As Oscar season approaches and 2022 wraps, up everyone in the movie industry is looking to predict who will win which award. Hotly contended awards like Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Actress are always at the forefront of the conversation, and are seen as the most important categories in the awards.

When it comes to the Best Actress, there are always strong forerunners. This year Michelle Yeoh, Viola Davis, and Michelle Williams are leading the pack in their performances, but there's always a chance for upset on the night. With that in mind, let's look at the biggest underdog contenders for Best Actress.

RELATED: Weird Al Yankovic's Chance At Oscar Glory May Have Been Ruined By Roku

Olivia Colman – Empire of Light

Olivia-colman-empire-of-light

In a year when strong performances have come from all corners, it seems that Colman is an underdog contender for the 2023 race. However, Colman is an accomplished actress, already winning Best Actress in 2018 for her performance in The Favourite as well as a slew of other awards over her career. This year, Colman is a potential winner for her turn in Empire of Light as Hilary Small. The Sam Mendes-directed film is a love story set in the 1980s in a coastal cinema in England.

While the film as a whole has received mixed reviews, the consensus is that Colman's performance is luminous and filled with depth and comedy. Critics all pegged her performance as a picture-lifting one, stealing scenes and bringing the overly sentimental film up to her undeniably high level.

Thandiwe Newton – God's Country

thandiwe-newton-gods-country

God's Country is the debut film by director Julian Higgins. It stars Thandiwe Newton as Sandra, a university professor dealing with grief and unaware that worse is to come. The film opens with Sandra bidding farewell to her mother at her cremation, a silent, devastating scene. After returning home, Sandra discovers a pickup truck belonging to hunters on her land, and leaves a note asking them not to return. Of course, they do, and so begins a tense war between the lone, weary woman and the aggressive, unyielding hunters.

Newton is a powerhouse of strength in the film. She portrays a woman worn down by her circumstances, racial microaggressions, and grief, but still stalwart in her resolution to protect her home and life from the interlopers. The tension of the film is elevated by her performance, and enhanced by her strength and conviction. If anything, Newton deserves at least a nomination.

Léa Seydoux – One Fine Morning

lea-seydoux-one-fine-morning

The German-French film One Fine Morning, directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, sees Seydoux portray Sandra, a woman burdened with the circumstances of life and the battles of loneliness and love. Sandra's father is suffering from a neurodegenerative disease, and she is struggling to find him a nursing home. Meanwhile, Sandra lives with her 8-year-old daughter, the death of her partner and father to her daughter still weighing heavily upon her.

Seydoux plays a woman torn between three difficult relationships: the strained and sad relationship with her father who is beginning to lose his memory; the relationship with her daughter, who struggles to understand what is happening; and her new lover, a man with whom she is having an affair. The film is an intimate character study, laced with sadness and reflection. Seydoux brings an incredible depth and humanity to Sandra, displaying simplicity and restraint in the face of an unstable life.

Zar Amir Ebrahimi – Holy Spider

zar-amir-ebrahimi-holy-spider

Directed by Ali Abbasi, Holy Spider is a true crime thriller that follows the story of Saeed Hanaei, a serial killer who targeted sex workers in Iran between 2000 and 2001. Ebrahimi plays Rahimi, a journalist diving into the case of the serial killer. In doing so, she goes up against the patriarchal structures in place in the country, as well as the unhinged killer who believes he is cleansing the city with his murders.

Ebrahimi brings gravity to her role as a woman not only going up against a murderer, but against a society that embraces his crimes as an act of heroism and social cleansing. Ebrahimi has not had an easy time of it in her home country, and has channeled her trauma into her character in an affecting and deeply moving way. Her performance was so striking that she won the award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and has continued to court controversy in her home country of Iran.

Mia Goth – Pearl

mia-goth-pearl

Mia Goth is proving to be an actress to watch. Her performance in Ti West's X and Pearl has catapulted her into a spotlight that she was already nearing. In Pearl, Goth plays a young Pearl, a character she played in X along with her other character Maxine. Pearl is a villain origin story that explores the events that turned the new horror icon into the murderess she became. Already deserving of accolades for her performance in X, Goth shines in Pearl as a young woman descending into madness, driven by her desires for more.

Pearl is stuck on her remote family farm, looking after a father in ill health and dealing with a puritanical and domineering mother. Pearl longs for glamour and life as she has seen on screen. She yearns to be a star. Goth absolutely nails her performance as a repressed but ambitious girl struggling against her upbringing and circumstances, and ultimately cracking under the strain. Pearl is unhinged, and Goth makes viewers believe it.

MORE: Terrifier 2 Jokingly Submitted For Oscars Consideration