So Carol, Suffragette and others won’t be hitting theaters this year and even if they did, they would have needed the fall film festival bump to get word started and that time has come and gone.
Speaking of which, With Telluride, Venice and Toronto behind us and New York on the horizon, let’s see how the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress fields have changed since the last update and what we should be looking out for in the future.
Best Actress
I have kept Amy Adams (Big Eyes) at the top of the Best Actress chart even though the way Weinstein is slow-playing this one it creates cause for concern, especially now that everyone has seen the wonderful performance from Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything and it appears she’ll be pushed for Best Actress rather than in the Supporting category.
Reese Witherspoon is quite good in Wild, though I think her previous win means we shouldn’t expect her to win for this role, but a nomination is very likely. And then there is no change at #4 and #5 where I have Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year) and Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), the former of which is expected to have a trailer shortly and the latter will be premiering in New York soon enough.
Behind them you have Meryl Streep (Into the Woods) and Shailene Woodley (The Fault in Our Stars), but I’m most curious about Naomi Watts who is very good in While We’re Young, even though I didn’t particularly enjoy the film all that much.
I’ve listed my current top five directly below and you can click here for my full field of 17 contenders.
- Amy Adams (Big Eyes)
- Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything)
- Reese Witherspoon (Wild)
- Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year)
- Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
Best Supporting Actress
Now Supporting Actress is firmly in “it’s anyone’s guess” territory. People will argue against me having Patricia Arquette at #1 for Boyhood because they doubt IFC will have the funds to run a proper campaign, but right now I don’t see anyone even coming close to serving as competition.
Emma Stone seems to have received a lot of love for her work in Birdman so she’s now on the list and Katherine Waterston has seen not one but two photos of her character in Inherent Vice already released. I guess I just see this as a sign she’s a major player in the film and may be the one big standout.
The only move of note, I think, is my moving Laura Dern out of the top five. Her role is just too small in Wild to garner enough attention, especially in a field where there is still so much left to be seen. I also moved Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game) out of the top five, but I don’t think that’s too much of a story.
I have my current top five listed below and you can click here for the full field of 23 contenders.
- Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)
- Emily Blunt (Into the Woods)
- Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice)
- Emma Stone (Birdman)
- Anna Kendrick (Into the Woods)
