Inside the Best Actress Oscar Race: Jessie Buckley Leads a Divisive Field

It’s not often that I see a movie that gets a ton of Oscar love and find myself bored to tears, but it does happen. It’s also rare that I see an actor getting universal love for a performance and find myself thinking, “Well, this is just silly Oscar bait, isn’t it?” This also happens occasionally. Why do I bring this up?

Now that we’ve covered who should win among the Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress categories, let’s discuss the nominees for Best Actress in a Leading Role. They are Emma Stone, Bugonia, Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Jessie Buckley, Hamnet, Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value and Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue.

Key Insights

Oscar voters often reward emotionally demonstrative performances in prestige period dramas, which gives Jessie Buckley a clear advantage this year.

Renate Reinsve’s restrained, nuanced acting in Sentimental Value highlights the ongoing tension between subtle artistry and traditional “Oscar bait” roles.

The category reflects a familiar awards-season dynamic: career narratives and dramatic roles often outweigh quieter but more inventive performances.

Get access to thousands
of high-quality roles.

JOIN FREE TODAY

Okay, first things first. I have come to the point in my life where I am not afraid to admit that I don’t happen to enjoy the work of Yórgos Lánthimos. Yeah, I thought Poor Things was fun, and The Favourite has some really good stuff in it, but otherwise, his films are too much work for me, and way, way, way too dark and cynical. The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer were depressing; his Poor Things follow-up, Kinds of Kindness, gave me a migraine; and I was likewise not terribly fond of Bugonia. Emma Stone, Lánthimos’ muse, is great in it, of course, because she’s great in everything. But she’s already won two Oscars before the age of 40, and there is no way on God’s green earth that she’s going to win a third. It took Meryl Streep decades to win her third Oscar, and Emma Stone is not going to beat her to it. At least, not with this film. Yes, it’s been nominated for four Oscars, but two years after she won her last trophy, it’s too soon for her to do it again.

Kate Hudson’s nomination is a nice story — an actress who announced herself with authority a quarter century ago in Cameron Crowe’s masterpiece, Almost Famous, a role that earned Hudson her first and, up to this year, only Oscar nod. One might have thought she would be a regular nominee based on that performance, but she started making movies for the paychecks rather than the prestige, and while she got rich, her reputation took a bit of a hit. Over the last few years, though, she started doing more interesting stuff. A supporting turn in Marshall, a featured role in Glass Onion, even the Sia movie Music, while a truly terrible film, had aspirations to be something more than it was. She’s been starring on the hit Netflix series Running Point lately, and her role in the Neil Diamond-inspired Song Sung Blue showcased the promise she’s long teased. That said, her nomination is her reward.

I think Jessie Buckley — who took home an Actor’s Award this year already — is a sure thing to win this, which is not remotely surprising if you’ve seen Hamnet. I did not like the movie at all — the payoff is undeniably powerful, but good Lord, the lead-up to it is just so crushingly boring — and while Buckley is indeed very good in it, the character felt like Oscar bait to me. Lots of emoting, with laughter and pain, plenty of anguish, some childbirth mixed in, and lots and lots of grief. Toss it all into a period piece and throw in some Shakespeare to boot? Surefire winner.

Sorry if I sound as cynical as a Lánthimos film, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve seen a lot. Don’t get me wrong, Buckley is a terrific actress whose work I have long admired, and she does excellent work in Hamnet. I just feel like I’ve seen it before, and I wasn’t as impressed by it as a lot of other people clearly are.

If anyone is going to upset Buckley, it’s Byrne, who was also in a movie I thoroughly disliked, but who was outstanding in it. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a stifling, suffocating rumination on how overwhelming life can be. I know it has its fans, but I was counting the minutes until it was over. I don’t honestly think she’s going to pull an upset, but if someone does, it’ll be her.

Which brings us to the year’s best lead performance by an actress, Renate Reinsve. As I have mentioned previously, I thought she was remarkable in The Worst Person in the World, and was excited to see her once again teaming with writer-director Joachim Trier. I was not disappointed. Reinsve is a revelation in the movie, an actress with such paralyzing stage fright that she tries to leave a major theater production in the moments before the curtain rises, only to conquer it and earn standing ovations. She spars with Stellan Skarsgård, playing her estranged father, with a raw reality that jumps off the screen. Where Buckley’s work is big and expressive, Reinsve does a lot with subtlety, and it’s magical. I would really love to see her win this award. She doesn’t have a chance in hell, but it would be great.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Renate Reinsve

WHO WILL WIN: Jessie Buckley

Key Takeaways

Jessie Buckley appears poised to win Best Actress for Hamnet, though Renate Reinsve’s subtle work in Sentimental Value may be the year’s finest performance.

While Emma Stone, Kate Hudson and Rose Byrne all have strong moments, the Best Actress race ultimately comes down to Buckley’s Oscar-friendly role in Hamnet.

Despite a crowded field of talented nominees, the awards momentum clearly favors Jessie Buckley — even if another performance deserves the crown.