2016 Oscars: BEST ACTRESS Contenders (Blanchett, Moore, Lawrence, Kidman, Roberts!)

Next up in my 2016 Contenders list is BEST ACTRESS. Amazingly, we could be looking at the richest Best Actress slate in years, including the possibility of the last four winners in this category being up for the award again this year. Recently crowned Oscar winner Julianne Moore (Still Alice) is wasting no time with multiple films that could possibly earn her back-to-back Oscars. Freeheld, the true story about a lesbian couple fighting for equal rights against a police officer’s pension group after Moore’s character is diagnosed with a terminal illness, is being distributed by Lionsgate (a great Oscar player) and Maggie’s Plan just started shooting this week and co-stars Ethan Hawke. Not much is known about the film but with Moore hot off an Oscar win there will definitely be interest.

Best Actress Oscar winner Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) is set to return in Todd Haynes’s Carol, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel featuring Blanchett and Oscar-nominee Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as secret lovers in 1950s New York. Blanchett also has the inevitable Disney blockbuster in the live action version of Cinderella coming out in March to bolster her year. Best Actress Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and David O. Russell team up for the third time in Joy, the true story of Long Island mop mogul Joy Mangano. It also features an Oscar-heavy cast that includes Bradley Cooper, Diane Ladd and Virginia Madsen. 3-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep, just off her 19th Oscar nomination can’t be counted out for another musical venture, this time the the fictional biopic Ricki and the Flash from Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme and Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody. Yet more previous Best Actress Oscar winners set to make big returns this year are Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) and Nicole Kidman (The Hours) in the American remake of The Secret in Their Eyes for writer/director Billy Ray (Shattered Glass). Kidman also has potential Oscar chances with Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert or Strangerland this year.

Newcomer Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) is set to have an explosive breakout year with The Danish Girl, Adam Jones and The Light Between the Oceans all offering high-profile Oscar possibilities. I’m betting on The Danish Girl being the #1 there with its super baity subject (one of the world’s first gender reassignment surgeries) and recent Best Actor Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) in the title role. As with the Best Actor list, all films listed could potentially move to 2016 or fail to secure distribution (where there isn’t any) so right now is just best guessing.

First Predictions:

Cate Blanchett, Carol
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Julianne Moore, Freeheld
Meryl Streep, Ricki and the Flash
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
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Amy Adams, Story of Your Life (Paramount)
Dir: Denis Villeneuve. Writer: Eric Heisserer.
A linguist who is tasked by the military with opening a dialogue with aliens whose crafts have landed on earth. Are they here to make friends, or take over?

Drew Barrymore, Miss You Already (TBA)
Dir: Catherine Hardwicke. Writer: Morwenna Banks. With Toni Collette, Dominic Cooper, Paddy Considine and Jacqueline Bisset.
The friendship between two life-long girlfriends is put to the test when one starts a family and the other falls ill.

Juliette Binoche, Sils Maria (IFC Films)
Dir: Olivier Assayas. Writer: Olivier Assayas. With Kirsten Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz, Brady Corbet.
A veteran actress comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself when she agrees to take part in a revival of the play that launched her career 20 years earlier.

Cate Blanchett, Carol (The Weinstein Company)
Dir: Todd Haynes. Writer: Phyllis Nagy. With Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson.
Set in 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

Emily Blunt, Sicario (Lionsgate)
Dir: Denis Villeneuve. Writer: Taylor Sheridan. With Josh Brolin, Jon Bernthal, Benicio Del Toro.
A young female FBI agent joins a secret CIA operation to take down a Mexican cartel boss, a job that ends up pushing her ethical and moral values to the limit.

Sandra Bullock, Our Brand is Crisis (Warner Bros.)
Dir: David Gordon Green. Writer: Peter Straughan. With Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Joaquim de Almeida.
A feature film based on the documentary “Our Brand Is Crisis”, which focuses on the use of American political campaign strategies in South America.

Jessica Chastain, Crimson Peak (Universal) 
Dir: Guillermo Del Toro. Writer: Guillermo Del Toro, Matthew Robbins, Lucinda Coxon. With Tom Hiddlestone, Charlie Hunnam, Mia Wasikowska.
In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds…and remembers.

Glenn Close, Duchess (TBA)
Dir: Arie Posin. Writer: Arie Posin, Nicholas Kazan.
A new film about Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be the Grand Russian Duchess Anastasia.

