AFT Awards: Best Actress in a Leading Role

This is the second category of the 10th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them and drawn from a pool of approximately 117 films. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions:
Alice Braga (Aquarius), Alicia Vikander (The Light Between Oceans), Andrea Anders (Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?), Caitlin FitzGerald (Always Shine), Greta Gerwig (Maggie's Plan), Ingrid Jungermann (Women Who Kill), Isabelle Huppert (Things to Come), Kristen Stewart (Equals), Lily Rabe (Miss Stevens), Lola Kirke (AWOL), Mackenzie Davis (Always Shine), Margherita Buy (Me Myself and Her), Margherita Buy (Mia Madre), Melanie Lynskey (Little Boxes), Mélanie Thierry (An Eye for Beauty), Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins), Moran Rosenblatt (Wedding Doll), Natalie Portman (A Tale of Love and Darkness), Natalie Portman (Jackie), Nelly Tagar (Past Life), Rachel Weisz (Complete Unknown), Rachel Weisz (Denial), Ruth Negga (Loving), Sabrina Ferilli (Me Myself and Her), Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures), Tilda Swinton (A Bigger Splash), Victoria Summer (Game of Aces)

Runners-up:
Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
Amy Adams (Arrival)
Annette Bening (20th Century Women)
Lamis Ammar (Sand Storm)
Ruba Blal-Asfor (Sand Storm)

The winner:
Emma Stone (La La Land) was charming, sincere, and believable as an actress trying to make it in the business and encountering an epic love story with sweet song and dance.

Other nominees:
Emma Suarez (Julieta) and Adriana Ugarte (Julieta) were two parts of one incredible whole, a film-defining character with deep complexity and two unifying portrayals. Sasha Lane (American Honey) expressed an incredible lust for adventure and excitement as a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. Jodie Whittaker (Adult Life Skills) delivered a refreshingly honest and humorously endearing performance as a grieving sister unable to motivate herself to truly achieve anything.