The awards season has been consistently dominated by one nominee from the very beginning. Scarlett Johansson is surprisingly missing from this category despite having a fantastic year with films like Under the Skin and Lucy.
Quite like the categories for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, the race for Best Actress is in fact not a race at all. The awards season has been consistently dominated by one nominee from the very beginning. Scarlett Johansson is missing from this category despite having a fantastic year with films like Under the Skin and Lucy under her belt. Despite running a vigorous campaign for her film Cake Jennifer Aniston also failed to the make the cut. The surprise snub, however, was Amy Adams who won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a comedy for Big Eyes.
Here's a look at the nominees this year
Julianne Moore — Still Alice
Marion Cotillard — Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones — The Theory of Everything
Rosamund Pike — Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon — Wild
Julianne Moore
In Still Alice Julianne Moore plays a linguistics professor who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Throughout the awards season Moore has had this race sewn. As a woman fighting a losing battle with the disease, Moore delivers a solid performance. There are times where she can come off as stilted and constrained but this has probably has more to do with the film than Moore herself. Moore has been due for an Oscar for several years. While this may not be her best performance, it will be the one that finally gets her the statue.
Moore is favourite to win this category with wins at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs for this role. 2014 was a big year for her, winning Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for Maps to the Stars as well as starring in the Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 which was the one of the highest grossing films at the box-office last year.
This is the fifth nomination for Julianne Moore. She has been previously nominated for Far from Heaven (2002), The Hours (2002), The End of the Affair (1999) and Boogie Nights (1997).
Marion Cotillard
Marion Cotillard plays a factory worker who must convince her co-workers to forgo their bonus to help her keep her job. Consistently excellent, Cotillard's delivers a fine performance and is perhaps Moore's strongest competition in this category. Several critics however opine that Cotillard would have been in a better position to win had she been nominated for her film The Immigrants last year.
Directed by the Dardenne brothers, the critically acclaimed film was submitted to the Best Foreign Language category but did not receive a nomination.
This is the second Academy Award nomination for Marion Cotillard. She was previously won an Oscar for the film La Vie en Rose in 2007.
Felicity Jones
Felicity Jones plays Jane Hawking, Stephen Hawking's wife, in The Theory Of Everything. With enough screen time, dialogues and an individual arc within the film, Jones is more than just a foil to Eddie Redmayne's Stephen Hawking and gives a skillful performance.
This is Jones' first nomination.
Rosamund Pike
Rosamund Pike delivers a stellar performance as a young wife who mysteriously disappears in David Fincher's Gone Girl. This is no story of reinvention, redemption or sacrifice, the kind that the Academy often tends to favour. Pike as 'Amazing' Amy is gleefully cold and vicious. While her performance did catch their attention enough to give her a nomination, Pike's role as the anti-heroine might still be too dark for the Academy to actually give her the award.
This is Pike's first and Gone Girl's only nomination.
Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon plays Cheryl Strayed who decides to hike along the Pacific Crest Trail to reclaim her life as she deals with her divorce and the death of her mother. Films that focus on a woman's emotional growth and journey are a rarity. With Wild, Witherspoon delivers a performance that is emotional, brave and honest. This is her best performance yet.
Witherspoon optioned the rights to Wild and co-produced the film citing her disillusionment with the roles she was being offered. This is her second nomination. She has previously won an Oscar for Walk the Line in 2005.
Our Prediction: This one is Julianne Moore's to lose.
Winner in 2014: Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
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