Glenn Close, The Wife (TBA)
Dir: Bjorn Runge. Writer: Jane Anderson.
A film about a marriage collapsing during a journey to Scandinavia.

Toni Collette, Miss You Already (TBA)
Dir: Catherine Hardwicke. Writer: Morwenna Banks. With Drew Barrymore, Dominic Cooper, Paddy Considine and Jacqueline Bisset.
The friendship between two life-long girlfriends is put to the test when one starts a family and the other falls ill.

Lily Collins, Untitled Warren Beatty Project (TBA)
Dir: Warren Beatty. Writer: Warren Beatty. With Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Alden Ehrenreich, Alec Baldwin.
A story centered on an affair Howard Hughes had in the late years of his life with a younger woman.

Penelope Cruz, Ma Ma (TBA)
Dir: Julio Medem. Writer: Julio Medem.
With Luis Tosar, Jon Kortajarena, Àlex Brendemühl. Plot undisclosed.

Viola Davis, Lila & Eve (TBA)
Dir: Charles Stone III. Writer: Pat Gilfrian. With Jennifer Lopez, Yolonda Ross.
Two distraught mothers, whose children were gunned down in a drive-by, team up to avenge their deaths after local authorities fail to take action.

Ronit Elkabetz, Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem (Cohen Media Group)
Dir: Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz. Writer: Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz. With Simon Abkarian, Gabi Amrani.
In Israel there is neither civil marriage nor civil divorce. Only rabbis can legitimate a marriage or its dissolution. But this dissolution is only possible with full consent from the husband, who in the end has more power than the judges.

Dakota Fanning, American Pastoral (TBA)
Dir: Phillip Noyce. Writer: John Romano. With Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly.
Set in postwar America, a man watches his seemingly perfect life fall apart as his daughter’s new political affiliation threatens to destroy their family.

Anne Hathaway, The Intern (Warner Bros.)
Dir: Nancy Meyers. Writer: Nancy Meyers. With Robert De Niro, Rene Russo, Nat Wolff.
A comedy about a fashion website that brings in an elderly intern.

Salma Hayek, Septembers of Shiraz (TBA)
Dir: Wayne Blair. Writer: Hanna Weg. With Adrien Brody, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Anthony Azizi.
The film narrates the lives of a well-to-do Iranian family during and after the Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah and ushered in the Islamic republic.

Salma Hayek, The Tale of Tales (TBA)
Dir: Matteo Garrone. Writer: Matteo Garrone, Edoardo Albinati, Ugo Chiti, Massimo Gaudioso. With Vincent Cassel, John C. Reilly, Tobey Jones.
An adaptation of the classic fairy tales of Giambattista Basile.

Nina Hoss, Phoenix (Sundance Selects)
Dir: Christian Petzold. Writer: Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki. With Ronald Zehrfeld.
A disfigured concentration-camp survivor, unrecognizable after facial reconstruction surgery, searches ravaged postwar Berlin for the husband who might have betrayed her to the Nazis.

Isabelle Huppert, Elle (TBA)
Dir: Paul Verhoeven. Writer: David Birke. With Anne Cosigny, Charles Berling, Lucas Prisor.
When Michelle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving her 75-year-old sex kitten mother, her imprisoned mass murderer father, her spoiled and immature son, her ex-husband and her lover, all with the same icy equanimity.

Angelina Jolie, By the Sea (Universal)
Dir: Angelina Jolie. Writer: Angelina Jolie. With Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Melvil Poupaud.
A married couple in the south of France who become sexually obsessed with their neighbors.

Nicole Kidman, The Family Fang (Sony/Columbia)
Dir: Jason Bateman. Writer: David Lindsay-Abaire. With Jason Bateman, Christopher Walken, Marin Ireland.
A brother and sister return to their family home in search of their world famous parents who have disappeared.

Nicole Kidman, Queen of the Desert (TBA)
Dir: Werner Herzog. Writer: Werner Herzog. With James Franco, Robert Pattinson, Damian Lewis. A chronicle of Gertrude Bell’s life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Nicole Kidman, The Secret in Their Eyes (STX Entertainment)
Dir: Billy Ray. Writer: Billy Ray. With Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julia Roberts, Brandon Jyrome Jones.
A retired legal counselor writes a novel hoping to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love with his superior – both of which still haunt him decades later. American remake of the 2009’s Argentinian film.

