2025 in Review: Leading Ladies and Headlining Men
Tuesday, March 10, 2026 at 5:00PM by Nathaniel R
Chalamet may have talked himself out of an Oscar but if he wins for "Marty Supreme", he won't be undeserving
It's finally time -- well, long past time -- to post my own ballots for Best Actress and Best Actor. As with the Supporting categories, I had to first narrow it down to a top twelve which you can see after the jump...
TOP DOZEN - BEST ACTOR (Alpha Order)
- Timothee Chalamet as "Marty Mauser" in Marty Supreme
- Leonardo DiCaprio as "Bob" in One Battle After Another
- Jacob Elordi as "The Creature" in Frankenstein
- Lee Byung-Hun as "Man-soo" in No Other Choice
- Harry Melling as "Colin" in Pillion
- Dylan O'Brien as "Rocky / Roman" in Twinless
- Paul Mescal as "William Shakespeare" inHamnet
- Wagner Moura as "Armando/Fernando" in The Secret Agent
- Robert Pattinson as multiple Mickeys in Mickey 17
- Jan Gunner Roiser as "Feier" in Sex
- Stellan Skarsgard as "Gustav Borg" in Sentimental Value
- Channing Tatum as "Jeffrey Manchester" in Roofman
You've probably noticed immediately that two of the actual Oscar nominees Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon) and Michael B Jordan (Sinners) aren't accounted for. I don't dislike either performance, exactly, but I also think they're not as strong as a supporting actor (or two) in their own films who are doing more with less. Both were pushing a little too hard for affect if you ask me and both have been a lot better and more Oscar worthy in previous outings. Anyway you can blame their absence on a matter of varying taste -- I wish we could all celebrate that none of us react to art in exactly the same way and we're really robbing ourselves of great conversations and emotional curiousity when we expect everyone to fall in line with the same "correct" opinion about movies (or any art really). This is all a way of leading you into Best Actress without you hating me but more on that in a minute.
This was such a ridiculously strong year for male leading actors (for once there were far more worthy contenders there!). I really wanted to break my standard format and include 15 people. The three I had to leave out that I didn't want to "snub" were Joel Edgerton's quietly beautiful and sad work in Train Dreams, Alexander Skarsgård's best performance yet as an emotionally blocked leather god in Pillion, and either of Everett Blunck's leading star turns this year. The latter young actor is just 16 but his two performances were so wildly different but equally compelling that we can only imagine what range he might have if he keeps at acting (you never know with child actors if they'll keep at it). If you haven't seen the films check out the comedy Griffin in Summer in which he plays a single-minded theater nerd and obnoxious baby gay. He followed that hilarious turn (no nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical at the Golden Globes is criminal!), with the psychologically tortured drama The Plague in which he plays a generally good-hearted young man who can't quite wrap his head around the cruel scapegoating games of the other boys at his sumner camp. While he didn't make Best Actor twelve he is nominated in both Breakthrough Performer and Best Juvenile Performance in the "extra acting categories" page.
TOP DOZEN - BEST ACTRESS (alpha order)
Jessie Buckley, soon to be an Oscar winner for "Hamnet"
- Jessie Buckley magnificent as "Agnes" in Hamnet
- Rose Byrne rages across the screen as "Linda" in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
- Jodie Foster is back-back-back with "Lillian Steiner" in Vie Privee (A Private Life)
- Ariana Grande completes her "Glinda" character arc beautifully in Wicked For Good
- Andrea Braein Hovig is a great onscreen listener in that you can tell what she's absorbing AND what she isn't as a single urologist "Mariane" in Love (Sex, Dreams)
- Kate Hudson is charming as it gets as "Claire Stengl/Thunder" in Song Sung Blue and trust me I'm as surprised as you are that I was this into one of her performances.
- Margaret Qualley is so much fun as "Honey O'Donaghue" in Honey, Don't! that I couldn't care less about the very negative review.
- Jennifer Lawrence is feral and committed and fascinating as "Grace" in Die My Love
- Renate Reinsve is exquisite (AGAIN) as "Nora", another woman on the verge, in Sentimental Value
- Amanda Seyfried is exciting as "Ann Lee" in The Testament of Ann Lee but as with Byrne some of the film's choices kept me just slightly outsided of where I needed to be.
