6 Oscar nominees we predict will contend against this year … and who could finally win

Last year, 16 out of the 20 acting nomination slots went to first-time nominees. That meant that only four past nominees (and one past winner) added another Oscar bid to their record. This year, we think that field will be a little more even as we have combed through the odds charts of the four acting categories and found that we are predicting that six past Oscar nominees will be nominated again this year.

Here’s a key point to remember, however: We aren’t counting previous Oscar winners in this article. We are only focusing on the Oscar nominees who have not won an Oscar. We’ll talk about the chances of past Oscar winners in another item. For now, here’s the breakdown of the six previous Oscar nominees we think will add another Oscar nomination to their record this year.

Best Actress
Margot Robbie is the only previous Oscar nominee in our predicted lineup in this category who hasn’t won. She is in contention for “Barbie,” in which she plays the titular role in a story about Barbie having an existential crisis and leaving Barbie Land for the real world in order to find out the cause of said crisis. She is on the precipice here, with Oscar winner Emma Stone hot on her heels for “Poor Things.” Robbie is currently a two-time nominee, having earned a Best Actress bid in 2018 for “I, Tonya” and a Best Supporting Actress nomination in 2020 for “Bombshell.” This would be her third bid overall and second Best Actress nomination. The other predicted nominees in this category are first-timers Fantasia Barrino (“The Color Purple”), Greta Lee (“Past Lives”), and Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), plus Oscar winner Natalie Portman (“May December”).

Best Actor
We have some big hitters in this category, including nine-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper. He will star as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” a biopic that Cooper also directs, co-writers (with Josh Singer), and stars in. He will be hoping for his fourth Best Actor nomination after previous bids in 2013 (for “Silver Linings Playbook”), 2015 (for “American Sniper”), and 2019 (for “A Star is Born”). He was also nominated for Best Picture as a producer for “Nightmare Alley” in 2022, “Joker” in 2020, and “American Sniper” and “A Star is Born.” He also shared a Best Adapted Screenplay bid for “A Star is Born” with Eric Roth and Will Fetters. Plus, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 2014 for “American Hustle.” Cooper has been an Oscars bridesmaid even more than poor Glenn Close. He’ll be hoping for that to change this year, but he’ll have to land the nominations first. We’ll think he do that, at least. Cooper is joined by Paul Giamatti in our Best Actor predictions. We think Giamatti will be nominated for Alexander Payne‘s “The Holdovers,” which follows a disliked teacher looking after students who stay behind at a college during Christmastime. Giamatti was previously nominated in 2006 for Best Supporting Actor for “Cinderella Man.” Also in our predicted lineup for this category are Leonardo DiCaprio (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), and Colman Domingo (“Rustin”).

Best Supporting Actress
There’s only one past Oscar nominee (who hasn’t won) we think will be nominated here: Taraji P. Henson for “The Color Purple.” The film follows the struggles of an African-American woman in the South of the USA in the early 1900s. Henson will play Shug Avery, the role that earned Margaret Avery a Best Supporting Actress bid for the 1985 movie, directed by Steven Spielberg. Could Henson repeat history here? She was previously nominated in this category in 2009 for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” We think Henson will be nominated alongside her “The Color Purple” co-star Danielle Brooks as well as Julianne Moore (“May December”), Emily Blunt (“Oppenheimer”), and Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”).

Best Supporting Actor
Like Best Actor, there are some huge names we think will be nominated in this category this year. Two of those are Ryan Gosling and Robert Downey Jr, who will carry on Barbenheimer by competing against one another in this category. Gosling stars as Ken in “Barbie,” which follows Robbie’s Barbie suffering an existential crisis with both the help and hindrance of Gosling’s Ken. Gosling was previously nominated for Best Actor twice — in 2007 for “Half Nelson” and 10 years later in 2017 for “La La Land.” Meanwhile, Downey Jr. plays politician Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer,” who, like Ken, becomes the surprise villain of the movie late on in the game. Nolan’s biopic depicts J. Robert Oppenheimer‘s (Murphy) creation of the atomic bomb, while Strauss manipulates political proceedings in the background. Downey Jr. was previously nominated for Best Actor in 1993 for “Chaplin” and Best Supporting Actor in 2009 for “Tropic Thunder.” We think Gosling and Downey Jr. will be nominated alongside Robert De Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Domingo (“The Color Purple”), and John Magaro (“Past Lives”).

So, there are our six past nominees who have never won an Oscar who we think will land another Oscar bid. But will any of them be able to make that step from Oscar nominee to Oscar winner this year? According to our odds charts… no. We are currently predicting that Barrino will win Best Actress and Gladstone will win Best Supporting Actress. Both of those have never been nominated for an Oscar. We also think that Oscar winners DiCaprio and De Niro will win Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. So, it looks like these Oscar nominees will remain bridesmaids… for now.

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