2025 Oscars: Can Robin Wright Crack the Best Actress Race?

To my mind, the Best Actress race is Mikey Madison’s to lose. Don’t worry, no pressure or anything. Every so often, an unequivocal performance comes along. I believe Madison’s is that performance this year. She is also the “Cinderella” in her film, which voters often respond to in the Academy. I could also add that the nudity and sex don’t hurt, but in this case, as with Emma Stone last year, the performance stands out even more than the sex.

Sean Baker wrote the role of Anora for Madison and has centered the film entirely on her, specifically her face, which is always surprising throughout. Who might challenge Madison for the win? Of what I’ve seen so far, no one can. I’ve heard that Saoirse Ronan does great work in The Outrun, though I have not yet seen it. I’ve also heard that Angelina Jolie is great in Maria, though that too I have not yet seen. There is a cost to being “canceled” by studios and publicists. They no longer court you like you’re at your debutante ball. But I’ll get there, I promise. I’ve also heard Nicole Kidman is great in Babygirl.

Demi Moore is coming in hot with publicity for the “body horror” film, The Substance. She’s been doing the social media rounds and appearing on talk shows. That’s the kind of thing you should do if you are looking for a nomination. Don’t forget, Moore is in with the Andrea Riseborough friend circle. If they can manifest that, they can surely push Moore toward a nomination. It’s also a great comeback story.

I have high hopes for Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths, and if I had to wager, she would be the only actress right now that could challenge Madison. The main reason is the Best Picture heat with both Anora and Hard Truths, compared to the other films where there isn’t any. That can lead to a win for a veteran actress but it’s rare. Since 1990, 21 out the last 33 Best Actress winners came from either a Best Picture nominee or Best Picture winner. 12 came from a non-Best Picture winner. It happens. But it’s less common.

Where Madison will have the edge is that it’s hard to watch that movie and not fall in love with her. Love and passion are what often drives the vote, especially in the categories that don’t use the ranked-choice ballot. What helps Jean-Baptiste is that, to date, only one Black actress has ever won in the category. One time in 2001. But it would help if people fell in love with her character.

The one performance I have seen is Karla Sofia Gascon in Emilia Perez and whille it’s a decent enough performance I agree with Jeff Wells at Hollywood-Elsewhere that it is a supporting performance. Zoe Saldana more or less steals the show, even if her storyline doesn’t have as much importance as the Gascon character or even Selina Gomez. They are three mostly equal roles, and finding one lead is hard.

I imagine that just a nomination in the leading category to make history as the first transgender actress in the category (Netflix already made history at the Emmys for the same reason with Baby Reindeer). And a win would be gravy. Netflix is aggressive when it comes to bringing in wins. Despite that, they don’t often win in that category. Netflix has had something like eight nominees for Best Actress with zero wins. Why is that? I have no idea. If Gascon builds momentum for “making history,” it’s possible the record is broken.

It’s hard for me to see anyone beating Mikey Madison at the moment.

Best Actress is, I think, driven by three controlling impulses:

Likability of Actress
Likability of Role
Likeability of Movie

And Madison has all three in the bag.

Having a Best Picture nomination knocks one of those out, and you only need two. If you have all three, like Emma Stone did last year, it’s easier to beat, say, Lily Gladstone who had a movie that got a nomination but wasn’t broadly liked.

It’s obviously possible to still win if you don’t have all three, as with Jessica Chastain, who won for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. In that case, she was overdue and she only had a little competition that year.

Anora is obviously a movie people love. It is somewhat divisive, which could mean a Best Picture loss. However, Acting should be an easy win since that category vote will be driven only by passion.

Sony has released a poster for Robert Zemeckis’ new film Here:

Like Demi Moore, Robin Wright is one of the most liked, least awarded actresses in Hollywood, which is a good reason to consider her potentially for a nomination if the film lives up to its promise. The only problem with her sight-unseen role is that computer graphics are involved, or rather, the dreaded de-aging. I wonder why Hollywood is so into this. I’ve never seen a single instance where it did not look like uncanny valley. You’d almost be better off with AI, but that too is MOSTLY off limits. For now. It’s coming.

Here is the trailer for Here:

I couldn’t find any AI versions of Robin Wright but while searching for them I could not help but notice has fast that industry is evolving. It will leave de-aging in the dust.

The one thing AI can’t do, however, is write well. At least not yet. Stories come from our shared experiences, our shared lives – if we’re doing it right. I’m still on the lookout for storytellers who can see the “macro” view of our time rather than writing about just one perspective of it. Zemeckis appears to be more or less trying to do that with Here. Zemeckis, like Coppola with Megalopolis, is speaking for the departing Boomer generation. They left a massive footprint but their time has, at long last, come to an end. A movie like Here, I would imagine, helps them formulate a goodbye.

Whether Robin Wright can crack the top five for Best Actress will depend entirely on how well liked the movie is overall. It’s been a very quiet rollout thus far. If the junket whores are getting invites or not, I haven’t heard.

Back in March, Jordan Ruimy said the movie did well in test screenings, for whatever that’s worth.