The Best Actress category at the 2023 Oscars features an increasingly close race between two front-runners, with the winner’s odds continuing to increase throughout the awards season. Following Jessica Chastain’s 2022 win for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the nominees for Best Actress at the 95th Academy Awards are Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Cate Blanchett for Tár, Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans, Ana de Armas for Blonde, and Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie. Blanchett previously won the award in 2014 for Blue Jasmine and Williams has been nominated in the category twice before.
While Yeoh, Blanchett, and Williams were predicted to land nominations at the 2023 Oscars for Best Actress, Ana de Armas and Andrea Roseborough’s nominations were surprises over the snubbed Danielle Deadwyler (Till) and Viola Davis (The Woman King). With the exception of Riseborough, whose nomination has opened an investigation into the Academy's nominations process, the 2023 Best Actress nominees have each received several nods and wins for equivalent actress categories from various critics associations and voting bodies throughout the award season. While the category features a close race between two nominees, Michelle Yeoh is favored to win Best Actress at the 2023 Oscars.
Why Michelle Yeoh Is The Favorite To Win Best Actress At The Oscars 2023
First-time Oscar nominee Michelle Yeoh has received the most buzz around her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once. When paired with the widespread enthusiasm for the movie’s 2023 Best Picture chances, the actress’s wins and nominations throughout the award season, and the significance of Yeoh potentially being the first woman identifying as Asian to win Best Actress, her chances of taking home the Oscar are extremely high. Ahead of the 2023 Oscars, Yeoh has been nominated for over 50 critics and voting body awards for her performance, a significant portion of which she won. Of course, she’s also favored to win Best Actress because of the captivating career-best nature of her Everything Everywhere All at Once performance.
Yeoh has already won Best Actress equivalents at the Golden Globes and Saturn Awards, with pending nominations in the category at the Satellite Awards, BAFTAs, and SAG Awards. The latter two award bodies will be critical in assessing the predicted winner at the 2023 Oscars, so another Academy Award nominee could pull ahead of she takes home these key awards instead of Yeoh. Still, the Academy has proven its favoritism for Everything Everywhere All at Once with its leading 11 nominations, four of which are in acting categories. As such, with Yeoh’s track record preceding her, she still remains the most likely to win Best Actress at the 2023 Academy Awards.
Could (& Should) There Be An Upset In The Oscars 2023 Best Actress Race?
While Michelle Yeoh is the predicted Best Actress winner, she isn’t a lock in the category. The race is extremely close between Yeoh and Tár actress Cate Blanchett, so it wouldn’t be an upset if either actress took home the award. However, the odds of Williams, Riseborough, or Armas are far behind those of the two front-runners, so anyone other than Yeoh or Blanchett winning the 2023 Oscars’ Best Actress award is unlikely and would be a massive surprise.
It’s possible that Williams or even Riseborough and Armas could upset Yeoh and Blanchett, but such an occurrence would inevitably cause controversy. Yeoh and Blanchett have been the front-runners long before the Oscars 2023 nominations were announced, with their performances being the most critically acclaimed and recognized throughout the award season. The two front-runners’ performances are also arguably the most deserving of the award among this year’s nominees, so an Oscars 2023 acting upset could cause even more backlash than the Academy Award category has already seen this year.