Who are the early Oscar and Bafta frontrunners in the acting categories?

On Oscars night earlier this year, the US Academy gave acting awards to previous winner Emma Stone and previous nominee Robert Downey Jr, as well as first-time nominees Cillian Murphy and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Bafta awarded acting wins to the same quartet. Exactly half of the 20 actors nominated for Oscars in 2024 were first-time nominees.

This year, there looks set to be another flood of actors achieving their very first Oscar and Bafta nominations, with new faces populating the top end of tipster lists — in a year where the race looks wide open, and with independent films notably making their mark.

Of course, awards veterans are also in the mix, especially in the leading actor category, where former nominees and one winner appear to be leading the charge. Fortunes will surely rise and fall on the long road to next year’s ceremonies. 

Leading actress

This is a performance category looking set to welcome a coterie of faces new to major film awards, led by 25-year-old breakout Mikey Madison, whose portrayal of a sex worker in Sean Baker’s Anora has already earned her a number of festival prizes and an Independent Spirit Awards nomination.

Karla Sofia Gascon may be more of an industry veteran aged 52, but she will likewise be a newcomer to major film awards if — as seems likely — voters honour her work as a Mexican drug cartel boss who transitions gender and reinvents herself in Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez. Gascon shared the best actress award with her female co-stars at Cannes Film Festival.

A pair of seasoned Hollywood A-­listers — Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie — could give Madison and Gascon a run for their money, however. Kidman, who has five Oscar nominations and one win (and identical stats at Bafta), is in the mix for Halina Reijn’s Babygirl, playing a CEO who risks her career and marriage when she embarks on an affair with an intriguing intern (Harris Dickinson). She won the Venice Film Festival best actress Volpi Cup for this performance.

Last year, three of the leading actress Oscar nominees played real-life women — swimmer Diana Nyad, actress Felicia Montealegre Bernstein and Osage headright owner Mollie Burkhart. This year, Jolie — who has won one competitive Oscar from two nominations — leads the charge for biographical dramas as Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s Maria. The Venice-launched film focuses on the last week of the opera singer’s life in her Paris apartment.

Other female stars playing real-life women are Fernanda Torres as Brazilian activist Eunice Paiva in Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here and Saoirse Ronan in Nora Fingscheidt’s Orkneys-­set The Outrun. Ronan plays a character named Rona, but her story is based on Amy Liptrot’s 2016 addiction and recovery memoir.

Ronan has four Oscar nominations and five at Bafta, with no wins, while Amy Adams, who respectively has six and seven nominations at these awards, is likewise without a win. Her latest role is in Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, playing a mother who fears she is turning into a dog.

The UK’s Marianne Jean-­Baptiste earned supporting actress Bafta and Oscar nominations for Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies in 1997. She is in contention again after reteaming with Leigh for Hard Truths, playing a woman whose evident depression has gone untreated. Jean-Baptiste was named best actress by the New York Film Critics Circle, and competes for lead performance at the British Independent Film Awards (Bifas), which are held this Sunday (December 8).

Vying for her first major film nominations is Demi Moore as a TV fitness-show host who takes a black-market rejuvenating drug in Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror hit The Substance. Could two genre films yield leading actress nominations this year? Lily-Rose Depp is one to watch in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu.

Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore — who each have a win apiece at Bafta and Oscar, plus a number of nominations — face off against each other in Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door.

Gunning for her second acting Oscar nomination is Cynthia Erivo, who plays the green-skinned protagonist of Jon M Chu’s Wicked. If she and Gascon both achieve nominations, that would be the first musical double for leading actress since Julia Andrews in Mary Poppins and Debbie Reynolds in The Unsinkable Molly Brown were both nominated at the 1965 Oscars.

Leading actor

Since Edward Berger’s Conclave launched at Telluride and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist at Venice, this category has looked a potential slug-fest between those films’ lead actors — at least until James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown arrived to throw a firecracker into the mix.

Ralph Fiennes is back in Conclave as a cardinal tasked with organising a papal election, in which secrets spill out concerning several lead candidates. Fiennes has two Oscar nominations and no wins, the most recent being in 1997 for The English Patient, while he won the Bafta in 1994 for Schindler’s List and has five further nominations.

Adrien Brody — a winner in 2003 at Oscar and Bafta with his sole nomination at both awards, for The Pianist — is firmly back in contention with his turn as the titular visionary architect in The Brutalist, and the New York critics named him best actor.

These two frontrunners now face fierce competition from Timothée Chalamet, playing a young Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Aged 28, Chalamet has already been nominated for an Oscar (in 2018 for Call Me By Your Name), while at Bafta he has three nods, including one for rising star.

Likewise in biographical roles are Colman Domingo and Sebastian Stan — the former as prisoner John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield, finding purpose through a rehabilitative theatre programme in Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing; and the latter as real-estate entrepreneur Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice. Domingo was Oscar- and Bafta-nominated in 2024 for Rustin, and Stan remains a virgin at both film awards. Stan is also in contention for Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man — creating the risk that his vote divides. Domingo won lead performance at the Gotham Awards, while the Independent Spirits nominated both men – in Stan’s case for The Apprentice.

Daniel Craig has a Bafta nomination (in 2007 for Casino Royale) and a couple of Golden Globe nods (for the two Knives Out films) but has yet to win favour at Oscar. That could change thanks to his performance in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, playing the alter ego of author William S Burroughs in the alcohol-­soaked story of gay sex and hallucinogenic experimentation.

