Eddie Redmayne thoroughly convincing as The Danish Girl

IT looks like there will be a tight race for the Best Actress trophy this year at the Oscars with so many highly-acclaimed films about powerful women being released in the lead-up to the awards ceremony.

Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are both impressive as a pair of lesbian lovers in Todd Haynes finely-crafted period romance Carol; Carey Mulligan is equally excellent as a reluctant rebel in Sarah Gavron's women's rights movement drama-thriller Suffragette; while Jennifer Lawrence is as much a contender playing a real-life single-mum-turned-millionaire in David O Russell's black-comedy-biopic Joy.

But the gals should be glad they are not up against Eddie Redmayne who is thoroughly convincing playing one of the world's first known transgenders in Tom Hooper's (Les Miserables, The King's Speech) lush period drama The Danish Girl.