on anything beyond what you see in the trailer, but Jodie Comer seems unstoppable, and if she doesn’t win for this, she’ll win for something else in the next few years.
Lily Gladstone should absolutely be a front runner for Best Actress. Her performance was great.
She should not. Her performance is great, she is not in the movie any where enough to be in the Best Actress. Her role in the film is clearly supporting, she disappears for near a full uninterrupted hour of run time. I understand why the push to get her into that category, but I honestly think it could backfire, and she not be nominated at all.
I think she’ll be nominated either way, but I do agree, I can’t see her winning as Lead, mostly due to those long stretches without her. (I haven’t seen Poor Things yet, but it seems as though Emma Stone has the momentum?) As Supporting Actress, though, unless there are any performances I’m forgetting about, I’d see her as a shoo-in.
Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for Silence of the Lambs despite only being in the film for 16 minutes. Certainly Gladstone could win with 2+ hours of screentime.
Even when she’s not on screen, the movie is still basically about her character, and she is unquestionably the female lead of this movie.
Oh, so she’s Poochie.
Anthony Hopkins won an oscar on the back of a 16 minute screentime performance in silence. I don’t think “not enough screentime” is enough of an argument against her prospects. She is the soul of the movie and should be a leading contender for the best actress award
Anthony Hopkins was nominated and won Best Actor for less screentime than traditionally expected. It is entirely possible Gladstone can (and should) be recognized as a lead.
It’d be amazing to see Robbie win for her performance, but I’m pulling for Lily Gladstone here. Looks like Carey Mulligan is once again playing her only role in “steadfast wife”, but it might prove difficult to pry the award from Annette Benning’s or Helen Mirren’s claws
I thought Robie was fine in the role but really admired her as a producer. Gosling is the one who totally surprised me: I’ve often thought he was terrific, but holy smokes! he found some shades and neediness and meanness in there that I wouldn’t have expected, and some of it was nicely underplayed. They went way darker with him than I would’ve expected. I wouldn’t begrudge him at all if he won supporting actor, though I haven’t seen Poor Things and a couple of other supposed contenders yet…And maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see Carey Mulligan often as “steadfast wife.” Arguably Never Let Me Go, in a way? Maybe I’ve just missed a bunch of work from her.
Nyad, 2 best female performers all of 2023. And I don’t even like Annette Benning.
I’m calling it right now. Because of current geopolitical crises, Helen Mirren is going to win in an upset over 3 to 4 better deserving candidates.
Five bucks says’ll be Mirren for the win, because of bullshit.
You forgot Teyana Taylor in A Thousand and One!
I think people are really expecting Barbie to do a lot better at the Oscar then I think it will. It was a fun movie but it really isn’t what the Oscars go for.
That used to be the case, “Oscar winners” were always self-serious movies dealing with “important issues” and genre pictures were snubbed, but remember we live in a world where The Shape of Water won best picture in 2017. Basically if you can get your “important messages” in a genre picture (which both Barbie and The Shape of Water did), that’s not really a barrier any more.That said, I personally preferred Gladstone to Robbie if we are going for Best Actress.
It was good but I think people are going to confuse it’s popularity/box office with its contendability at the Oscars. Correlation causation blah blah blah.
It was the same with Top Gun Maverick. My Mom thought “of course Tom Cruise should win best actor this year he was talked about a lot!” and then I helped her realize those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
No they still are but their ratings dipped really low in the passed few years and so now they throw in the years biggest money-maker into the BP noms etc. This is the actual answer not what you said ^ they haven’t changed in the way you think they have they just want you to think that so you’ll watch dude.
The Shape of Water is a lot “closer” to the kind of film that wins Best Picture than Barbie though. It’s not so much that they’re both “genre” films than the fact that Barbie was still a heavily-marketed 4-quadrant audience pleaser than what was released in the summer by a major studio. Shape of Water had similar origins as most other Best Picture nominees and winners.
I was going to ask why we’re talking about next year’s Oscars in November, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, and despite that I fell for it anyway.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah there are already people banging the drum here for their choice despite how they haven’t even seen all of the other performances (and how some of the performances in question are in films that haven’t even been released yet). Poor Things is still a few weeks away and several of the critics who have seen it say Emma Stone will be a front runner. Doesn’t stop people who haven’t (and couldn’t have) seen it from declaring that someone else (e.g. Gladstone, Robbie, Comer) should get it.
It’s December it isn’t November! Am I the only one not in a trance?
…You realize it’s December…? Literally Christmas was yesterday how do you call it November??
You realize you’re replying to a comment written on November 2oth, about an article posted on that day, right? The time my comment was written is right below my username, and the date the article was written is right next to the author’s name just below the subheadline at the top of the page.
As of right now, “The Bikeriders” has been pulled from the release schedule (originally slated for December 1) and “Memory” has no concrete release date. I saw both at AFI Fest, but those aren’t qualifying releases, so for the moment, two of the candidates aren’t even eligible. As to the content of the roles, Comer pulls off a very effective Midwestern accent and is a lot of fun in her role, but I doubt she can break through the more traditional archetypes the Academy goes for. Meanwhile Chastain’s character literally rapes a guy that she mistakenly accused of rape, and it’s treated like a rom-com trope, so if that gets nominated, there’s something seriously wrong.
Yikes.
Where’s Greta Lee/Past Lives?
“the current affairs being what they are, we cannot discount a nomination as a political statement”?!The Academy cannot possibly be that tone deaf, can it?!
Pfffftttttt!!! Robbie has a lock for the win. This is all about pretend contenders.
Nut sack.
Barbie even being nominated for anything would be straight up pandering. I am not saying it is bad or you cannot like it, but it is not an Oscar level movie. It is a summer popcorn flick. There is no difference between Barbie and any other soft girl power movie made in the last 20 years. C’mon.
nah
The first part of your comment – yes. The backhalf of your comment… what? Barbie really wasn’t “any soft girl power” movie…. did…. you…. see Barbie…? There were observations in there about young male behaviour in the current dating world that I can honestly say I’ve never seen on screen before.
I still don’t think it’s Oscar-worthy but don’t be so reductive as to make yourself look foolish. Lol just a soft girl movie OK dude.
Lol wait let me guess, you didn’t see it tho right? Lmao. I’ve bumped into so many bros this year who tell me their review of Barbie and then tell me they haven’t seen the film I’m like how do you know what it is looooool it’s literally what the definition of ignorance is.
WE ALL KNOW THAT GLADSTONE WILL WIN IT. But you all pretend that this is some fair competition that is not decided beforehand. How dumb.
I loved Barbie, but Barbie at the Oscars feels like Top Gun Maverick at the Oscars.
I loved Barbie but I cannot understand why you guys think Margot Robbie deserves Best Actress for it. It’s like how last year people wanted Tom Cruise to win Best Actor for Top Gun…. what?