Oscars Predictions: Best Actress – Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh in Race Too Close to Call

Oscars Predictions: Best Actress – Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh in Race Too Close to Call,2023 Oscars best actress predictions include Cate Blanchett, Michelle Yeoh, Andrea Riseborough, Ana De Armas and Michelle Williams

Oscars Predictions: Best Actress – Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh in Race Too Close to Call

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages are Davis’ assessment of the current standings of the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any film or performance. Like any organization or body that votes, each inpidual category is fluid and subject to change. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

LAST UPDATED: Feb. 10, 2023

2023 Oscars Predictions: Best Actress

TO LESLIE, Andrea Riseborough, 2022. © Momentum Pictures / Courtesy Everett CollectionCourtesy Everett Collection

Category commentary: A race of riches where the two Golden Globe winners, Cate Blanchett as a lesbian conductor in “Tár” and Michelle Yeoh as a laundromat owner from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

“Tár” has opened in four more countries in the last month – U.K. (Jan. 13), France (Jan. 25), Australia (Jan. 26) and Spain (Jan. 27), and is set to make a stop at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 23. With the powerful European voting bloc discovering its tantalizing dissection of cancel culture, the same demographic that propelled international movies like “The Father” and its star Anthony Hopkins to an Oscar win could easily get behind it.

Blanchett, 53, is expected to win the BAFTA Award for leading actress. It would be her third in the category and fourth overall. If she wins, she will tie Anne Bancroft, Audrey Hepburn and Simone Signoret with the second most in the category with three. With four overall wins, she would place second behind Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, who have five statuettes for acting throughout their careers.

However, when it comes to Yeoh, she’s riding an outstanding career of respect and adoration, paired with the historical significance that her win would bring for representation, not only for Asians (she would be the first Asian woman to win lead actress, after becoming only the second nominated ever) but also for women over a “certain age” in Hollywood. If Yeoh were to win, she would be the 11th woman to win over 60 years old (also placing her as the 11th oldest winner in history). Sixty-eight of the 94 previous best actress winners have been under 40, with 32 being in their twenties at the time of their win. Compared to their lead actor counterparts, their age averages in the 40s, with the youngest winner being 29 (Adrien Brody for “The Pianist”).

At SAG, Yeoh seems to be more in line with what they would select, given “Everything Everywhere All at Once” being the most nominated with five. She would be the first Asian woman in the category’s history (her co-star Ke Huy Quan would be the first Asian male actor ever to win in any film category and second overall after Darren Criss).

If Blanchett wins SAG, she joins Viola Davis (nominated this year for “The Woman King”) and Renée Zellweger as the most awarded woman with three trophies each.

What’s interesting is in recent years, that trend has changed for women in Hollywood; however, it’s also coming with many familiar names. In the preferential ballot era (post-2009), Frances McDormand added two statuettes at 60 (“Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri”) and 63 (“Nomadland”). In addition, Meryl Streep won her third Oscar for “The Iron Lady” (2011) at 62. Even the classic star Katharine Hepburn picked up three of her four Academy Awards after she turned 60.

Of the awarded women veterans, only Marie Dressler, 63 for “Min and Bill” (1931) and Jessica Tandy, 80 for “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989) managed to win the Oscar on their first career noms. This statistic doesn’t “prove” that any contender is more likely than another. In a tight race like this, you try to find clues that could push one contender ahead.

For the other nominees — Ana de Armas (“Blonde”), Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”) and Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”) — it seems they’re just happy to be invited to the party.

See the latest film predictions, in all 23 categories, in one place on Variety’s Oscars Collective. To see the ranked predictions for each inpidual category, visit Variety’s Oscars Hub.

See the 2022-2023 Awards Season calendar for all key dates and timelines.

ALL AWARDS CONTENDERS AND RANKINGS:

And The Predicted Nominees Are:
Rank	Name	Film	Distributor
1	Michelle Yeoh	“Everything Everywhere All at Once”	A24
1	An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led.
2	Cate Blanchett	“Tár”	Focus Features
2	Set in the international world of classical music, the film centers on Lydia Tár. widely considered one of the greatest living composer/conductors and first-ever female chief conductor of a major German orchestra.
3	Ana De Armas	“Blonde”	Netflix
3	A fictionalized chronicle of the inner life of Marilyn Monroe.
4	Andrea Riseborough	“To Leslie”	Momentum Pictures
4	Inspired by true events. A West Texas single mother wins the lottery and squanders it just as fast, leaving behind a world of heartbreak. Years later, with her charm running out and nowhere to go, she fights to rebuild her life and find redemption.
5	Michelle Williams	“The Fabelmans”	Universal Pictures
5	A semi-autobiography based on Spielberg’s own childhood growing up in post-war Arizona, from age seven to eighteen.

2023 Academy Awards Predictions

The 95th Oscars ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre and televised live on ABC on Sunday, March 12, 2022.

2022 category winner: Jessica Chastain, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (Searchlight Pictures)

About Variety Awards Circuit:

Variety’s unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online and provides inside reports on all the contenders in this year’s awards season races. In addition to predictions, the section includes — Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders in the race; Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly series featuring interviews with the top contenders in the awards race and an expert roundtable discussion with Variety’s leading editors and columnists; Awards Circuit Predictions Video Series, a deep pe into specific categories, led by the leading pundits.