2026 Oscars: Chase Infinity to Campaign in Lead [POLL]

Chase Infinity will campaign in lead, so says this exclusive from Variety. Can she crack the top five? And how does that impact the balance of the Best Actress race?

The placement does a couple of things. The first is that it frees up the Supporting Actress category for Teyana Taylor, who is most-buzzed and might even win, or could win, in the category. Chase Infinity probably can’t beat Jessie Buckley, but she won’t cancel out Teyana Taylor.

Chase Infinity has an impressive debut. The camera loves her, and she gives a strong performance. Unfortunately, the writing is a bit one-dimensional. She is a GOOD GIRL — a perfect girl — an angelic protester girl, but there isn’t much of a character there. She is meant to stand for “a person who is evil and racist and wants to kill.” The only character with any real dimension is Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s the only one we come away knowing much about. The rest of them are Chess pieces in a story that says America is a racist, dystopian, fascist hellhole, and the only redeeming people are non-whites and guys like Leo who de-center themselves from the narrative. It is what it is, and voters will eat it up because it perfectly reflects modern-day Hollywood.

Focus Features has just released this trailer for Hamnet, and it’s swoon-worthy. There is so much here, so much to escape to, and there is so much to escape from.  This role is fully fleshed out. This is a deep character study and a showcase role, which is often what defines Best Actress.

The reason Hamnet is such a formidable contender is that you can feel Shakespeare’s presence in every frame. Actors know. They know. Pundits don’t. They come from film fandom and Oscar fandom. Actors have a majority in the Academy. Granted, the international voters have become a formidable force.  It is the flipside of Shakespeare in Love, and if it won, it would be for similar reasons.

And true, the I HATE TRUMP faction is strong, too. And Paul Thomas Anderson is beloved, so it is a suspenseful race for Best Picture. Best Actress, though, I think that’s probably already in the bag for Buckley.

At any rate, how is the Best Actress race shaping up?

The Awards Expert App users have it ranked this way:

And here is Gold Derby:

These five are bravura performances that will be hard to beat and that’s not even getting to Julia Roberts in After The Hunt, Jennifer Lawrence in Die My Love. So there is a lot of competition for Chase Infiniti. Film Threat’s Alan Ng has stated that the issue with “woke” casting is that people are used as stand-ins for entire groups. They function as symbols, not real people. Their identity does all of the heavy lifting and we’re not meant to see beyond that. Teyana Taylor has a little bit more complexity but even she isn’t someone we know. So I’m not sure she makes it but I’ll put at number five for now.

Meanwhile, the Critics Choice has given If I Had Legs I’d Kick You one of their Seal of Female Empowerment in Entertainment achievements. They do nominate six in the category so they won’t have to choose between one empowered female over another.

Come to think of it, are there any contenders who aren’t empowered? Probably not.  At any rate, here is how I would rank them:

1. Jessie Buckley, Hamnet — the whole film is about her inner world as she struggles with raising children without William Shakespeare around to help. She is a person who believes she has the power to heal the sick and yet she can’t heal her beloved son, Hamnet. But the beauty of the story is how it’s the art that saves her in the end, as it does all of us (when it is, indeed, art and not dogma that tells us how to think). She is the movie.
2. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked for Good — the prediction is based on her performance in the last movie, and if this one tops it, it could maybe drive in a win for her, especially if the movie is well-received. I imagine it’s screening right about now, but I won’t see it until the rest of you do, so I have no idea how it will go. But she’s in second place.
3. Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value — fueled entirely by its strength in Cannes and expected to be driven by the performances into the top categories. I haven’t yet seen it but the buzz is undeniable.
4. Emma Stone in Bugonia — having won two Best Actress Oscars and yet again redefining her ability and versatility as an actress, she has yet again outdone herself here in a strange performance by Academy favorite, Yorgos Lanthimos.
5. Chase Infinity, One Battle After Another vs. Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You vs. Julia Roberts in After The Hunt vs. Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee — lots of competition there.

Here is an early poll to see how you would rank them. Pick five.

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