2018 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS – Frances McDormand Takes No Prisoners

Erik Anderson January 30, 2018

Like Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) in Best Actor, Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) has dominated awards season by winning the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and Screen Actors Guild awards. She’s a previous Best Actress winner (for 1995’s Fargo), a general recluse who is happy to “come out of the woods and be invited to the party” and a distinct voice among actors that provides a subversive take on acceptance speeches.

McDormand’s closest competitor, The Shape of Water‘s Sally Hawkins, has gone toe-to-toe with her during critics’ awards season (McDormand has 15 wins; Hawkins has 14) but, again like Oldman, once the televised awards started it was McDormand all the way in every direct competition they had. And, also like Oldman and Day-Lewis with Focus Features, the two actresses are from the same studio – Fox Searchlight. It’s a win-win for the studio no matter who comes out on top. Interestingly though, both films are facing controversy that might derail one or both of them. Three Billboards has been hit with criticisms on how it handles race and redemption and The Shape of Water is being accused of plagiarism. It might end up being nothing.

If either of those take hold during the voting period, Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) could give some chase to the frontrunner(s). Since McDormand and Hawkins are also in the two Best Picture leaders, both of those films would have to take big hits and Lady Bird would have to come from behind and be the Best Picture winner that takes Ronan along for the ride. Not saying it will happen, but I’m not saying it won’t (it’s just really unlikely).

BEST PICTURE | BEST DIRECTOR | BEST ACTOR

Here are the Best Actress winner predictions from the Gold Rush Gang for Tuesday, January 30, 2018.

BEST ACTRESS		ERIK ANDERSON	BRYAN BONAFEDE	GREG HOWARD	EVAN KOST	JASON OSIASON	KENNETH POLISHCHUK	DENIZCAN SÜRÜCÜ	RICHARD ANTHONY	ŞÜKRÜ SÖĞÜT	MATT DINN	TOTAL POINTS

1	Frances McDormand – Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	100
2	Sally Hawkins – The Shape of Water	3	2	4	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	87
3	Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird	2	4	2	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	81
4	Margot Robbie – I, Tonya	4	3	3	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	72
5	Meryl Streep – The Post	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	60

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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