Nicole Kidman, Strangerland (TBA)
Dir: Kim Farrant. Writer: Michael Kinirons, Fiona Seres. With Hugo Weaving, Joseph Fiennes, Taylor Ferguson. Newcomers to the remote Australian desert town of Nathgari, Catherine and Matthew Parker’s lives are flung into crisis when they discover their two teenage kids, Tommy and Lily, have mysteriously disappeared just before a massive dust storm hits. It soon becomes apparent that something terrible may have happened to Tommy and Lily. Suspicions run riot, rumours spread and public opinion turns savagely against the Parkers.

Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (Amplify Studios)
Dir: David Zellner. Writer: David Zellner, Nathan Zellner. With Nobuyuki Katsube.
A jaded Japanese woman discovers a hidden copy of Fargo (1996) on VHS, believing it to be a treasure map indicating the location of a large case of money.

Brie Larson, Room (A24)
Dir: Lenny Abrahamson. Writer: Emma Donoghue. With William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Jacob Tremblay.
A young boy is raised within the confines of a small shed with his mother.

Jennifer Lawrence, Joy (20^th Century Fox)
Dir: David O. Russell. Writer: Annie Mumolo. With Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Robert De Niro, Melissa Leo.
A story based on the life of a struggling Long Island single mom who triumphed over personal and financial challenges by inventing the “Miracle Mop,” which she sold on QVC and went on to become a hugely successful entrepreneur.

Jennifer Lopez, Lila & Eve (TBA)
Dir: Charles Stone III. Writer: Pat Gilfrian. With Viola Davis, Yolonda Ross.
Two distraught mothers, whose children were gunned down in a drive-by, team up to avenge their deaths after local authorities fail to take action.

Shirley MacLaine, Wild Oats (The Weinstein Company)
Dir: Andy Tennant. Writer: Gary Kanew, Claudia Myers. With Jessica Lange, Demi Moore, Billy Connolly.
Everything changes for Eva when she receives a social security check accidentally made out for $900,000 instead of the expected $900. She and her best friend take the money and head out for the adventure of a lifetime.

Rooney Mara, Carol (The Weinstein Company)
Dir: Todd Haynes. Writer: Phyllis Nagy. With Cate Blanchett, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson.
Set in 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

Rooney Mara, The Secret Scripture (Relativity Media)
Dir: Jim Sheridan. Writer: Johnny Ferguson, Jim Sheridan. With Vanessa Redgrave, Eric Bana, Theo James, Jack Reynor. A woman keeps a diary of her extended stay at a mental hospital.

Rachel McAdams, Spotlight (Open Roads Films)
Dir: Thomas McCarthy. Writer: Thomas McCarthy, Josh Singer. With Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Liev Schreiber.
The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.

Helen Mirren, Woman in Gold (The Weinstein Company)
Dir: Simon Curtis. Writer: Alexi Kaye Campbell. With Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl, Tatiana Maslany, Max Irons.
Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, takes on the government to recover artwork she believes rightfully belongs to her family.

Julianne Moore, Freeheld (Lionsgate)
Dir: Peter Sollett. Writer: Ron Nyswaner. With Ellen Page, Steve Carell, Michael Shannon, Luke Grimmes.
New Jersey car mechanic Stacie Andree and her police detective girlfriend Laurel Hester both battle to secure Hester’s pension benefits after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Julianne Moore, Maggie’s Plan (TBA)
Dir: Rebecca Miller. Writer: Rebecca Miller. With Ethan Hawke, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Greta Gerwig, Travis Fimmel.
A young woman tries to make it on her own in New York City.

Carey Mulligan, Far from the Madding Crowd (Fox Searchlight)
Dir: Thomas Vittenberg. Writer: David Nicholls. With Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge, Juno Temple.
In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor.

Carey Mulligan, Suffragette (TBA)
Dir: Sarah Gavron. Writer: Abi Morgan. With Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Wishaw.
The foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.

