Last year the Best Actress race was considered one of the least suspenseful and most predictable of the entire decade, in more ways than one. There was an overwhelming favorite out of Telluride who swept the season in Jessie Buckley, an early season online and critic darling in Rose Byrne who won everything else for a horror-adjacent film about a woman’s lost autonomy, a nominee from a Cannes darling in Renate Reinsve, the return of past winner Emma Stone after she won only two years earlier, and a surprise nominee riding a “comeback” narrative in Kate Hudson.
A year later, many obviously hope that Best Actress will go back to its unpredictable, highly chaotic, and suspenseful norm, like in every other year this decade. But there is a very real possibility going into fall festivals that the same outcome, and maybe the same lineup, could happen all over again, with nominees and favorites fitting the same mold as last season.
Julianne Moore = Jessie Buckley
Like in August 2025, Best Actress is in a holding pattern waiting to see what a potential favorite premiering at Telluride does. Last year it was a past nominee in Buckley who pretty much wrapped up the race as soon as “Hamnet” premiered at Telluride, for a film that technically revolved around a big performance at a theater. This year, it is a past winner in Moore seeking to put a stranglehold on the race once “The Debut” likely premieres at Telluride, in a film that technically revolves around the theater as well.
Moore is playing an inexperienced community theater performer pushed to the limit by a demanding theater director, not the grieving wife of a theater director. In all likelihood, “The Debut” will be going for a lot more laughs and musical comedy in its theatrical scenes and climax, instead of tears set to Shakespeare and Max Richter’s music like “Hamnet” did. And since Moore already won her Oscar in 2014, unlike when Buckley was a mere past nominee before “Hamnet” took her a step forward, she might have a greater leg up with the Academy going in.
Nonetheless, if “The Debut” does what most expect it to do at Telluride and maybe at other fall fests, then Moore will be instantly solidified as the frontrunner just like Buckley was a year before her. And like last year, it may solidify Best Actress as a race between an instant fall festival breakout and one from a far less untraditional and less Oscar-baity film that has been simmering for months already.
Inde Navarrette = Rose Byrne
At this time last year, before Buckley took over the race, the Best Actress hopeful that pundits were raving over and pushing the most was from a very early-season film, with horror elements and a cautionary tale of what happens when a woman loses her identity to a demanding, self-centered loved one. Last year, that narrative revolved around Byrne from the Sundance breakout “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” about a mother losing herself to her young daughter – and now that narrative revolves around Navarrette from the 2025 TIFF Midnight Madness film turned 2026 box office phenomenon “Obsession,” about a woman literally losing herself to her would-be boyfriend.
Byrne had the extra advantage of being a veteran that many fans and pundits had wanted to give her awards season due for some time, whereas few had even heard of Navarrette before these last several months. Of course, everyone knows her after “Obsession” made over $260 million in America this summer, which is about 260 times more than what “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” made last fall. Otherwise, besides both movies having supporting performances from stars of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” they are low-budget horror-esque movies with very different perspectives and points of view – with only Byrne’s actually being from the perspective of the tortured woman at the center, in part since a woman actually makes it.
Partly because of that, there is still some wiggle room to wonder whether Navarrette is a lead or a supporting actress, unlike with Byrne. Yet to most critics and awards voters, Byrne was not only a lead, but one of only two leads they bothered to honor the entire year. Whenever Buckley didn’t win an award, it was almost always Byrne who won it instead, although they didn’t exactly split the biggest awards in the same way thanks to Buckley’s industry sweep.
Could it be the same result this year in which Moore, like Buckley, sweeps the majority of critics’ awards and the totality of industry awards, while Navarrette, like Byrne, is pretty much the only person to win anything that Moore doesn’t? Navarrette does have a far bigger film than Byrne did. Still, there is a world in which “Obsession,” for all its hype, falls off the bubble for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay and has Navarrette as its only nominee, just like Byrne was for her film – leaving her at a disadvantage against someone from a more across-the-board Best Picture nominee.
That disadvantage didn’t affect Amy Madigan last year as a sole nominee from a horror movie, against multiple challengers from Best Picture favorites – but that was for Best Supporting Actress. If Navarrette stays in Best Actress and has those obstacles, it could be a harder obstacle to overcome.
Renate Reinsve = Renate Reinsve
If the 2026 Best Actress race is a duplicate of last year, then it makes sense to have an actual nominee from last year coming back too. After Reinsve got in for the 2025 Cannes winner “Sentimental Value,” she is now poised to come back for the 2026 Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Fjord,” although her path may be a little tougher this time.
