Oscars 2026: Can Focus Features Land Three in the Best Actress Race? [POLL!]

The Best Actress race seems sewn up with Jessie Buckley as the frontrunner. Her only competition would be the Golden Globe winner, Rose Byrne, for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. That is 100% down to the dominance of the film critics over the Oscar race with the public mostly taken out of it. Ah, but actors can sometimes see what critics and industry voters can’t. That might be how Kate Hudson ended up with a SAG nomination for Song Sung Blue, and, along with Emma Stone in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia and Buckley, Focus landed three Best Actress nominations.

Jessie Buckley’s unequivocal performance as Agnes Shakespeare, a wood nyph who believes she can heal the sick, especially her own son, has swept the season. You can’t take your eyes off of her for the entire film. Even when she isn’t speaking, her expressions are so compelling you can’t look away. Buckley disappears completely in the role, feeling it every step of the way. She has a great director in Chloé Zhao who clearly was a trusting force, allowing Buckley to go deep. It is the last scene in the film that nails it for Buckley, however. Her sense of wonder and discovery having experienced what art can do for the first time is nothing less than miraculous. You will never forget her, what she saw, how she felt, and the catharsis shared by everyone in the film and everyone watching the film.

Emma Stone has to be one of the most daring actresses in Hollywood. She went from being a sex crazed Frankenstein’s bride in Poor Things to an empowered woke feminist girl boss in Bugonia. Two performances by the same director that are wildly different and yes, I’m forgetting about the one in between because whatever. Bugonia is a film you have to watch twice once you know the ending. For anyone saying Stone’s performance isn’t bravura, watch it a second time and watch her eyes. She has to pretend she isn’t an alien and somehow try to talk her way out of the situation. But my favorite moment of Stone’s performance (and this is probably a spoiler, but oh well) is the very end, the twinkle in her eye at the power she holds in her hands, to decide who lives and who dies is just brilliant. She doesn’t have the emotional range of Buckley in this role because that’s not the role, but she is one of a kind and a standout this year.

That brings us finally to the third, Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue. She gained 15 pounds for the movie and has laid bare everything — her body, her wrinkles, and her voice. She sings all of her own songs in the film. She has grown as an actress from the last time she was nominated with Almost Famous. She almost got that win but it was snatched away at the last minute by Marcia Gay Harden who, ironically, played a part closer to this one by Hudson. Maybe that was a sign for Hudson to “go supporting” rather than lead and maybe that would be an unbeatable Oscar win. She’s great in Song Sung Blue. She becomes the character in a way we’ve not seen from her. It is one of the best performances of the year.

Predicting Best Actress is harder than it might seem.  That’s due to several bizarre, unpredictable factors that have hit the Oscars in recent years. The Great Awokening of 2020, which fundamentally transformed the industry, started with the committees put in place by BAFTA to hand-select “correct” nominees, followed by the Academy’s RISE – DEI mandate that all films must be in compliance with to qualify for the Oscars.

The Academy had already added, or was in the process of adding, new members to change up their demographics — some 3,000 in all, with the only criteria being that they were semi-professional in some industry and not white or female.  Add to that, the Golden Globes getting canceled and then sold to Jay Penske and co. (also owns Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Indiewire, Gold Derby, etc. Then, they added 300 members largely using the same criteria, not that it mattered. They still mostly followed the critics this year, unlike the Old Globes, which were predictable.

The Golden Globes expanded their nominee slates from 5 to 10 to match the Critics’ Choice, but SAG, BAFTA, and the Oscars still hold to 5 per category.

It’s all been topsy-turvy in terms of stats, and it’s harder to use stats to predict the awards. Changing times, changing demographics, changing economy, changing industry – everything has changed.

The BAFTA began releasing their longlists again in 2020. I have added those to the Best Actress chart, and you can see how the committees really messed with the category. Now that they’ve eliminated committees, it’s possible that those left off the ultimate BAFTA nominees might not land with voters as they did before.

2009 was the last time the Best Actress SAG category matched the Oscar category. In general, four names hit Globes, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, and SAG, and then land in the Oscars. Sometimes they don’t, like Lady Gaga in House of Gucci and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks, Amy Adams in Arrival, and Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin. But it is very rare.   Penelope Cruz and Andrea Riseborough were both pushed through by word of mouth, grassroots efforts, etc.

The chart above has the longlist of names blended in. That doesn’t mean that all five get in.  But we have to assume, barring some freak occurrence, that four out of the five are settled.

Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another (should be in supporting)

Now we get to the two contending actresses in Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Value vs. Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue. On the outside, Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Anne Lee.

Hudson has the SAG nomination, and she’s well-connected in the industry. She has also transformed herself for the film – she’s vanity-free here, showing it all. It’s the kind of performance actors respond to. Meanwhile, Renate Reinsve is in a movie that is likely to be more beloved overall, which probably gives her a bit of an edge. For Hudson to prevail, there would have to be grassroots support within the industry to push her in, with say Goldie and Kurt’s extended posse.

Sentimental Value feels like it’s losing steam, though Stellan Skarsgard did just win Supporting at the Golden Globes, which might have revived some enthusiasm.

Take our poll and decide for yourselves which five you think have the best shot.

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