Ellen Page, Freeheld (Lionsgate)
Dir: Peter Sollett. Writer: Ron Nyswaner. With Julianne Moore, Steve Carell, Michael Shannon, Luke Grimmes.
New Jersey car mechanic Stacie Andree and her police detective girlfriend Laurel Hester both battle to secure Hester’s pension benefits after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Ellen Page, Into the Forest (TBA)
Dir: Patricia Rozema. Writer: Patricia Rozema. With Evan Rachel Wood, Max Minghella.
In the not too distant future, two young women who live in a remote ancient forest discover the world around them is on the brink of an apocalypse. Informed only by rumor, they fight intruders, disease, loneliness & starvation.

Natalie Portman, Jane Got a Gun (Relativity Media)
Dir: Gavin O’Connor. Writer: Brian Duffield, Anthony Tambakis. With Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor, Rodrigo Santoro, Noah Emmerich.
A woman asks her ex-lover for help in order to save her outlaw husband from a gang out to kill him.

Melissa Rauch, The Bronze (TBA)
Dir: Bryan Buckley. Writer: Melissa Rauch, Winston Rauch. With Gary Cole, Haley Lu Richardson, Thomas Middleditch, Sebastian Stan.
A foul-mouthed former gymnastics bronze medalist must fight for her local celebrity status when a new young athlete’s star rises in town.

Margot Robbie, Z for Zacharias (TBA)
Dir: Craig Zobel. Writer: Pall Grimmson, Nissar Modi. With Chris Pine, Chiwetel Ejiofor.
In the wake of a disaster that wipes out most of civilization, two men and a young woman find themselves in an emotionally charged love triangle as the last known survivors.

Julia Roberts, The Secret in Their Eyes (STX Entertainment)
Dir: Billy Ray. Writer: Billy Ray. With Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Brandon Jyrome Jones.
A retired legal counselor writes a novel hoping to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love with his superior – both of which still haunt him decades later. American remake of the 2009’s Argentinian film.

Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn (Fox Searchlight)
Dir: John Crowler. Writer: Nick Hornby. With Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters.
In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Ellis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.

Saoirse Ronan, Stockholm, Pennsylvania (TBA)
Dir: Nikole Beckwith. Writer: Nikole Beckwith. With Jason Isaacs, Cynthia Nixon.
A young woman, kidnapped when she was a child, returns home to the family she barely remembers and struggles to feel at home.

Lea Seydoux, Diary of a Chambermaid (TBA)
Dir: Benoît Jacquot. Writer: Benoît Jacquot, Hélène Zimmer. With Vincent Lindon, Vincent Lacoste.
A scheming servant works for a wealthy couple in France during the late 19th century.

Amanda Seyfried, Fathers and Daughters (TBA)
Dir: Gabriele Muchino. Writer: Brad Detsch. With Russell Crowe, Aaron Paul, Jane Fonda, Octavia Spencer.
A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.

Sarah Silverman, I Smile Back (TBA)
Dir: Adam Salky. Writer: Paige Dylan, Amy Koppelman. With Josh Charles, Thomas Sadoski, Billy Magnussen.
All is not right in suburbia. Laney Brooks, a wife and mother on the edge, who has stopped taking her meds, substituting recreational drugs and the wrong men instead. Beneath the surface of her privileged and perfect life Laney is a prisoner of her demons and the same dark impulses that seem to have become a family tradition. With the destruction of her own family looming, Laney makes a last, desperate attempt at redemption, but it’s no easy road.

Maggie Smith, The Lady in the Van (TriStar)
Dir: Nicholas Hytner. Writer: Alan Bennett. With James Corden, Dominic Cooper, Frances De la Tour, Jim Broadbent.
A man forms an unexpected bond with a transient woman living in her car that’s parked in his driveway.

Emma Stone, Irrational Man (Sony Pictures Classics)
Dir: Woody Allen. Writer: Woody Allen. With Joaquin Phoenix, Jmie Blackley, Parker Posey.
On a small town college campus, a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student.

Meryl Streep, Ricki and the Flash (TriStar)
Dir: Jonathan Demme. Writer: Diablo Cody. With Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Sebastian Stan, Rick Springfield.
An aging rock star tries to connect with her estranged kids.

Tilda Swinton, A Bigger Splash (Fox Searchlight)
Dir: Luca Guadagnino. Writer: David Kajganich. With Mathias Schoenaerts, Dakota Johnson, Ralph Fiennes.
An American couple, Paul and Marianne, spend their vacation in Italy and experiences trouble when the wife invites a former lover and his teenage daughter to visit, which leads to jealousy and dangerous sexual scenarios. A modern adaptation of Jacques Deray’s “La Piscine”.

