Oscar watchers did not see Andrea Riseborough coming, even though she was on the tip of Cate Blanchett’s lips as she accepted a Critics Choice award for Best Actress for her tour de force performance in Tar. In almost a whisper, the formidable Blanchett, a frontrunner who has already won a slew of awards, noted Riseborough, not even mentioning a movie she leads, To Leslie. A hugely solid actress, Riseborough is in the back story of many films, a minor character or supporting role. A British actress, she was a factory worker in Made in Dagenham. She’s played Wallis Simpson. Reaching back to the biopic about Billie Jean King, she played a sly, deceitful love interest to the tennis star with Emma Stone in the lead. She’s in David O. Russell’s most recent film Amsterdam, and when the premiere took over Alice Tully Hall, she graced the long cast line onstage. Present for a long time, in To Leslie, an indie film celebrated by a Hollywood elite, Andrea Riseborough finally leads.

Unseated is a list of fine actresses including Danielle Deadwyler, Viola Davis, as many have noted. Many ponder how this nomination will affect the Best Actress win, but for now, whatever conversation the Oscars inspire, this nod has mixed up a predictable roster that includes Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Williams, and Ana de Armas for her heartbreaking turn as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde.

On another front, the non-fiction list is excellent, including All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a documentary that has dominated the documentary awards so far in the season. All That Breathes and Fire of Love are other favorites, but the film, A House Made of Splinters, with the war in Ukraine in the background, is most unforgettable featuring children in an orphanage awaiting court dates and the wonderful women who care for them. At a recent screening, the filmmakers, director and cinematographer Simon Lereng Wilmot and producer Monica Hellstrom said they chose this haven to focus on, because it seemed looser and less institutional. You really become invested in one boy in particular, who, despite his own acting out, must parent his younger siblings as they are placed in foster homes, while his mother succumbs to alcoholism. It’s a film that has you by the throat, rooting for its improbable stars.