- BEST ACTRESS
Clemency was 2019 Sundance Film Festival champion by taking home the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic and it features what critics described as an astonishing performance from veteran actress Alfre Woodard (Academy Award nominee and Emmy winner/multiple nominee), who plays a warden who deals with death row executions - it's a movie about personal demons, a lead performance driven movie that's likely to attract Oscar votes. Joe Wright's movies always feature strong leading performances (Knightley in Pride & Prejudice, McAvoy and Knightley in Atonement, Ronan in Hanna, Knightley in Anna Karenina or Oldman in Darkest Hour), which makes Amy Adams as a natural contender for her performance in The Woman in the Window... The AMPAS loves portrays of madness and paranoia and Adams will be playing an agoraphobic woman who witnesses a crime (it might sound a bit too much like Rear Window, but I believe the movie can work) - Oscar glory soon? At 44, she's already one of the most nominated actresses without a win! Tony Award winner Cynthia Erivo was able to make a transition from stage to movies effortlessly and after winning performances in last year's Widows and Bad Times at the El Royal, she's a rising star in Hollywood and she got a hell of a juicy role for 2019: she'll be playing American abolionist and political activist Harriet Tubman, who was born in slavery but managed to become a free woman (and I guess I don't need to say much more)! I believe she's preparing for her 22nd Oscar nomination since Meryl Streep got another big role, this time for The Laundromat, a Panama Papers drama... And while we don't know much about this project, I learned to never predict a Streep snub and that in case of doubt, Streep is always leading, never supporting (unless the role is a clear supporting one, which doesn't seem to be the case). One of the most singular working actresses in the last 20 years, Scarlett Johansson has done everything on-screen but she never got an Academy Award nomination... This year, she stars Noah Baumbach's yet untitled comedy-drama and in spite of knowing few details about the movie, early buzz around her performance is quite positive and let's not forget she's a big star in Hollywood one of the most talented actresses of her generation (Ghost World, Lost In Translation, Match Point, Her or Under the Skin) who's overdue for a first Oscar nod and Baumbach has already written amazing characters (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha or The Meyerowitz Stories) - plus, it's gonna be a Fall release, which might mean Netflix wants to the movie to do the festival circuit in order to campaign and play for awards race.
1. Alfre Woodard, Clemency
2. Amy Adams, The Woman in the Window
3. Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
4. Meryl Streep, The Laundromat
5. Scarlett Johansson, Untitled Noah Baumbach Project
Other serious contenders: Saoirse Ronan re-teams with her Lady Bird director (Greta Gerwig) for a remake of Little Women and she'll be playing the strong, stubborn and willful Josephine "Jo" March (a dream role that gave Wynona Rider an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress); Natalie Portman loses the sense of reality as an astronaut who returns to Earth after a lenghty mission and experiences paranoia and the loss of connection with her own family in Lucy in the Sky - a meaty part for an actress who excels in this kind of dramatic roles (Black Swan vibes, people!); The portray of a mature independent woman in a journey to find herself, Julianne Moore excels in Gloria Bell and she's one of my personal favorites so far, but the early release date might not give her enough visibility when Fall releases start (unless she manages to slowly build solid Oscar buzz); Is Kate Winslet back to great dramatic roles? In Blackbird she plays the daughter of a dying old woman who assembles her family before she dies... It's an English-speaking remake of a Danish movie Silent Heart and if it manages to stay truth to original movie, Winslet's role is good; it doesn't sound like a serious title but Fair and Balanced is a movie about sexual harassment and feminism and Theron (one of the greatest leading ladies working these days) stars as American journalist Megyn Kelly during the days of Roger Ailes scandal.
6. Saoirse Ronan, Little Women
7. Natalie Portman, Lucy in the Sky
8. Julianne Moore, Gloria Bell
9. Kate Winslet, Blackbird
10. Charlize Theron, Fair and Balanced
NOTE ABOUT: Lupita Nyong'o, Us - A winning almost "impossible to come from a human" kind of performance, Nyong'o impresses in Jordan Peele's Us, but the AMPAS tends to snub performances from the horror genre no matter how great and unique they are (like Toni Colette for Hereditary, Scarlett Johansson for Under the Skin, Anthony Perkins for Psycho or Mia Farrow for Rosemary's Baby). The movie will need to generate Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay buzz in order to Nyong'o to become a real player.
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