2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (April) – Viola Davis Still Tops; Glenn Close is Coming

Erik Anderson April 17, 2018

Glenn Close has her eyes on the prize in **The Wife**

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As you can see, not a lot of change this month with the top 4 remaining so and in the same place. Viola Davis (Widows) is still #1 and I think she’ll be there for a while. Already a Supporting Actress Oscar winner, this would be one of Oscar’s most traditional trajectories – a supporting win followed up by a lead win – and makes sense for someone of Davis’s stature.

But what I’m keeping my eye on is Glenn Close in The Wife. After debuting at Toronto last year, Close’s film was picked up by Sony Classics. But, SPC had a very full slate that included multiple Best Actress contenders (all of whom failed) and it seemed they had stretched themselves thin. They smartly held onto The Wife and are starting to roll out the film’s campaign and release quite early. The film isn’t due until August but we’ve already got the first trailer and you bet there’s the ‘6-TIME ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE GLENN CLOSE’ title card for everyone to see. There is a clear narrative to play for Close that no other major contender has this year (except maybe Michelle Pfeiffer…more on that later). Although late summer seems a bit early for a film like this (it won’t play any other festivals) I think SPC is going to push her hard for this and by year’s end she may be undeniable.

Kiki Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk) also moves up and sits juuust outside the top 5 this month. The Oscars love ingenues and breakthrough performances and all eyes will be on the follow-up from Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and she will benefit.

One of the more exciting surprises is that we could be seeing a major comeback for Oscar-winner Renée Zellweger in Judy. The first pics of her as Judy Garland have stunned film fans and the actress seems poised to grab the spotlight once again.

Circling back to Michelle Pfeiffer, the 3-time Oscar nominee is receiving the best notices of her career for Where Is Kyra? but the real question is where is the movie? A tiny, new distributor plopped the film down a few weeks ago but it doesn’t seem they’re ready to mount an Oscar campaign the size of which would be needed. The critics, as they often have, would need to do the heavy lifting this year to keep Pfeiffer afloat. It could happen but will she even be remembered by December?

Here are my predictions for Best Actress as of April 17, 2018.

1. Viola Davis – Widows

2. Saoirse Ronan – Mary Queen of Scots

3. Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

4. Nicole Kidman – Destroyer

5. Glenn Close – The Wife

6. Kiki Layne – If Beale Street Could Talk

7. Renée Zellweger – Judy

8. Cate Blanchett – Where’d You Go, Bernadette

9. Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Fast Color

10. Poorna Jagannathan – Untitled Pippa Bianco aka Share

OTHER CONTENDERS

Amy Adams – Untitled Dick Cheney biopic

Gemma Atherton – Vita and Virginia

Emily Blunt – Mary Poppins Returns

Jessica Chastain – Woman Walks Ahead

Kiersey Clemons – Hearts Beat Loud

Toni Collette – Hereditary

Penélope Cruz – Everybody Knows

Elizabeth Debicki – Vita and Virginia

Judi Dench – Red Joan

Elsie Fisher – Eighth Grade

Salma Hayek – The Hummingbird Project

Taraji P. Henson – The Best of Enemies

Isabelle Huppert – The Widow

Juli Jakab – Sunset

Dakota Johnson – Suspiria

Felicity Jones – On the Basis of Sex

Keira Knightley – The Aftermath

Keira Knightley – Colette

Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born

Kelly Macdonald – Puzzle

Danielle Macdonald – Dumplin’

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie – Leave No Trace

Julianne Moore – Gloria

Chloë Grace Moretz – The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Carey Mulligan – Wildlife

Michelle Pfeiffer – Where Is Kyra?

Rosamund Pike – A Private War

Florence Pugh – Fighting with My Family

Gina Rodríguez – Miss Bala

Kristen Stewart – JT Leroy

Emma Stone – The Favourite

Hilary Swank – What They Had

Charlize Theron – Tully

Rachel Weisz – Disobedience

Rachel Weisz – The Favourite

Constance Wu – Crazy Rich Asians

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (April)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (April)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (April)

2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (April)

2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTRESS (April)

2019 Oscar Predictions: ADAPTED and ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (April)

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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), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) 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.