While “Fjord” outdid “Sentimental Value” by actually winning the Palme, critics were a lot less enthused about it compared to “Sentimental Value” anyway. In addition, while most pundits have Reinsve as a safe nominee if not a threat to win because she was just nominated, those who actually saw “Fjord” can’t seem to agree if she really has enough Oscar voter-friendly material to be that safely in, which was never in doubt with “Sentimental Value.“
If “Fjord” is as fragile outside of Cannes as many suspect, Reinsve may fall off along with it, especially if Best Actress turns out to be more crowded than expected. But since many past and recent nominees get checked off for future nominations because voters are either too familiar with them or too lazy to branch out, it can’t be ruled out that Reinsve is the next to get such special treatment, no matter what becomes of her movie.
Mikey Madison = Emma Stone
A big example of such special treatment may be Emma Stone, a two-time winner who got her fifth acting nomination and third from a Yorgos Lanthimos film for “Bugonia,” just two years after winning for “Poor Things.” Although “Bugonia” hardly had the critical or awards performance of Stone and Lanthimos’s last films in contention, their place as established Oscar favorites and voter darlings put them back in even for something considered below their top-tier work.
Now in 2026, someone else who just won two years ago is trying to get back in, for a movie from another perennial Oscar nominee. This time, it is 2024 winner Mikey Madison for the semi-sequel to the 2010 Oscar winner “The Social Network.” Yet the likelihood that “The Social Reckoning” will have anywhere near the acclaim and adoration of its predecessor is a major longshot, just like how “Bugonia” had nowhere near the acclaim and recognition of “Poor Things” and “The Favourite.”
Still, “Bugonia” ended up with very respectable reviews and scores, if not on a “Poor Things” or “The Favourite” level. But that might well be even too much of a reach for “The Social Reckoning” to match, if the worst fears from the first trailer and from Aaron Sorkin directing his own script with no supervision come to pass. In that context, a result in the mid-60s on MetaCritic and mid-70s on Rotten Tomatoes could be seen as well above expectations, which may be enough for 2024 contenders like Madison and Jeremy Strong to get back in no matter what the rest of the movie does with voters.
If “The Social Reckoning” is only two rungs at most below the level of its predecessor, just like “Bugonia” was from its own, that might still be enough for its lead and new awards season darling to rise above the ashes and be recognized again. If Madison could follow in Stone’s footsteps with a win the year after hers, maybe following in Stone’s footsteps again with another nomination for a lesser film two years later is the next logical step.
Olivia Wilde = Kate Hudson
Hudson was the “comeback” nominee of 2025, as she received her first nomination in 25 years by being the sole nominee for “Song Sung Blue.” Despite facing newcomer Chase Infiniti from Best Picture winner “One Battle After Another,” Hudson’s narrative and welcome back to the Academy fold were too strong, no matter how critics might have protested.
This year, the closest thing to a “comeback” narrative in this field belongs to Wilde, despite otherwise different circumstances. While Hudson was welcomed back after 25 years of underperforming and questionable films following “Almost Famous,” Wilde is considered a “comeback” star after only one underperforming and questionable film in “Don’t Worry Darling.” And unlike Hudson, Wilde is not a past nominee and actually directed herself in “The Invite,” which also has far more acclaim and a far better chance for other nominations than “Song Sung Blue” had.
Since Wilde could wind up the only female director contending for a Best Director nomination by the end of the fall fests, maybe that would be her way to get a personal nomination even if she doesn’t get one for acting. But if Moore and a few others fall short of expectations at the festivals, they may need to fall back on Wilde in Best Actress as well.
Right now, whether it is actually fair or not, Best Actress is in such a holding pattern for other contenders and frontrunners; having Moore and other fall festival prospects fall off would cause a full-on panic over how they could possibly fill out this field. Even if things go to form at Venice, Telluride, TIFF and NYFF, voters might not want to think harder on nominations than they did last year, and just go with Moore, Navarrette, Reinsve, Madison and Wilde with the same thinking that led to Buckley, Byrne, Reinsve, Stone and Hudson’s nominations a year ago.
If not, the biggest options for nominees that don’t fit the precise mold from last year look to be Virginia Efira from “All of a Sudden,” Sandra Huller for either “Fatherland” or “Rose,” Rosalind Eleazar for “Misty Green,” Lea Seydoux for “Gentle Monster,” Cynthia Erivo for “Prima Facie,” Ruth Madeley for “Being Heumann” or even Emily Blunt rising back up for “Disclosure Day.” Logically, at least one or two from this group or someone else out of nowhere should rise to shake up the race by October, yet hopes are not that high for such an outcome in mid-August.
After a 2025 Best Actress race that wasn’t the most thrilling or competitive, to the point where all but one nominee was a mortal lock with time to spare, the fears of another Best Actress race just like it – in both nominees and frontrunners – are running high. As such, if this year is a duplicate of the last one, we can already guess which nominees and frontrunners will follow in their footsteps. That is, unless someone stumbles well short of following one of these well-laid paths, or someone surprises at the fall festivals to blaze a new path for her and the field as a whole.
Which A24 film do you think will emerge from the fall film festivals as the studio’s biggest Oscar contender? Or is it already “The Invite?” Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account, and check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.
