Amy Adams for American Hustle Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine Sandra Bullock for Gravity Judi Dench for Philomena Meryl Streep for August: Osage County Out of all the acting awards, Best Actress has been the most securely closed for awhile now, and for the most part, I would say that is still the case. Throughout the 2000's, Cate Blanchett was working at level that few (if any) of her contemporaries could match, and the idea of making Blanchett join the club of two-time winning Oscar actresses (she won her first as Best Supporting Actress in The Aviator, portraying four-time Oscar winning actress Katherine Hepburn) seems more than suitable. Blanchett's performance as Jamine, a mentally fragile former wealthy socialite getting used to her new, much more modest, financial circumstances, is not only one of the best performances by a lead female actor this year, but is one of the best performances period this year. The only thing that could wreck Blanchett's deserved road to a second Oscar is this renewed scandal around Woody Allen that he sexual molested his young adopted daughter back in the early 1990's. It shouldn't effect how the Academy decides who is most deserving of the Oscar for Best Actress, but if it somehow does play a role, and someone other than Cate Blanchett wins the Oscar, I think the Academy would either give the award to Sandra Bullock or Judi Dench (more likely Dench). I don't think this hypothetical theory will actually play into the final voting however, and I fully suspect Cate Blanchett will win her second Oscar. Will Win: Cate Blanchett for Blue JasmineCould Win: Judi Dench for Philomena Should Win: Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.