FINAL 2023 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS

This is why you’re all here, right?

The other categories are fine and all but this is why you’re here, it’s why I’m here. Best Actress will always be THE category. Iconic performances, surprise wins, historic nominations, this is the reason I care about the Oscars in the first place and why I obsess over them.

It’s not often that the two most celebrated performances in a category wind up being at the end of the actual Oscar race and what we have this year is rather monumental. Cate Blanchett (TÁR) and Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) represent completely opposite narratives and sit at the crossroads of the Academy’s history and future, in both timelines as it were.

Blanchett comes in with the critics’ trifecta of LAFCA/NSFC/NYFCC (only Ke Huy Quan in Supporting Actor also managed that) plus the Golden Globe (Drama) and BAFTA – her second time accomplishing that after 2013’s Blue Jasmine – and in a film nominated for Best Picture and Best Director. She is undeniably one of the most respected and winningest actresses of the last 20 years, with two Oscars in hand and primed to be in her Katharine Hepburn/Meryl Streep/Frances McDormand era. Her performance in TÁR, chronicling the career downfall of fictional composer and EGOT winner Lydia Tár, has been heralded as the best of her career. It was written for her by director Todd Field, who returned to filmmaking after 16 years specifically to make the film with her. She’s onscreen nearly every minute of the film and every second is infused with her trademark preciseness. But for all of her accolades this season Blanchett has remained an ardent supporter of performances by other women, not just in her category, constantly taking opportunities to shift the focus away from her and to focus on them. Cynically that could be perceived as a shrewd strategy (Jamie Lee Curtis has done it even more) but in the case of Blanchett, Cate it never looks that way, never feels that way and it’s historically intrinsic to her personality. She is a ‘rising tides lifts all boats’ performer, especially on the awards circuit. And there’s no other actress she’s championed more than…

…her closest competition, Michelle Yeoh. At 60-years-old, Yeoh is finally enjoying the fruits of 40-year career with her first Oscar nomination (she was, as they say, robbed for 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians) and on the precipice of Oscar history. In 95 years, the Academy has given the Best Actress Oscar to a woman of color exactly one time. 21 years ago, Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball) “opened the door” as the first woman of color to win then the Academy promptly shut it again. Before that moment, and ever since, the bar for women of color at the Oscars has been so much higher than it is for white women that not only is it out of reach, it’s not even visible most years. This year saw the potential for a history-making three women of color nominated for Best Actress with Viola Davis (CCA/GG/SAG nominee for The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (CCA/SAG/BAFTA nominee for Till) as close to locked as they could be ended up on the outside. What more can women of color possibly do in the eyes of the Academy for them to finally tick that box once again?

Now, I know what a small number of you might be thinking; “BUt eRiK tHE BESt pEfoRMAncE shoULd wIN nOt WOke POLiTicS” and to that I’d say, well it’s a good thing Yeoh gives that performance and you can go back to commenting on Jeff Wells’ blog.

Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn Wang is a complicated and fascinating character, with one foot in the past and one in the future as she navigates the multiple universes that her life choices could have taken her, could still take her. She’s taken to her physical limits in fight scenes and emotional breaking points in the core narrative of her daughter and her husband, as her decisions risk losing them both. It’s a performance that has taken 40 years to happen in a genre that we rarely see even nominated, much less win. But Yeoh has proven this year, earning the Golden Globe (Musical or Comedy) plus SAG and Spirit Award over Blanchett as well as the most Best Actress critics’ wins this season, that she can win.

Then there’s the Andrea Riseborough of it all. It’s impossible to have a final discussion of this category without mentioning the upheaval of it with the campaign by A-list Hollywood stars to get Riseborough the nomination for the little-seen indie To Leslie. The microscopic focus on the campaign that led to an actual Academy investigation (which upheld the nomination), was no more unorthodox than any campaign truly is, sent pundits and awards watchers into a frenzy. While some of the campaign’s efforts crossed the line of the rules of the Academy, it did underscore that, at least at the nominating stage (which took about 220 top placement votes), that actors can focus their energy on a performance and make it happen. The campaign and the nomination will inevitably reverberate for years to come but the backlash (whether you believe it warranted or not) will probably make future targeted efforts less likely as the scrutiny was like nothing I’ve really seen in my years of covering the Oscars.

It’s fascinating that Best Actress is the only acting category (or directing) since 2000 to not have a three-way split between SAG, BAFTA and Oscar. There’s a certain serenity to that, seemingly less chaos, right? In direct races with no eligibility issues or missed nominations, the BAFTA winner has prevailed. Nicole Kidman (2002), Marion Cotillard (2007), Meryl Streep (2011) and Olivia Colman (2018) all won over their SAG-winning competition. No SAG-only winner who was BAFTA-nominated (and whose competition was SAG-nominated) and lost has gone on to win the Oscar. That spells victory for Blanchett, no? It could, in the end, simply come to that, and I think few can realistically disagree that she won’t have earned it. Despite the dismal showing at BAFTA for the film, the guild dominance of EEAAO (DGA, PGA, SAG history) feels like momentum not just for the film but for Yeoh as well, all happening just days before voting kicked off.

It’s a lot to think about in terms of predicting, of course, but also how the Academy sees this race – how it sees race – and what the future holds. If that door is opened again then it’s time to kick it off its hinges. Everything has led to this.

Here are my final 2023 Oscar winner predictions in Best Actress.