Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain

Twelve months ago it was a dead cert that Meryl Streep would win the Best Actress Oscar... and so it proved.

This year the Best Actress category is wide open and it is hard to predict just who will walk away with one of the biggest prizes in film.

We take a closer look at the ladies who are in the mix for the Best Actress Oscar and the performances that they have been nominated for.

Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain is back in the Oscar race just a year after picking up her first nomination for The Help.

Her central performance in Zero Dark Thirty has bagged her a Best Actress nod this time around and she has perhaps not got the slight favourite tag after winning the Golden Globe last night.

She teams up with Kathryn Bigelow for the very first time for Zero Dark Thirty in what is an incredibly powerful performance for the actress.

The movie sees her take on the role of Maya, a CIA officer who has spent her entire career focusing on intelligence linked to Osama Bin Laden.

Zero Dark Thirty has been the toast of the award's circuit and the movie is currently top of the U.S. box office.

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence has been an actress to watch over the last couple of year but she delivered the performance of her career in Silver Linings Playbook - and she has been rewarded with another Best Actress Oscar nomination.

She bagged her first nod for Winter's Bone but she has developed so much as an actress in that time that she really is a force to be reckoned with on the big screen.

Silver Linings Playbook is the big screen adaptation of the Matthew Quick novel of the same name and sees Lawrence take on the role of Tiffany, a young widow and recovering sex addict.

The movie follows her budding friendship with Pat, a man who has problems of his own, and the trails and tribulations they face.

Tiffany is the most complex character in the movie and yet Lawrence balances all of the different side of her so well.

Naomi Watts

At the end of last year Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon threw her weight behind Naomi Watts for a Best Actress Oscar nomination and it sees that the Academy has heard her.

Watts returned to the big screen for The Impossible which followed the true story of a family caught in the middle of the Tsunami.

Naomi Watts is simply magnificent in the central role of Maria as a mother who is determined to stay alive for her son.

She shows a real strength from start to finish and it just a devastatingly emotional performance.

She may have been overlooked at other awards ceremonies but it is great to see her in the mix at the Oscars.

Quvenzhane Wallis

Quvenzhane Wallis has made history at the Oscars as the youngest Best Actress nominee of all time - she is just nine years old.

Wallis delivers a knockout performance Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild - the directorial debut of Benh Zeitlin.

She is a captivating leading lady and we see a world of poverty and inequality very much through her eyes.

Wallis really is an incredibly exciting acting talent and it looks like she is only going to get better and better as she gets old.

Emmanuelle Riva

Emmanuelle Riva also made Oscar history as she became the oldest nominee for Best Actress of all time.

Amour was the movie that really picked up some unexpected nominations as it also got a Best Picture nod.

Riva teams up with Jean-Louis Trintignant in the film as a couple whose relationships is put to the test when Anne suffers a stroke.

Amour is a movie that looks at mortality and death as well as taking a look at a long standing relationship.

Winners will be revealed 24th February.


by for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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