Final 2020 Oscar Predictions – SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Feel the Dern, baby.

There’s really nothing that can stop Laura Dern (Marriage Story) from winning her first Oscar and no amount of ‘but she was better in Little Women!’ or ‘This is a career win!’ can change that. In fact, those are two things that just add to her cache.

Dern is about as Hollywood royalty and legacy as you can get, with Oscar-nominated parents, working in the industry since she was a teenager, being a previous nominee and being on the Board of Governors of the Academy. She’s won the Critics Choice, Golden Globe, SAG and BAFTA and is in a Best Picture nominee. That combination has never lost and she’s also her film’s best (only) chance at winning an Oscar. Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers) gave her chase with the critics awards, and even edged her out there, but ultimately missed out on the nomination to a previous Oscar winner, Kathy Bates in Richard Jewell.

Let’s say for argument’s sake she has competition. Who’s next, her Marriage Story co-star Scarlett Johansson in Jojo Rabbit? Margot Robbie in Bombshell? I’ve gone back and forth but it’s probably Johansson in the stronger film even of Robbie is the kind of ingenue the Academy has often embraced here.

Here are my ranked Final Oscar predictions for Supporting Actress with a chart of a decade of related precursors and history.

• Author
• Recent Posts

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.

Latest posts by Erik Anderson (see all)

• 2026 Cannes Film Festival Winners: Cristian Mingiu’s ‘Fjord’ Takes the Palme, Seventh Win in a Row for NEON - May 23, 2026
• Cannes 2026: Sandra Wollner’s ‘Everytime’ Wins Un Certain Regard Grand Prize - May 22, 2026
• ‘Coward’ Review: Belgian Soldiers Find Love in Lukas Dhont’s Hidden Romance Masterpiece [A] Cannes - May 21, 2026