Best Actress
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She's in (literally) every frame and rewards the audience with a totally endearing, funny portrait of a brave sexually vivacious divorcee eager for the next dance... if she can just find a partner with her compatible lust for life

Finalists: Adele Exarchopoulus is all insatiable id in Blue is the Warmest Color whether eating or screwing or crying; Emma Thompson gives glorious return to form in her funny bold strokes work in Saving Mr Banks

Semi-Finalists: Amy Adams gives American Hustle its glimpses of its con artists conning themselves non-fraudulent soul; Julie Delpy continues the defining work of her career with Before Midnight; Jane Adams, cast against type in All The Light in the Sky, delivers with a smart, even sexy, character piece; Melissa McCarthy is on fire with perfect line readings in The Heat; and Meryl Streep has sharp moments as the monster mom that devours her young for dinner sport in August: Osage County

Best Actor
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Finalist: Paul Eenhoorn fully absorbs the title of This is Martin Bonner and paints you a complete if still tantalizingly withholding portrait. This is the kind of performance that should warrant immediate interest from A list auteurs and casting directors
Semi-Finalists: Mads Mikkelsen finds multiple shades of pride and despair as the wrongly accused in The Hunt; Jake Gyllenhaal & Hugh Jackman both work hard to elevate Prisoners from standard procedural to knotty haunting thriller. (I'd gladly take a sequel on Gyllenhaal's Detective Loki); Mud often wanders into a "what kind of a movie is this anyway" zone but Tye Sheridan anchors well, rooting it most firmly in the coming of age adventure drama; and Leonardo DiCaprio who proves with Wolf of Wall Street that toxic comedy is a good look on him

Best Supporting Actress

Body. Face. Voice. She finally lives up to her early promise, pushing every part of herself to full-bodied (pun intended) characterization. Sexy, funny, and surprisingly dimensional despite playing a 'type'. Bonus Points: Her

Finalists: Joanna Scanlan cuts through any period fussiness of The Invisible Woman with a solid wall of cumulative neglect and bewildered rug-pulling pain; Oprah Winfrey provides great chain-smoking entertainment value as the cheating, funny, but proud wife of Lee Daniel's The Butler
Semi-Finalists: August Osage County would have been stronger had it not sidelined Margo Martindale's well realized Mattie Fae; Kaitlyn Dever does beautiful work in Short Term 12, embodying the rage that her mentor has learned to wall up; and we'll wrap up with a double feature of Jennifer Lawrence & June Squibb who are both wholly entertaining (if arguably not much else) in American Hustle & Nebraska respectively

Best Supporting Actor
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Finalist: Jared Leto does subtle variations of druggy performative self-awareness in Dallas Buyers Club and the way he drawls "lone star" is a particular delight; Tom Hanks gives Saving Mr Banks exactly the Disney it needs for its gosammer light (some would say fluffy) take on two artists locking horns toward compromise

Semi-Finalists: Chris Cooper imbues one of the lesser parts in August: Osage County with lived-in compromise and loyalty; Elyes Aguis gives one of the most naturalistic child performances in many years in The Past; Kyle Chandler provides a nice subtle frisson in The Wolf of Wall Street by presenting its only character with mapped out moral fiber and humanity; and Sergio Hernandez is both comically and dramatically sound as the cowardly widower in Gloria