2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (July)
As we’re just about to embark on fall film festival announcements–Toronto already has revealed over a dozen titles, Venice lineup is next Tuesday–it once again feels a little bleak in Best Actress. The top names remain at the top: Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value, Julia Roberts for After the Hunt, Jessie Buckley for Hamnet and Cynthia Erivo for Wicked: For Good.
After that it’s a melange of maybes, TBDs and unlikelies. Fall festivals are ideal for titles to break out and find distribution but turning it around into a fully-fledged awards campaign is another story. Sony Pictures Classics picking up Still Alice from TIFF and spinning that into Julianne Moore’s season-sweep all the way to Oscar is definitely the blueprint but it’s the exception, not the rule. Just a few years later SPC picked up The Wife as Glenn Close long-awaited Oscar vehicle then held it a year, putting her against formidable competition that bested her once again. Pickups and campaigns are an art, not a science.
This year sees a handful of possibilities if studios are looking to fill out their campaign needs. Amanda Seyfried in Ann Lee, from Oscar nominee Mona Fastvold (The Brutalist) is probably the highest on that list. Seyfried plays the titular role, the founder of the Shaker movement, dubbed the female Christ, and is also a semi-musical? Amy Adams in At the Sea from Kornél Mundruczó (Pieces of a Woman, which earned Vanessa Kirby the Volpi Cup at Venice and an Oscar nomination) is another rumination of a lonely woman. Sydney Sweeney could be the season’s ‘glam down’ makeover nominee portraying boxer Christy Martin in the still untitled biopic.
There are even more distributorless films in play that are likely stay that way and more likely find themselves with a 2026 release, but if a good studio that doesn’t already have a Best Actress player (I’m looking at you, Searchlight Pictures and Netflix) wants to play hard there’s a wide open field here.
Here are my 2026 Oscar nomination predictions in Best Actress for July.
| 1. Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value (NEON) |
| 2. Julia Roberts – After the Hunt (Amazon MGM) |
| 3. Jessie Buckley – Hamnet (Focus Features) |
| 4. Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (A24) – Berlin winner |
| 5. Cynthia Erivo – Wicked: For Good (Universal Pictures) |
| 6. Jennifer Lawrence – Die My Love (MUBI) |
| 7. Amanda Seyfried – Ann Lee (TBD) |
| 8. Sydney Sweeney – Untitled Christy Martin biopic (TBD) |
| 9. Amy Adams – At the Sea (TBD) |
| 10. Tessa Thompson – Hedda (Amazon MGM) |
| 11. Jessica Lange – Long Day’s Journey Into Night (TBD) |
| 12. Emma Mackey – Ella McCay (20th Century Studios) |
| 13. Anne Hathaway – Mother Mary (A24) |
| 14. Rebecca Ferguson* – A House of Dynamite (Netflix) |
| 15. June Squibb – Eleanor the Great (Sony Pictures Classics) |
| 16. Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue (Focus Features) |
| 17. Zoey Deutch* – Nouvelle Vague (Netflix) |
| 18. Jodie Foster – Vie Privée (Sony Pictures Classics) |
| 19. Helen Mirren – Switzerland (TBD) |
| 20. Eva Victor – Sorry, Baby (A24) |
Other contenders: Cate Blanchett – Father, Mother, Sister, Brother (MUBI), Dakota Johnson – Materialists (A24), Lucy Liu – Rosemead (TBD), Nadia Melliti – The Little Sister (TBD) – Cannes winner, Jenna Ortega – Klara and the Sun (Sony Pictures), Margot Robbie – A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony Pictures/TriStar)
*Lead or supporting? Emily Blunt – The Smashing Machine (A24), Laura Dern – Is This Thing On? (Searchlight Pictures), Zoey Deutch – Nouvelle Vague (Netflix), Rebecca Ferguson – A House of Dynamite (Netflix)
2025 or 2026? Zendaya – The Drama (A24)
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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