Caryn James: Adrien Brody has a lock on a nomination and has vaulted to the top of the list after his Golden Globe win and Screen Actors Guild nomination for his role as an immigrant Holocaust survivor in The Brutalist. His competition is likely to include Timothée Chalamet, who transforms himself into a vivid version of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, and Ralph Fiennes, whose powerfully subtle performance as a cardinal doubting his faith in the Catholic Church anchors Conclave. Daniel Craig is also likely to make it in for his image-shattering performance in Queer as a gay American writer based on William S Burroughs. SAG, a large group whose members often overlap with Oscar voters, nominated those four and Colman Domingo for Sing Sing. As good as Domingo is, that film is so small and low key that I’ve always doubted its Oscar chances, so there could be a surprise, but for now he’s the likeliest choice for that last spot.
Nicholas Barber: Adrien Brody is at the top of the best actor list. He won an Oscar for playing an Eastern European Jewish composer in The Pianist in 2003, and in The Brutalist he is playing the same sort of character (but now an architect), yet he is even better this time around. No other actor this year puts so much into a role – and no other actor had to learn to speak Hungarian in the process. Mind you, Timothée Chalamet learnt to play an album’s worth of Bob Dylan songs for A Complete Unknown, and his Dylan impersonation is uncanny, which is just the sort of thing that Oscar voters love. Ralph Fiennes glows with sheer expertise in Conclave, and Sebastian Stan could nab a nomination for his limber performance either in The Apprentice or A Different Man (for which he won a Golden Globe). Colman Domingo is so sympathetic in Sing Sing that he deserves the fifth place on the best actor list. But if the Academy weren’t so snobby about horror films, then surely Hugh Grant’s nerdily jovial take on psychotic malice in Heretic would get a nod.
Best actress
Nicholas Barber: My personal favourite for the best actress Oscar is Mikey Madison, a whirlwind of energy in Anora. More or less unknown before she starred in Sean Baker’s riotous comedy drama, she created an indelibly vivid character – and she is barely off the screen from start to finish. But it’s such a strong year for female lead performances that Madison’s nomination isn’t guaranteed. Having won a Golden Globe for playing the indefatigable matriarch in Walter Salles’s piercingly political Brazilian drama, I’m Still Here, Fernanda Torres is now in the frame for an Oscar. Demi Moore, too, won a Golden Globe for The Substance, and her comeback story may be irresistible to the Academy. On a similar note, there’s a chance that Pamela Anderson will be nominated for her comeback role in The Last Showgirl, having picked up nods at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild awards. Who does that leave? My money would be on Cynthia Erivo or Nicole Kidman, who played powerful yet vulnerable women in Wicked and Babygirl, respectively.
Caryn James: I’m not saying she’ll win, but Demi Moore is more likely than ever to get nominated for The Substance, after her win and Oscar-ready acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, back-to-back with a SAG nomination. The other sure things are Mikey Madison for her breakthrough role in Anora, Karla Sofia Gascón, who would be the first transgender nominee in the category, for Emilia Pérez, and probably Cynthia Erivo for turning green and belting out songs in Wicked. The last slot is up for grabs and may well go to Nicole Kidman for Babygirl, if only because Oscar voters seem to love her. Fernanda Torres is stirring in I’m Still Here and Marianne Jean-Baptiste uncompromising in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, and both should be nominated instead of Erivo and Kidman, but that’s not likely. And while it would be great to see Pamela Anderson sneak into the category for The Last Showgirl, as she did with a SAG nomination, that vote of confidence probably came too late to give her the momentum she would have needed.
Best supporting actor
Nicholas Barber: This seems like an appropriate moment for my annual moan about actors being shoved into categories where they don’t belong. Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are co-leads in A Real Pain, and if they happened to be of different genders from each other, they’d both be deemed “leading” actors. But the powers-that-be have decided that Culkin is the film’s supporting actor, and he’s sure to be nominated for his fizzing, Golden Globe-winning performance. Edward Norton radiates maturity and gentleness as Bob Dylan’s mentor, Pete Seeger, in A Complete Unknown. And Yura Borisov, as a good-hearted Russian enforcer, brings new layers of humanity to the second half of Anora. The perpetually underrated Guy Pearce is nuanced and commanding in The Brutalist, and it’s about time he was Oscar-nominated. Finally, Denzel Washington should be included for his fabulously cool presence in Gladiator II. It’s hard to recall a time when a supporting actor stole the film so completely from the supposed star.
Caryn James: It will be a shock if Kieran Culkin doesn’t win the Oscar for his role as Jesse Eisenberg’s funny, troubled, chaotic cousin in A Real Pain. He has already received a Globe, a SAG nomination and a slew of awards from critics’ groups, and has given a self-deprecating, entertaining acceptance speech every time. The other nominees will just be there to fill out the category, but they give strong performances nonetheless, including Edward Norton, who channels Pete Seeger in A Complete Unknown, Yura Borisov as a soft-hearted gangster in Anora, and Guy Pearce as a hard-hearted tycoon in The Brutalist. The fifth slot is hard to call, but my guess is that Jeremy Strong will get it for his multifaceted performance in The Apprentice as Roy Cohn, who taught the dark arts of politics and media manipulation to the young Donald Trump.
