Kirsten Dunst Angles for First Oscar in The Power of the Dog Trailer

Despite being a generation-defining actress, Kirsten Dunst has never once been recognized by the Academy Awards. She doesn’t even have an Oscar nomination to her name. Though, the buzz in the film world is that she may just get her first for The Power of the Dog, the hotly-tipped Jane Campion-directed movie which released a fresh trailer today.

The Power of the Dog, based off a 1967 book by Thomas Savage of the same name, tells the story of the Phil and George Burbank, two wealthy ranchers in Montana. When George (Jesse Plemmons, Dunst’s real-life husband) brings home a new wife, Rose (Dunst), and her teenaged son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) begins to torment them. Eventually, “Phil appears to take the boy under his wing,” says Netflix’s synopsis of the film. “Is this latest gesture a softening that leaves Phil exposed, or a plot twisting further into menace?”

According to IndieWire, an adaption of Savage’s book has been discussed in Hollywood for years, but it was Campion who finally took it on. “It’s a ranch story,” she told IndieWire. “Nobody’s got a gun. It’s just on the end of that mythology when the cowhands are working there because they love cowboys of old and they are getting their clothes from the mail orders and dressing as cowboys as a kind of quoting of cowboys.”

Netflix has already told Variety that Dunst will be campaigning for supporting actress this awards season and the actress is already considered a frontrunner in the race for her role as Rose. The Power of the Dog is Dunst’s first film since 2017’s Woodshock, though her performance in the 2019 television series On Becoming a God in Central Florida did land her a Golden Globe nomination.