Like Chalamet, 28-year-old Paul Mescal caught the attention of Oscar voters relatively early — nominated in 2023 for Aftersun, and he has Bafta nods for that film and for All Of Us Strangers. He is back in contention as the swarthy hero of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.

Since Denzel Washington looks a likely nominee for Gladiator II in supporting actor, voters may not wish to reward Mescal as well, and Jesse Eisenberg could face a similar challenge with his own A Real Pain, co-starring Kieran Culkin. Eisenberg is in the mix for leading actor, but might stand his best chance in original screenplay. He was Oscar- and Bafta-nominated for The Social Network in 2011.

Fast-rising Glen Powell has a lot of fun, and with a big arc, in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man (from a screenplay the pair co-wrote) — and the performance offers something different in the awards mix.

Supporting actress

Several major contenders for supporting actress this year have substantial roles that could easily see them competing in the leading category. One is Emilia Pérez’s Zoe Saldana, playing a lawyer who seems initially to be the film’s protagonist (and has the most screen time). This would be Saldana’s first Oscar or Bafta nomination, and the same would apply to Ariana Grande who has a substantial role in Wicked — almost equivalent to that of Erivo — as witch-in-training Galinda (aka Glinda). Grande brings the smiles as a superficial queen bee who tries to be a better person, but never betrays her delightfully entitled essence.

Apple is campaigning Saoirse Ronan for supporting actress in Steve McQueen’s Blitz — despite her significant presence in the film as the single mother and munitions factory worker whose young son (Elliott Heffernan) foils her bid to send him to the countryside for safety.

Danielle Deadwyler likewise is substantial in Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson — playing opposite John David Washington as a sibling who has a contrasting ambition for a family heirloom. Deadwyler earned a Bafta nomination in 2023 for Till, but was passed over by Oscar.

While Saldana, Grande, Ronan and Deadwyler’s roles risk tipping over into leading territory, the opposite is the case with Conclave’s Isabella Rossellini, who has scant screen time as Sister Agnes but makes plenty of impact. Rossellini, aged 72, has yet to win notice by Oscar and Bafta.

Felicity Jones enters The Brutalist only halfway through — but given the film’s 215-minute run-time (including intermission), that still gives her plenty of scope to make an impact as Holocaust survivor and wife to Adrien Brody’s protagonist. Jones earned Oscar and Bafta leading actress nominations in 2015 for The Theory Of Everything.

A Complete Unknown features both Monica Barbaro (as Joan Baez) and Elle Fanning (as a character modelled on Bob Dylan’s artist girlfriend Suze Rotolo). It is possible both can achieve nominations, but more plausibly one performance will rise with voters and the push will gain momentum in that direction.

While Marianne Jean-Baptiste easily catches attention as Hard Truths’ angry protagonist, the film also rests on the vital presence of Michele Austin as her warmly supportive sister. Austin is Bifa-nominated for the performance, and a win would position her nicely for Bafta attention.

Supporting actor

Among leading contenders for supporting actor, a bunch of newcomers to Oscar and Bafta face off against the occasional veteran. A Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe winner for Succession, Kieran Culkin looks well-positioned for his first major film nominations with A Real Pain — as the charismatic, but evidently troubled, foil to Jesse Eisenberg’s earnest protagonist. He was the New York critics’ choice for supporting actor.

Aged 42, Culkin has paid plenty of dues, but not quite as many as 57-year-old Guy Pearce, who has yet to earn a single Bafta or Oscar nomination for an astonishing film career spanning three-and-a-half decades. In The Brutalist, he plays the quixotic — and problematic — magnate who commissions a building from Adrien Brody’s architect.

Culkin and Pearce face off against absolute newcomer Clarence Maclin in Sing Sing and relatively unseasoned Russian actor Yura Borisov, who is the stealth weapon of Anora, and was previously best known for Compartment No. 6. Maclin won the Gotham for supporting performance. He and Borisov both have Independent Spirit nominations in the gender-neutral category, as do the aforementioned Deadwyler and Culkin. Mark Eydelshteyn and Karren Karagulian (who is Indie Spirit-nominated) are also in contention for Anora.

If nominated, all would be first-timers at Oscar. At the other end of the scale is Denzel Washington, having the time of his life as ruthlessly ambitious Macrinus in Gladiator II. Washington has 10 Oscar nominations, including nine for acting, and converted two of them into wins: Glory in 1990 and Training Day in 2002. Rather incredibly, he has yet to earn a single Bafta nomination.

With three Oscar nominations and two at Bafta, Edward Norton is in contention again as folk musician Pete Seeger giving vital early encouragement to Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Jeremy Strong likewise plays a real-life mentor: attack-dog lawyer Roy Cohn, who imparts his wildly amoral life philosophy to Donald Trump in The Apprentice.

Tim Fehlbaum’s real-life drama September 5 — about an ABC sports broadcasting crew thrown into the deep end of live-news reporting during the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis — offers a number of strong male performances, including John Magaro as rookie TV producer Geoffrey Mason and Peter Sarsgaard as TV executive Roone Arledge. Paramount will likely need voters to line up behind one or the other. A similar scenario applies to Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow in Conclave, playing rival cardinals vying for the papacy.

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