AwardsWatch - 2025 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (September)

With a Volpi Cup in hand, Nicole Kidman rises this month into the top 3.

Taking a break from her 32 television shows, Kidman plays Romy in Halina Reijn’s Babygirl, a high-powered CEO who puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern (played by Harris Dickinson). The five-time Oscar nominee and winner for 2002’s The Hours nominated just two years ago for her portrayal of Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos but she hasn’t really been back in the winners circle conversation for a while. While we know that the Volpi Cup Best Actress win to Oscar nom trajectory hit a history snag this last season when Caillie Spaeny (Priscilla) became the first English-language winner in over 20 years to miss out on an Academy Award nomination, since Rose Byrne for The Goddess of 1967 (2000), but few actresses in contention this year have the bonafides that Kidman does. Backed by A24 for the first time (who admittedly have quite a lot on their plate this season), she’s well positioned this season.

Mikey Madison continues to soar here, as her film Anora found itself at the top of the dual lists from Michael Patterson’s Telluride Blog‘s yearly tabulation of parallel voting by critics and industry (of which I took part) alongside non-industry folks and then was voted the 3rd best film at the Toronto International Film Festival by ticketholders. She rises to #1 this month.

Then came news that Sony Pictures Classics, who knows a thing or two about this category, is gambling on both Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore being able to get in for The Room Next Door and is pushing both Oscar-winning actresses in lead. While this used to a much easier task, Academy history has shown that it’s far less inclined to host two performances from the same film in lead categories like it used to. The last time it happened here was 1991’s Thelma & Louise when both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis got in (they both lost to Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs, her second lead win in just three years) and you’d have to go back to 1984 to find dual lead actor nominations, where Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham both got in for Amadeus with Abraham prevailing. Since then, studios have been so skittish to even attempt dual campaigns that we’ve seen countless ‘category fraud’ placements to avoid getting blanked entirely, and it often works. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara were nominated in lead and supporting, respectively, for 2015’s Carol (even though Mara won Best Actress at Cannes) and Mahershala Ali won his second supporting actor Oscar for his co-lead performance in 2018’s Best Picture winner Green Book. Those aren’t even exceptions, it’s the rule now. What complicates the situation for Swinton and Moore is that neither actress has been nominated since their respective wins, which are now 17 and 10 years in the past. Swinton got the closest, earning the full house of Critics Choice, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG nominations for 2011’s We Need to Talk About Kevin (only to get snubbed by Oscar) and Moore scratched the surface last season with May December, earning Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations. But this news also puts SPC in the unenviable position of having no less than four lead actress bids to worry about, with Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun and Fernanda Torres in I’m Still Here joining Swinton and Moore.

Ironically, this is a bit of a reverse fraud situation where Moore is the story’s lead and protagonist while Swinton is the more colorful, borderline lead/supporting player. While it’s been more common for studios and individuals to position themselves in the category more favorable to a nomination (or a win) we’re seeing more examples of the some of these risks paying off, like Olivia Colman’s Best Actress-winning bid for 2018’s The Favourite, Lily Gladstone’s lead nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon last season and this season, where Karla Sofía Gascón is positioned in lead for Emilia Pérez. It’s a brave new world.

Here are my 2025 Oscar predictions in Best Actress for August.

1. Mikey Madison – Anora (NEON) 2. Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez (Netflix) 3. Nicole Kidman – Babygirl (A24) 4. Angelina Jolie – Maria (Netflix) 5. Tilda Swinton – The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics) 6. Amy Adams – Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures) 7. Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths (Bleecker Street) 8. Saoirse Ronan – The Outrun (Sony Pictures Classics) 9. Demi Moore – The Substance (MUBI) 10. Julianne Moore – The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics)

Next up: Ryan Destiny – The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM), Cynthia Erivo – Wicked Part 1 (Universal Pictures), Lily Gladstone – Fancy Dance (Apple Original Films), Salma Hayek – Without Blood (Fremantle), Natasha Lyonne – His Three Daughters (Netflix), Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here (Sony Pictures Classics), Kate Winslet – Lee (Roadside Attractions/Vertical Entertainment), Zendaya – Challengers (Amazon MGM)

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