- Emma Stone is phenomenal as "Michelle Fuller" in Bugonia despite so many people being "meh" about her nomination. This happens to great movie stars when people get bored of their perpetual excellence.
- Tessa Thompson is ready to burn it all down as "Hedda Gabbler" in Hedda
I have zero problems with Jessie Buckley's steamrolling this season even if I do always wish that about 10 people could win prizes each season in each category. (It's always better to share the wealth) But on the flip side it's a pretty mammoth performance so the steamrolling is understandable. That lopsided smile co-existing with (reflective of?) bone deep childhood traumas. A formidable feminist will that nonetheless bends toward husband and home. This performance is abundant with treasures, conflicts, and ultimately soul-stirring catharsis.
And here's where we get to the part about diversity of opinion and I hope that' you'll forgive this apparently blasphemous opinion: I didn't fully obsess over Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. Byrne is a gifted actor (I've nominated her before!) and her characters rage and discomfort with motherhood and caregiving in the film are palpable and even breathtaking at times. But I had a lot of trouble with her film. I literally can't worship at an actress' feet if the director refuses to ever back away from her eyeballs (do people even have corporal bodies in this movie?) The claustrophic gimmicky filmmaking made this a trial to sit through but Byrne and O'Brien were both very good in it.
P.S. A few words about Oscar campaigning as it relates to two of the women in the Best Actress top twelve.
While I know that A Private Live (Vie Privee) is not a film that will have universal appeal I still feel that Sony Pictures Classics did Jodie Foter dirty by not releasing the film earlier. She might not ever have become a factor -- again not everyone will love the picture as it doesn't fit neatly into any genre (in a way it's a thriller but it's also kind of an anti-thriller) -- but Sony Pictures Classics didn't really give it a chance. Will they ever shake off the cobwebs from their sole awards strategy: qualifying release / last minute promotion just before balloting, January or February release? It worked for them for a good long while but it doesn't feel like it's working anymore and yet it's the same playbook each year.
Finally, this is the last moment I can get this off my chest about Wicked (it's probably past the last moment since conversation died real quick with the second half). Wicked For Good suffered immensely from being cleaved in half from its foundation, just as we suspected it would when they first announced that it would be split into two films. The one major improvement from stage to film was Glinda's more fully-fleshed out character arc and self-reflection. While Grande was great fun in Part One, acing the comic elements, she dug into the drama in Act Two beautifully, without sacrificing the character's inherent lightness. If it had been one film as it should have been, it might have been hard to deny her a win. I'm not quite surprised but still happy to see that she is real actress... not just a pop star who acts.
The 26th Annual Film Bitch Awards
Pg 1 - Picture, Director, Screenplay etc
Pg 2 - Acting
Pg 3 - Visual Categories
Pg 4 - Sound and Music
Pg 5 -Extra Acting Categories
Pg 6 - Character Prizes
Pg 7 - Best Scenes & Nomination Tally
Reader Comments (2)
So you have Kate Hudson in top 5, but not Rose Byrne? Are you OK?
Yeah, I'm also going to agree to disagree on Rose Byrne. If I Had Legs sure is *experimental* (not entirely a compliment) but at least the frustrating choices feel confident and intentional—it's not meant to be an easy sit but her performance rewards patience and matches the vision perfectly.
I'm really happy for Kate Hudson—great comeback story, feel-good movie, lovely performance—although I doubt by the time I've seen *everything* she'd make my top five. If we're coming for people's movies, Hudson's is really poor...honestly, there's almost nothing *good* about it besides her, including Jackman. Some of the worst cinematography I've ever seen. When she was singing at the funeral, why was the camera 40 feet away from her? Why were all of the other characters in JC Penny portrait studio closeups? Bad writing. When people said it was "old fashioned" they were being very kind, we always expected more from movies than that.
I hope (against hope, perhaps) Chalamet still pulls it off. He needs to get his celebrity image together, but he's been great many times and really pulled it off in Marty Supreme.