2024 was a great year for movies with some really standout performances across all the categories. In a year where Oscar shocks were relatively thin on the ground, the Best Actress category was one where there was a surprise or two to be had.
Let’s recap the Oscars year with a closer look at the Best Actress category.
Oscar Snub?
Arguably the biggest shock of the lot in this year’s Awards season were the performances that were not even nominated in the first place. Margot Robbie’s omission for Barbie was especially headline grabbing given how spectacularly Barbie performed at the box office and how wonderfully her performance resonated with audiences.
Natalie Portman would also have had the right to feel aggrieved for being overlooked for her performance in Todd Hayne’s controversial masterpiece May/December. Perhaps a victim of its release to Netflix, May/December was scandalously overlooked by the academy in general.
The Nominees
It might be worth refreshing our memories on this year’s Best Actress Oscar Nominees.
Emma Stone – Poor Things
Emma Stone mesmerizes as Bella Baxter, in Yorgos Lanthimos’ reimagining of Frankenstein. Stone was clearly having a whale of a time in a role that allowed her to really stretch herself. She brings depth and humanity to a role that in other hands could easily have been just a living doll and male fantasy.
Bella goes on a journey from naive newborn in an adult body, to self possessed and empowered woman. Growing and learning with an insatiable appetite for life and everything that entails, Emma Stone believably carries off her performance with relish. It’s such a wonderfully weird movie elevated by this exceptional central performance.
Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
Dignified, understated, powerful. Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhurt in Killers of the Flower Moon is the emotional center of Scorsese’s historical drama about the tragic killings of the Osage nation in 1920’s Oklahoma.
Gladstone has been vocal about the fact that prior to getting cast in Killers of the Flower Moon, she was considering walking away from acting altogether. It is to everyone’s benefit that she didn’t. In this magnetic performance, she goes toe to toe on screen with some of Hollywood’s most iconic performers and more than holds her own.
Annette Bening- Nyad
Playing the titular role of Diana Nyad, the 60-year-old former competitive swimmer who takes on the challenge of swimming 103 miles from Cuba to Florida Bening gets plenty to sink her teeth into. And does she ever sink her teeth into it! Annette Beninghas long been a beloved screen presence (and for good reason!), and in Nyad she really swings for the fences. She brings the sort of grizzled determination to her physical challenge that we are used to seeing in sporting movies.
For me, this was a solid, committed performance in a solid but unremarkable movie that does what it does well, but doesn’t really reach for anything new.
Carey Mulligan – Maestro
Carey Mulligan does some admirable work in her role in Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic. She anchors the film and is a great foil for Cooper’s more flashy (and much less effective) performance.
Despite being the best thing in this self indulgent vanity project (I didn’t really like it) even Carey Mulligan is not able to really rise above the slightly mediocre writing to make this more than ‘the wife to a great man’ role that we are all too familiar with in Hollywood Biopics.
Sandra Hüller– Anatomy of a fall
Hüller has quietly been one of the most interesting actors working in Europe for years now, working across genres and bringing something different to every role. It is a joy to see her getting the international attention and praise she has long deserved. Here, she reunites with Justine Triet to give us one of the most complex and interesting characters on screen this year.
As the wife of a dead man and accused of his murder Hüller’s Sandra needs to defend herself. Switching between 3 different languages and playing a complex and flawed woman who is brisk, difficult, successful, ambitious, sexually promiscuous, and much more. Hüller convincingly embodies all of these qualities at once and challenges the audience to see a fully rounded three dimensional woman and invites you to decide whether her imperfections are enough to convict her of murder.
And the winner is…
Emma Stone took home the Oscar for Poor Things this year, giving a typically delightful acceptance speech and writing her name in the history books as a double Oscar winner.
Evaluating who should and should not win awards like this is inherently tricky and it’s safe to say that Stone gave an Oscar worthy performance. She takes that movie on her back and sets the pace for the rest of the talented cast to follow. She is, in every way, a great Hollywood star, making more and more interesting choices in her roles as her career progresses. It really would not come as a huge surprise if there was more hardware coming down the road and it will be exciting to see what she chooses to work on next.
Special mention needs to go to Lily Gladstone, who, having secured the BAFTA earlier in awards season, looked to be the favorite to take home our favourite golden man. Her not winning the Oscar came as something of a surprise and one hopes that with talent like hers, that her time is still to come.
Ultimately, it was a great year with some brilliant performances to enjoy. The fact that any one of 3 of the nominees could have won, with arguably career best work, is testament to that 2025 has much to live up to.
