Who Should Win Best Supporting Actress?

Five women are nominated for Best Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan for "Weapons," Teyana Taylor for "One Battle After Another," Wunmi Mosaku for "Sinners," and Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas for "Sentimental Value." Madigan won the Critics Choice and Actor Awards. Taylor won the Golden Globe. Mosaku won the BAFTA. Nobody swept. Gold Derby has it Madigan 42%, Taylor 34%, Mosaku 22%. This is one of the most wide-open acting races in years.

1. Madigan Has the Numbers (Critics Choice, Actor Awards, Gold Derby)

Two of the three biggest precursors. The math says she wins.

The Critics Choice and Actor Award double is the strongest precursor position in this field. Madigan won both for her role as Aunt Gladys in Zach Cregger's horror film "Weapons." This is her second Oscar nomination — the first was 41 years ago, for "Twice in a Lifetime" in 1985. At 75, she would become the second-oldest Best Supporting Actress winner in history, trailing only Peggy Ashcroft, who was 77 when she won for "A Passage to India."

The career recognition narrative is powerful. Four decades between nominations is the kind of story the Academy loves. The veteran-finally-getting-her-due is one of Oscar's most reliable archetypes.

2. Taylor Has the Moment (Golden Globe, One Battle After Another)

She won the Globe, she's in the film that's sweeping everything else, and she burst into tears accepting it.

Taylor's Golden Globe win put her on the map. She plays Perfidia Beverly Hills in Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" — a Best Picture frontrunner that has swept the PGA, DGA, and WGA. This is her first Oscar nomination. She sobbed accepting the Globe.

If One Battle After Another runs the table, Taylor rides the wave. Best Picture frontrunners often lift their supporting players. If the Academy is going all-in on Anderson's film — and the precursors say they are — Taylor could be the beneficiary.

And a Taylor win would make history. If she wins, it would mark the first time in 98 years that three consecutive Black women have won the same acting category — following Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Zoe Saldana.

3. Mosaku's BAFTA Win Shouldn't Be Dismissed (BAFTA, Sinners)

She's the BAFTA winner, the first Black British woman to win the award, and she's in the most-nominated film of the year.

Mosaku became the first Black British winner of BAFTA Best Supporting Actress. She won for "Sinners," where she accepted the award while heavily pregnant. She also won a Gotham Award and NAACP Image Award. The BAFTA doesn't always predict the Oscar, but it's not nothing — especially when the winner represents the film with the most nominations this year.

The same historic significance applies to Mosaku. Like Taylor, a Mosaku win would make it three consecutive Black women to win Best Supporting Actress. The difference is that Mosaku's film — "Sinners" — is the year's most-nominated film, which gives her a different kind of institutional support.

Where This Lands

Three precursors, three different winners, three plausible paths to the Oscar. Madigan has the strongest statistical position with the Critics Choice and Actor Award, and the career-recognition narrative working for her. On the other hand, Taylor is in the film most likely to win Best Picture, and Mosaku is in the film with the most nominations. If the Academy follows the math, Madigan wins. If it follows the film, Taylor wins. If it follows the moment — a heavily pregnant first-time BAFTA winner in the year's most-nominated film — Mosaku wins. The only certainty is that two of the three possible history-makers will go home empty-handed.