Vote on Best Actress. (Plus 'How'd they get nominated?')
Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 9:47AM The Best Actress chart is fully updated for your viewing pleasure with details, stats, and trivia. Here's one curio trivia bit. We believe that this is only the second time in history when all five Best Actress nominees are from different countries! (Usually it's some combo of Americans, Brits, and Aussies). All that plus our semi-annual "How'd They Get Nominated?" breakdown. Before anyone takes offense at the guesstimate percentages (it's all in good fun) please note that these are NOT performance critiques. A truth: You can give the most brilliant performance of all time and still be nominated for other reasons entirely. Awards races, Oscar and otherwise, are meritocracies only in the utopian ideal sense; People are people (including, thus, all voting bodies be they fans, high brow critics, or Academy members) and their reasons for voting in any given way are multiple and varied and heavily influenced by all sorts of things. Plus, it's all subjective too!
Adrien Brody & Ana de Armas in "Blonde" (Netflix)
Let's start with Ana de Armas in Blonde for an example. How'd she get nominated?
67% Role. Awards bodies have always loved Marilyn portrayals which have led to Emmy, Oscar, and Tony nods for various actresses across multiple decades (though not wins curiously enough).
20% Performance. Even people who didn't love the movie admired her work in it.
6% Globe nomination / ceremony shout-outs revived interest in a crowded race.
5% Knives Out + No Time To Die = rapidly ascending stardom (Big stars have a built in advantage in popularity contests)
2% Early traction! That September release struck while the iron was hot from Venice festival buzz. Blonde was widely seen (via Netflix) before all but one of the major competitors for the nomination arrived (Michelle Yeoh was the exception).
The other four breakdowns are on the Best Actress page where you can vote daily in the "Who SHOULD win?" poll.
Reader Comments (24)
The five Best Actress nominees of 2007 were born in five different countries.
Marion Cotillard was born in France.
Cate Blanchett was born in Australia.
Julie Christie was born in British India.
Laura Linney was born in the U.S.
Elliott (then Ellen) Page was born in Canada.
Blanchett is brilliant, Riseborough is a legend, and I'm grateful that Williams squeaked through...
But I'm rooting for Yeoh so hard this year! That would be a win for the ages.
Kind of wild that Marilyn Monroe never got an Oscar nomination (and was most likely never even close), but has become such an awards magnet today that actress who play her almost get nominated by default, even if their film is receveived lukewarm (like My Week With Marilyn) or completely reviled (like Blonde).
It's probably a mistake, but I'm kind of loving that Riseborough's and Williams' "how'd she get nominated" numbers only add up to 99%... but Blanchett's add up to 102%.
OZZIE -- lolololol definitely a mistake
Michelle Yeoh winning is definitely my biggest wish in competitive categories this year.
In any other year, I'd easily be rooting for Blanchett in her career best performance.
MrW true MM was never Oscar nominated but I think it's safe to say she was close twice in 1956 for Bust Stop and especially in 1959 in Some Like it Hot which is what we'd call now a snub and maybe AlmostThere for The Misfits.
It's not Ana's time yet but it will come but she is deserving of this nod.
Thanks for this, Nathaniel! I especially remember these stat breakdowns when I first stumbled upon TFE as a teenager (and I'm turning 30 in 2 weeks! 😱 lol) during the awards season for the last 5-nominee Best Picture year. So... like 15 years ago. Geez, time flies.
ANYWHO -
They're fun and creative, and somehow always seem super accurate. This is the stuff that keeps us coming back, so thank u! ♥️
Does anyone else feel worried about Risborough? I was pleasantly surprised by her nomination, and later on when thinking about which of the new nominees had the best chance for repeating, I had her in my top 5. But now with the blowback, not only do I not think she will win but that she has no chance of ever being nominated again.
It’s still a little (not super) early, but I’m thinking the Riseborough effect hurts Yeoh.
A bunch of the actors who got her nominated are probably all in for the win. The optics of the investigation are insulting, I would expect many to respond by doubling down and ticking the box for her, whether they planned to or not.
The phenomenon appears limited to a subset of one branch. But if the wider Academy has certain default tendencies (Blanchett is the autopilot choice) then Yeoh needs every more adventurous voter she can get. Riseborough takes some number of those voters off the table.
It’s definitely not a three-way race but I think any splintering helps Blanchett.
My predictions on their chance of winning
Yeoh,Blanchett,Riseborough,Williams,De Armas.
My own nominees
Yeoh,Deadwyler,Goth,Blanchett,De Armas.
TomG: I think the blowback only helps her. The Academy really did her dirty and it will only increase her vote total. Still think it's between Yeoh and Blanchett though.
thevoud99: yes the nomination is the win for her but I am so proud of the Academy's acting branch for nominating her. It is one helluva performance and she would get my vote.
This will not hurt Riseborough at all.
As they say in Hollywood, all publicity is good publicity. She just became more famous from this situation, which will probably lead to juicier projects.
She already got her first nod, if she has an undeniable type of role / performance in the right project, she'll be nominated again.
In the long run, this whole situation will not be remembered as being that deep (bc it isn't).
