2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (July): Weisz is Nice at #1 but is she Lead?

Erik Anderson July 18, 2018

Rachel Weisz (The Favourite) looks over her kingdom of Best Actress wannabes but Olivia Colman is lurking

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It’s a bit of a bloodbath in Best Actress this month and you’ll see pretty much a sea of red.

As I lamented in Supporting Actress, the category placements for the women of Fox Searchlight’s The Favourite are still up in the air and the trailer and recent test screening didn’t help, it actually confused it more and wreaks havoc on the chart for July.

Although I firmly believe that Fox Searchlight will only push one actress in lead here (they also have Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, who falls due in part to Weisz), it’s difficult to know who that will be. Weisz is heavily featured in the first 2/3 but less so in the last third, where Emma Stone gets rich work. Then there’s Olivia Colman, the object of both of their royal affection, who is everywhere and with the biggest and most scenery-chewing performance but one that could soar in supporting but suffer in lead. So yes, it’s weird that there is a brand new #1 this month in Rachel Weisz but at this stage, before the fall festivals announce, why not?

A whopping eight contenders get dinged this month, including Viola Davis (20th Century Fox’s Widows) who is kicked out of her #1 berth for the first time this year. Lady Gaga (Warner Bros’ A Star Is Born) falls out of the top 5, Felicity Jones (Focus Features’s On the Basis of Sex) slides; her film was moved to Christmas and the first trailer and poster for her movie were released this week, to some mixed reviews. Saoirse Ronan (Mary Queen of Scots, also from Focus Features) dips and Toni Collette in Hereditary from A24 probably won’t last long in the top 10 as fall festivals are almost upon us.

Meanwhile, 6-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close (in Sony Pictures Classics’ The Wife) sits patiently at #7, the only one in the top 10 to not move.

Along with Weisz’s dramatic (albeit probably temporary) rise, the only other climb this month is Nicole Kidman in Destroyer. Annapurna has been stingy af this year with all of their fall/winter releases. We don’t have so much as an official production still from Destroyer, Backseat or If Beale Street Could Talk as other studios are dropping full trailers. Still, I feel incredibly confident in Kidman, who not only has a major contender in Boy Erased but is still riding the wave of the most successful awards year of career last year with Big Little Lies.

Something I’m keeping on my radar from the Other Contenders list is Sandra Bullock in Bird Box for Netflix. I’ll be very curious to see if the streamer puts anything behind this post-apocalyptic tale starring the Best Actress winner.

Here are my predictions in Best Actress for July 18, 2018.

Green – moves up
Red – moves down
Blue – chart debut

1. Rachel Weisz – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

2. Nicole Kidman – Destroyer (Annapurna)

3. Viola Davis – Widows (20th Century Fox)

4. Saoirse Ronan – Mary Queen of Scots (Focus Features)

5. Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)

6. Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)

7. Glenn Close – The Wife (Sony Pictures Classics)

8. Felicity Jones – On the Basis of Sex (Focus Features)

9. Emma Stone – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

10. Toni Collette – Hereditary (A24)

NEXT UP

Emily Blunt – Mary Poppins Returns (Walt Disney)

Olivia Colman – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

Poorna Jagannathan – Untitled Pippa Bianco aka Share (A24)

Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Fast Color

KiKi Layne – If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)

Renée Zellweger – Judy (LD Entertainment)

OTHER CONTENDERS

Amy Adams – Backseat Annapurna)

Gemma Atherton – Vita and Virginia

Sandra Bullock – Bird Box (Netflix)

Jessica Chastain – Woman Walks Ahead (A24)

Penélope Cruz – Everybody Knows (Focus Features)

Elizabeth Debicki – Vita and Virginia

Judi Dench – Red Joan

Elsie Fisher – Eighth Grade (A24)

Salma Hayek – The Hummingbird Project

Taraji P. Henson – The Best of Enemies (STX Films)

Isabelle Huppert – The Widow

Dakota Johnson – Suspiria (Amazon)

Keira Knightley – Colette (Bleecker Street)

Julianne Moore – Gloria Bell

Carey Mulligan – Wildlife (IFC Films)

Michelle Pfeiffer – Where Is Kyra? (Great Point Media)

Rosamund Pike – A Private War

Florence Pugh – Fighting with My Family (MGM)

Julia Roberts – Ben is Back (Roadside Attractions)

Gina Rodríguez – Miss Bala

Amanda Stenberg – Where Hands Touch

Kristen Stewart – JT Leroy

Hilary Swank – What They Had

Charlize Theron – Tully (Focus Features)

Constance Wu – Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (July)

2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (July)

2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTRESS (July)

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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.