Oscars 2022: Best Supporting Actress Predictions

At the fall film festivals, the long list of possible Supporting Actress contenders was whittled down a tad.

Several Oscar perennials are looking for yet another nod. Among the actresses vying for their second Oscar, including Dame Judi Dench (“Shakespeare in Love”), who looks after her husband Ciaran Hinds in Kenneth Branagh’s 1969 remembrance “Belfast” (Focus), Marlee Matlin, who became the youngest Best Actress winner in 1987 for Randa Haines’ “Children of a Lesser God,” and now plays the deaf mother of a hearing child in Sundance prize-winner “CODA” (Apple TV+), only Cate Blanchett (“The Aviator,” “Blue Jasmine”) landed a SAG nomination, for playing a well-heeled psychiatrist who teams up with con artist Bradley Cooper in Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” (Searchlight), and also shines in the starry supporting ensemble in Adam McKay’s comet comedy “Don’t Look Up” (Netflix).

Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in “Passing.”

Netflix

Seeking her second nomination is SAG nominee Ruth Negga, who broke out in racial drama “Loving,” and takes on a woman trying to pass as white in Rebecca Hall’s Sundance hit “Passing” (Netflix).

Looking for their first Oscar mentions: Irish SAG and Critics Choice nominee Caitriona Balfe is married to Protestant Jamie Dornan in writer-director Kenneth Branagh’s family drama “Belfast” (Focus); Critics Choice nominee Aunjanue Ellis plays Brandi Williams, the mother of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams in “King Richard”; Jessie Buckley is the young Olivia Colman in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” (Netflix); Rebecca Ferguson is the powerful, conflicted mother of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides in sci-fi epic “Dune” (Warner Bros.); SAG and Critics Choice nominee Kirsten Dunst marries the brother (Jesse Plemons) of a surly rancher (Benedict Cumberbatch), who undermines her in Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix); and respected Emmy-winner Ann Dowd (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), along with her three costars, is vying in the supporting category for actors’ showcase “Mass” (Bleecker Street). Dowd landed a Critics Choice nomination.

Also vying for their first Oscar nods are Broadway veterans Olga Merediz as the abuela in Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of Miranda’s “In the Heights” (Warner Bros.) and Ariana DeBose as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” update, the role that won an Oscar for Rita Moreno in the 1961 classic. Moreno could be up again, but is competing this time with fellow Critics Choice nominee DeBose, who took home the Golden Globe and landed a SAG slot.

Oscar contenders are listed in alphabetical order; no one will be considered a frontrunner until I have seen the movie.

Jane Campion with Kodi Smit-McPhee and Kirsten Dunst.

Netflix

Frontrunners
Caitriona Balfe (“Belfast”)
Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”)
Kirsten Dunst (“The Power of the Dog”)
Aunjanue Ellis (“King Richard”)
Ruth Negga (“Passing”)

Contenders
Cate Blanchett (“Nightmare Alley”)
Judi Dench (“Belfast”)
Ann Dowd (“Mass”)
Rita Moreno (“West Side Story”)

Long Shots
Haley Bennett (“Cyrano”)
Jessie Buckley (“The Lost Daughter”)
Rebecca Ferguson (“Dune”)
Kathryn Hunter (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”)
Marlee Matlin (“CODA”)
Olga Merediz (“In the Heights”)