The supporting actresses turned up

So far, 2025 has been an okay year in film. There has been a lot of okay-to-good stuff, a few very good things, and maybe a couple great things (Hamnet, and One Battle After Another). 

But in the midst of it happening, 2025 doesn’t feel like a great year in film, which actually means the Oscars should be very competitive, because no one person or film is going to have a distinct edge. Right now, it feels like the strongest sentiment is “it might be time to finally give Paul Thomas Anderson an Oscar”, a matter which has always been a case of “when” not “if”. 

One of the categories I’m watching closely is Best Supporting Actress, because unlike in recent years, this year, it doesn’t feel terribly competitive. Teyana Taylor could ride her fiery performance in Battle to an Oscar—as long as she doesn’t get “Norbit’ed” by All’s Fair, though so far she has such a small part in that show, I don’t expect she’ll wear that catastrophe at all—but Ariana Grande is emerging as a frontrunner, too, something that I just cannot accept. She’s not that good in Wicked! She’s just tiny! It’s the opposite of “is he just tall”, it’s “is she actually good in this, or is she just cute and tiny”. She’s just cute and tiny! She’s playing a fairy, and she looks like a fairy, that’s it! 

Still, right now, Ari and Teyana are the frontrunners for Best Supporting Actress, and both of them went to the Governors Awards to schmooze Academy members last night. 

Let's start with Teyana Taylor, who showed up looking ultra glam in Miss Sohee. I don't love the fit on the bust, but I do like the shiny scale effect of the fabric.

As for Ariana Grande, she gets a double bump because it’s press week for Wicked, when critics around the world are screening the movie. This means she will benefit from recency bias and get a boost in the BSA odds over the next couple weeks as Wicked hits theaters. 

I will add one nice thing: I genuinely like this vintage Dior—from 2007, insert obligatory “I am old” comment—she wore to the Governors Awards. Law Roach is doing the most for her.

Other top-tier contenders who turned up are Sentimental Value stars Elle Fanning (in Gucci) and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. For Elle, this is a style layup, an easy shot she can land with her eyes closed. It is firmly in her wheelhouse of princessy/vintage Barbie style, though it is very pretty and this is not a televised event, so all she has to do is make the impression on the red carpet. 

At least Elle put together a full look, Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t even try THAT hard.

Gwyneth is going for an acting comeback with Marty Supreme, and as much as everything about her screams “I’m over it”, she DID show up to the Governors Awards to schmooze. So she wants it, she just doesn’t want us to THINK she wants it. But she does, or she wouldn’t be going to events like this. 

Speaking of Gwyneth and the Oscars, though, biographer Amy Odell talked about Gywneth’s famous pink Ralph Lauren Oscar dress, and how it didn’t fit correctly. I’ve always wondered if the dress had fit right, would people be less mad about it?

Longer shots in the BSA race include German actress Nina Hoss, who is brilliant in Hedda, and I would put her ahead of Ariana Grande in a heartbeat, but I don’t get to vote on the Oscars; Zoey Deutch, supporting Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague; Emily Blunt; and Sinners star Hailee Steinfeld. Sinners remains one of the best films I’ve seen this year, but I still think it has an uphill battle with the Academy, because the executives are weird about it because of Ryan Coogler’s rights reversion deal. They don’t want anyone else getting big ideas about owning their own work, and the executive branch in the Academy has over 800 members. It is not small, and I expect there will be some pushback from that direction. Otherwise, I think Hailee Steinfeld and/or Wunmi Mosaku would be higher up the odds rankings right now.