Charlize Theron, The Last Face (TBA)
Dir: Sean Penn. Writer: Eric Dignan. With Javier Bardem, Adele Exarchopoulos, Jean Reno.
A director (Charlize Theron) of an international aid agency in Africa meets a relief aid doctor (Javier Bardem) amidst a political/social revolution, and together face tough choices surrounding humanitarianism and life through civil unrest.

Lily Tomlin, Grandma (TBA)
Dir: Paul Weitz. Writer: Paul Weitz. With Marcia Gay Harden, Laverne Cox, Julia Garner, Judy Greer.
Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.

Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl (Focus Features)
Dir: Tom Hooper. Writer: Lucinda Coxon. With Eddie Redmayne, Amber Heard.
The film is a fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe (Previously known as Einar Wegener), one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery and the relationship with Gerda Wegener, the wife.

Alicia Vikander, The Light Between the Oceans (Dreamworks)
Dir: Derek Cianfrance. Writer: M.L. Stedman. With Michael Fassbender, Rachel Weisz, Anthoy Hayes.
A lighthouse keeper and his wife (Tom & Isabel) living off the coast of Western Australia raise a baby they rescue from an adrift rowboat. When the child is two years old, Tom & Isabel return to live on the mainland. There they discover that “there are other people in the world”, and keeping the child “has devastated one of them.”

Alicia Vikander, Tulip Fever (The Weinstein Company)
Dir: Justin Chadwick. Writer: Tom Stoppard. With Dane DeHaan, Christoph Waltz, Jack O’Connell, Judi Dench.
A 17th century romance in which an artist falls for a married young woman while he’s commissioned to paint her portrait. The two invest in the risky tulip market in hopes to build a future together.

Emma Watson, Colonia Dignidad (TBA)
Dir: Florian Gallenberger. Writer: Florian Gallenberger, Torsten Wenzel. With Daniel Brühl, Michael Nyqvist.
The Chilean coup of 1973. The masses are out on the street, protesting against General Pinochet. Amongst them, Daniel and Lena, a young German couple, which like many others, get arrested by Pinochet’s secret police DINA.

Naomi Watts, Demolition (Fox Searchlight)
Dir: Jean-Marc Vallée Writer: Bryan Sipe. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper.
An investment banker struggling to understand his emotional disconnect after the tragic death of his wife begins to tear apart his life in a effort to see where he went wrong, is ultimately rescued by a woman he meets in a chance encounter.

Naomi Watts, Holland, Michigan (TBA)
Dir: Errol Morris. Writer: Andrew Sodroski. With Bryan Cranston, Edgar Ramirez.
A thriller centered on a woman who suspects her husband is cheating, and enters into an affair of her own, before learning her husband’s true, dark secret life.

Naomi Watts, While We’re Young (A24)
Dir: Noah Baumbach. Writer: Noah Baumbach. With Ben Stiller, Amanda Seyfreid, Adam Driver.
A middle-aged couple’s career and marriage are overturned when a disarming young couple enters their lives.

Kate Winslet, The Dressmaker (TBA)
Dir: Jocelyn Moorhouse. Writer: Jocelyn Moorhouse. With Liam Hemsworth, Sarah Snook, Judy Davis.
A glamorous woman returns to her small town in rural Australia. With her sewing machine and haute couture style, she transforms the women and exacts sweet revenge on those who did her wrong.

Evan Rachel Wood, Into the Forest (TBA)
Dir: Patricia Rozema. Writer: Patricia Rozema. With Ellen Page, Max Minghella.
In the not too distant future, two young women who live in a remote ancient forest discover the world around them is on the brink of an apocalypse. Informed only by rumor, they fight intruders, disease, loneliness & starvation.

Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend (The Weinstein Company)
Dir: Woo-ping Yuen. Writer: John Fusco. With Donnie Yen, Harry Shum Jr., Jason Scott Lee.
A story of lost love, young love, a legendary sword and one last opportunity at redemption. Sequel of 2000’s Taiwanese film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, The Godmother (TBA)
Dir: Eva Sørhaug. Writer: Frank Baldwin. With Jon Bernthal, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Oscar Jaenada. The life story of former drug lord, Griselda Blanco, who was known as “The Godmother of Cocaine” during the 1970s.