Jennifer Lawrence in Silver linings Playbook
It has been another strong year for performances by an actress and there is no clear favourite as to who will take home the Best Actress gong.
Twelve months ago they were already giving Meryl Streep the Oscar and there wasn't really anyone who was going to challenge her - and that proved to be the case.
This year however it looks set to be a close run thing with plenty of performances that are all worthy of a nomination and win.
Marion Cotillard has been a major favourite for the Best Actress prize since Rust and Bone hit the festival circuit earlier this year - and the excitement around her performance has not diminished.
She gives a knockout turn as a whale trainer who loses her legs when a show goes horribly wrong and it is such a raw and emotion performance from the French actress.
She may already have a Best Actress Oscar under her belt but she could well bag her second - hopefully the movie will also be recognised with a nomination as it truly deserves one.
If you haven't had chance to check out Silver Linings Playbook yet then it is a movie that is not to be missed as Jennifer Lawrence delivers another fantastic performance in the David O.Russell directed movie.
Her character really is a lost soul in this movie as she plays a grieving widow who befriends Pat - a man with bipolar disorder.
This is movie that looks at the debilitating effect that mental illness can have on people and it balances that perfectly with a great sense of humour.
Tiffany is perhaps the most complex character in the movie and Lawrence gives such a powerful performance as she slowly strips the layers of this character away to leave a very vulnerable young woman.
The fans have been won over by this movie and if Lawrence is not in the mix for Best Actress when the nominations are announced in January then there is something seriously wrong.
Jessica Chastain is an actress who has enjoyed a great couple of years and that success will continue into 2013.
She is set to lead the cast in Kathryn Bigelow's drama Zero Dark Thirty - the first movie from the director since she picked up the Oscar for The Hurt Locker.
Chastain was nominated for Best Supporting Actress twelve months ago for her turn in The Help and she could make it two years on the trot with her new movie.
The movie doesn't hit UK shores until the end of January but there has been a lot of talk around this actress and this movie for some time.
Quvenzhane Wallis is another actress that everyone is talking about as she commanded the screen in Beasts of the Southern Wild - despite the fact that she was only five when she landed this role.
Whether the Academy will recognise her performance is yet to be seen but it was an emotional and real turn by the young actress - she really does have star written all over her.
There was a lot of talk about Keira Knightley back in September for her movie Anna Karenina but that does seem to have died out a little. She could well pick up her second nod nut she may well be overlooked.
Another British actress to look out for is Helen Mirren as she takes on the role of Alfred Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville in Hitchcock - you know how the Academy love a bio-pic.
At the moment the Best Actress Oscar is looking like a three way fight between Cotillard, Lawrence and Chastain but could someone else muscle their way in before January?
The Oscar nominations are announced January 10th
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw