Oscar Predictions Update: Best Actress Race Adds a New Face from the ‘Dark’

As several commenters have pointed out recently, Jessica Chastain will be pushed in the Best Actress race for her work in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, which means I had a little shuffling I needed to do to my Best Actress and Supporting Actress predictions.

I previously had Chastain sitting in the #6 position in the Supporting race, wondering if she or Sally Field (Lincoln) should occupy my last spot in the category, but now she moves over to the very light field in the Actress race, bumping the number of contenders from nine to ten and creating a little more excitement in the field.

Before this weekend I was planning on updating my predictions in the Actress category already as my decision to move Naomi Watts (The Impossible) into the top five continued to nag at me and I felt moving Keira Knightley (Anna Karenina) all the way down to #8 was a mistake. Those “wrongs” have been righted and Chastain has been added to the field, debuting at #4.

I’m sure this is only the start of the movement we’ll see in the Best Actress field over the coming months. The only performance among my top eight that has been released in the U.S. so far is that of Quvenzhane Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild. How will the conversation change once Silver Linings Playbook, Amour, Rust and Bone and Anna Karenina are seen by the critical mass at large rather than merely festival attendees?

This is a big week for myself in these terms as I will finally see what Hitchcock starring Helen Mirren and Anthony Hopkins has to offer as well as Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field in Lincoln, not to mention Judi Dench in Skyfall, a performance I have added to my Best Supporting Actress predictions and a film I will finally be seeing tomorrow.

So without any additional discussion, below are my current prediction for the Best Actress and Supporting Actress categories with links to check out the full field of contenders in my Oscar Predictions section of the site. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Best Actress

1. Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
2. Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
3. Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
4. Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
5. Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)

Check out the full Best Actress field right here.

Best Supporting Actress

1. Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
2. Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
3. Amy Adams (The Master)
4. Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)
5. Sally Field (Lincoln)

Check out the full Best Supporting Actress field right here.