I would actually go as far as to say that this whole kerfuffle with Riseborough actually makes this a three-way race. The outsized attention to this whole thing, particularly the Academy more or less wagging their fingers at a few actors (keyword here is ACTORS, we all see you Frances Fisher), could backfire with actors en masse voting for Riseborough to spite the Academy's reach. Is there enough of them that feel slightly aggrieved by this to actually make a difference? We'll see. Human nature means we don't like it when someone tells them they can't do something.
And from nomination to the Academy's ruling it was ALL about her (or to lesser extent Viola/Deadwyler/Williams and how they fit into the Riseborough of it all) but a few attention on the supposed frontrunners. I would still bet on Blanchett or Yeoh to win, but the talk for the past few weeks haven't been on them and their performance.
2020 is a useful year to look at: McDormand won her third Oscar despite losing the BFCA, the Globe and the SAG (to Mulligan, Day and Davis respectively). She did win the BAFTA. Blanchett's already doing better than that.
McDormand won because she was widely thought to have given the performance of the year. Her movie screamed "prestige" and she carried it singlehandedly (as far as the Academy was concerned). She's an Academy favorite. The vibe was Daniel Day-Lewis level.
IMO those are the fundamentals underlying Blanchett's chances. "If not her, who?" is an easy question to answer when there's one alternative, but Riseborough means one-and-a-half or one-and-a-quarter alternatives to Blanchett. That makes a difference!
You also have Quan locking up his win which recenters the EEAAO acting conversation on him.
I do hope Yeoh pulls it out but as it stands, Blanchett's the clear favorite.
Jackie Chan's announcement that Everything Everywhere All at Once was written for him is an eyebrow raiser. Michelle Yeoh confirmed the story and related that she was originally cast for the role played by Ke Huy Quan.
Lydia Tar is the best character study (male or female) of 2022. It's not just the best female performance, but the best performance of the year. She is also a mother, but that's not the focal point of this character study. Pay attention to Blanchett's intelligence once again: she saves the tears for the most vulnerable moment when Lydia is Linda, at home, surrounded by childhood trophies, revisiting the videos that inspired her in the first place.
I watched Till on Friday, and talking about character studies, that script is literally just presenting us a constantly grieving mother, who is even pre-grieving at the very beginning of the movie. That's all. There's nothing else to the character. And this does not help Danielle Deadwyler at all. Her evident talent in bringing diversified crying makes the performance moving and impactful enough. But for the most part we get more of the same throughout that movie. In proper hands Till would've worked better as a documentary.
EEAAO is a great concept movie where central universe Michelle Yeoh really is just a laundromat immigrant lady trying to find ways to communicate with her daughter. It's just another mom role.
Blanchett is fun to watch, but it's not an entirely convincing portrayal. Check out this astute piece about how implausible her Staten Island upbringing is: https://reverseshot.org/features/3030/two_cents_2022
(It's the header that reads "Most Bewildering Origin Story: Lydia/Linda Tár’s Staten Island Upbringing").
"Just another mom role" sounds awfully reductive of everything Yeoh did in that film.
Just rabble-rousing this thread a bit:
I wonder what percentage will the following ladies get using Nathaniel's metrics:
Mia Goth, Pearl
Rebecca Hall, Resurrection
Tilda Swinton, The Eternal Daughter
Emily Watson, God's Creatures
Tang Wei, Decision to Leave
Vicky Krieps, Corsage
Guslagie Malanda, St Omer
Would really love it if future acting nominations mirrored the Independent Spirit Awards (with Male & Female categories!). The Academy would probably be up in arms that ‘small, unimportant’ film performances got in, thus shrinking their dwindling lost audience who want names, personalities & blockbusters, not great acting.
@Yavor "Lydia Tar is the best character study (male or female) of 2022. It's not just the best female performance, but the best performance of the year." After last night's finale of Happy Valley, I beg to differ:
"Catherine Cawood is the best character study...."
That said, all my money and good wishes are on Michelle Yeoh. Though I wouldn't mind a team up with her and Jackie Chan.
Usually, I have strong feelings about this category, but this is a year where I'm torn. Yeoh and Blanchett are truly incredible.
It's really easy to say that Blanchett gives a tour-de-force. She does and she's thrilling to watch in every moment. I went into her film thinking it might be a bit esoteric and laborious to get through. Instead, both she and Field make it one of the easiest and most thrilling watches of 2022. She scales the heights of Carol and Blue Jasmine, something I didn't think possible. Seeing how carefully her character unravels, is a thing to watch.
But Yeoh is equally compelling. She really paints a complete picture of a woman who is living a life, but isn't truly doing more than that. There's something incredible about the way she is able to take us on a pretty wild journey, while also grounding her character in really rich and heart tugging work about her relationships with different members of her family. I've always enjoyed Yeoh, but I didn't know she really had this in her. She's funny, watchable, and just absolutely devastating in different moments, all while creating a character you can't help but cheer for. And she does so much physically! It's a tour-de-force that never screams "look at what I can do" but rather, simply is.
I'll just keep rotating my vote between those two. Because I can't make up my mind.