FINAL 2023 Oscar Nomination Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Angela Bassett, Kerry Condon and Jamie Lee Curtis are all well-positioned for Oscar nominations in supporting actress, having secured BAFTA, Critics Choice, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations, where Bassett has already triumphed in half of them: CCA and GG.

But something I’ve been toying with for a little while now is Jamie Lee Curtis hitting all the precursors, campaigning like nobody’s business, for herself and for dozens of others, only to be the one that hits everything and misses at the end. It’s risky, as her Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Stephanie Hsu, with significantly more screen time and more central to the story, has struggled a bit this season in favor of JLC’s 12-minute performance. But it’s quite common, happening almost every year and sometimes to more than one contender in a single year.

Hong Chau (The Whale) came close to a nomination a few years ago with Downsizing but it would have been a lone nod for the film. This year she’s aligned with a Best Actor frontrunner in Brendan Fraser and a film with two or three more categories it should be able to break into. Chau also has her viperous turn in The Menu to pad her chances.

Legendary Filipina actress Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness) is making history every day and could make more. Today she became the first Filipina actress to be nominated at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and only the second of Filipina descent (Hailee Steinfeld was BAFTA-nominated in the lead category for True Grit but supporting at the Oscars and is of Filipina descent). Her scene-stealing role-reversal in Ruben Östlund’s ‘eat the rich’ dark comedy also earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

Carey Mulligan (She Said) pulled off BAFTA and Globe nominations for her film, which might also show up in Adapted Screenplay but not likely anywhere else. Being a previous nominee could give her a leg up against her competition but with CCA nominee Janelle Monáe (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) waiting in the wings, and for a movie that also might only secure an Adapted Screenplay nod, we could be looking at one of the most racially diverse lineups in this category in some time.

Is it hopedicting or wishful thinking that we could have a lineup where four of the five nominees are Black or Asian or is it part of the journey the expanded membership of the Academy has been on, albeit slowly, for years?

The largest single branch of the academy, the Actors Branch membership dropped a bit from 1,336 last year to 1,302 this year, which means if all eligible members vote, it will take 218 votes to secure a nomination in Supporting Actress.

Oscar nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24. Here are my final Oscar nomination predictions for Supporting Actress.