2025 Oscars: Best Actress Predictions

Marcus Jones
·3 min read

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. ET/ 4:00 p.m. PT. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

Despite the somewhat slow start to the year, there are actually a lot of performances to look forward to that seem like they could be considered for the Best Actress Oscar come March 2025.

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Multi-hyphenates Cynthia Erivo and Lady Gaga have blockbusters “Wicked” and “Joker: Folie à Deux” in tow, which could net each of them the second Best Actress nomination of their careers. The 2024 Cannes Film Festival premiered performances to watch from both breakout talent like “Anora” star Mikey Madison and “Emilia Pérez” star Karla Sofía Gascón, and established icon Demi Moore in “The Substance,” arguably the most demanding, captivating role of her career.

With stars like Amy Adams and Saoirse Ronan, who have had six and four Oscar nominations, respectively, a narrative starts to develop about whether or not 2024 is finally the year where luck is on their side. That seems to be the case with Adams, in particular, who is already set to receive an award at the Toronto International Film Festival pegged to her performance in Marielle Heller’s highly anticipated “Nightbitch.” Meanwhile Ronan has two films on voters’ radars: Sundance highlight “The Outrun” and “Blitz,” a new Steve McQueen film that will most likely get Apple Studios’ biggest awards push.

In terms of performances voters can already see, A24 has breathed new life into Fall 2023 premieres “Tuesday” and “Janet Planet,” which serve as star vehicles for well-liked actresses Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Julianne Nicholson, respectively. Jodie Comer in “The Bikeriders” is also a performance that the general public had to wait months to see after the film premiered last year at Telluride, and since then, the young Emmy and Tony winner has received high praise.

But maybe the film that has had the longest distribution journey has been “Fancy Dance,” a 2023 Sundance Film Festival premiere that was picked up by Apple TV+ a year later during the “Killers of the Flower Moon” awards run. That Lily Gladstone, a standout in both films, advocated so hard for the Erica Tremblay-helmed indie could be endearing to the wide array of Academy members that find theatrical distribution of all types of films so important.

Lastly, there is, of course, Zendaya in “Challengers,” a film that so far has had a really good balance of critical and commercial success, much of which is credited to her performance on and off screen (she also executive produced the tennis drama.)

Contenders are listed in alphabetical order, below. No actor will be deemed a frontrunner until I have seen the film.

Frontrunners:
Lily Colias (“Good One”)
Jodie Comer (“The Bikeriders”)
Lily Gladstone (“Fancy Dance”)
Julianne Nicholson (“Janet Planet”)
Zendaya (“Challengers”)

Contenders:
Amy Adams (“Nightbitch”)
Ryan Destiny (“The Fire Inside”)
Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked”)
Lady Gaga (“Joker: Folie à Deux”)
Karla Sofía Gascón (“Emilia Pérez”)
Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”)
Angelina Jolie (“Maria”)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Tuesday”)
Mikey Madison (“Anora”)
Demi Moore (“The Substance”)
Florence Pugh (“We Live in Time”)
Renate Reinsve (“Armand”)
Saoirse Ronan (“Blitz”)
Saoirse Ronan (“The Outrun”)
Emma Stone (“Kinds of Kindness”)

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