Oscars 2024: 20 Insanely Early Predictions

The Academy sure are a sentimental bunch, and love to hand out Oscars that surmise and celebrate a storied actor's entire career, perhaps even as an apology for snubbing them for a prior performance.

This year Jamie Lee Curtis nabbed a blatant career Oscar for her fun-yet-Oscar-unworthy performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once, and there's an actress ripe for the same treatment in the Best Actress field this coming year.

Annette Bening is one of the most beloved actresses of her generation with four acting nominations to her name over the last three decades. In a year where Hilary Swank didn't have so much momentum for Boys Don't Cry, Bening would've likely won for American Beauty, but alas, it wasn't to be.

Yet Bening has her ripest Oscar play in years coming up in Nyad, a biopic of 64-year-old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who became the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida.

It's a story that's a perfect fit for the Academy's tastes, and with master documentarians Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo, The Rescue) behind the camera, there's a very strong chance this is an emotional knockout.

Bening will face serious competition from The Color Purple's Fantasia Barrino in particular, but this could very well finally be her year.