Byrne’s hard work onscreen and off did wind up earning her an Oscar nomination, a handful of honors from critics groups in New York and Los Angeles, as well as the Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy. Buckley, meanwhile, has practically swept all of the major precursor awards, including the Golden Globe (for best actress in a drama), the Critics Choice Award, the Actor Award, and, most recently, the BAFTA. She’s been running the table in a film that the Academy recognized with eight total nominations, including best picture. Byrne, meanwhile, is the only nominee from If I Had Legs.
Conventional wisdom dictates that Buckley is the unimpeachable frontrunner here. But best actress also has a history of pulling spoilers. The other acting categories often reward performers who felt like foregone conclusions: See Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) and Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) in best actor, Laura Dern (Marriage Story) and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) in supporting actress, and Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain). Best actress, though, has proven to be less predictable.
In 2019, Olivia Colman won for The Favourite over Glenn Close for The Wife. In 2020, Frances McDormand won for Nomadland over Viola Davis for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. In 2024, Emma Stone won for Poor Things over Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon. Just last year, Mikey Madison won for Anora over Demi Moore for The Substance. This category is, technically, also the only Oscar category where two actors have ever tied: both Funny Girl’s Barbra Streisand and The Lion in Winter’s Katharine Hepburn won best actress in 1969. When handing out best actress, the Academy has a surprising tendency to go for curveballs.
Jessie Buckley, current Oscar frontrunner, shows off her best actress BAFTA for Hamnet.Variety/Getty Images
So we shouldn’t be overly shocked if the same thing happens this year. Perhaps Oscar voters will want to pivot after a barrage of Buckley best-actress wins; some anonymous Oscar ballots published in the lead-up to the 98th Academy Awards indicate that this is a distinct possibility. If Buckley’s poorly-reviewed new film The Bride! (from director Maggie Gyllenhaal, who previously directed Buckley to a best supporting actress nomination for The Lost Daughter in 2022) had been released during Oscar voting, it also may have actively torpedoed her Oscar odds, too—as when Eddie Murphy, the frontrunner to win best supporting actor for Dreamgirls in 2007, released his box-office flop Norbit a week after getting nominated. Alan Arkin wound up winning an Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine instead.