Entertainment
This Is The One Major Oscars Category That’s Still Up In The Air – Forbes
Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone will likely duke it out for the Best Actress Academy Award this weekend, the finale to a months-long, neck-and-neck awards season race in which both actresses have racked up plenty of wins for their performances.
Lily Gladstone won Best Actress at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times … [+]
Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) are considered the top contenders for Best Actress at the Oscars this weekend, after both have spent awards season trading wins.
Gladstone will head into the Oscars with momentum from her Best Actress victory at the Screen Actors Guild awards, though Stone won at the BAFTAs and Critics Choice Awards—and both actresses won at the Golden Globes in January.
Awards pundits for Variety, Rolling Stone and IndieWire are giving Gladstone the edge, though Variety admitted the race is “too close to call.”
Most awards bettors are also predicting Gladstone: She leads the odds on GoldDerby, an awards prediction forum, as well as on multiple sportsbooks including DraftKings, Oddschecker and FanDuel.
Gladstone and Stone will face off against three other nominees in the category: Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”) and Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”).
Gladstone is up for an Oscar for the first time, while Stone is a previous Best Actress winner for “La La Land.”
Should Gladstone win the Academy Award, she would become the first Native American to win Best Actress. Gladstone is the first Native American woman to be nominated for the award, and the second Indigenous nominee after Yalitza Aparicio was nominated for “Roma” in 2019. Gladstone has already become the first Indigenous actor to win at the SAG Awards and Golden Globes this year. In both speeches, Gladstone briefly spoke in the Blackfeet language before finishing her speeches in English.
The other major categories are not considered to be as close of a race as Best Actress, according to awards pundits and bettors. After dominating at nearly every other award show this season, including winning the most awards at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Screen Actors Guild Awards, “Oppenheimer” is thought to be the favorite to win Best Picture at the Oscars. “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan is also considered the frontrunner for Best Director after he won the directing prizes at the Globes and BAFTAs. “Oppenheimer” will also likely take home the Best Actor prize for Cillian Murphy and the Supporting Actor Oscar for Robert Downey Jr. after their strong showings all award season. Da’Vine Joy Randolph has nearly swept the season for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “The Holdovers,” and many pundits expect her to take the Oscar home on Sunday.
In a similarly tight Best Actress race last year, Michelle Yeoh took home the Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All At Once” after winning at the SAG Awards. Her competitor, Cate Blanchett (“TÁR”) won at the BAFTAs and Critics Choice—like Stone, this year—and both Yeoh and Blanchett had won Best Actress at the Golden Globes in the comedy and drama categories, respectively.
Who will take home the Best Actress trophy and the other Academy Awards up for grabs. The ceremony will air March 10 at 7 p.m. EST on ABC, ABC.com and the ABC app.
2024 Oscar Nominations: ‘Oppenheimer’ Leads With 13 Nominations (Forbes)
Oscars 2024: Who’s Performing And What To Expect—As Ryan Gosling And Billie Eilish Prepare To Sing Music From ‘Barbie’ (Forbes)
Here’s Why ‘Oppenheimer’’s Summer Release Won’t Hurt Best Picture Oscar Chances (Forbes)