Just like Best Actress, the Best Actor race also feels like anyone's game considering all the viable (and quite baity) possibilities. From Best Picture competitive vehicles, to traditional biopics, to highly original narratives, it seems Best Actor race has it all this year, which makes predicting it even more tricky. Of course Best Picture players and biopics make for the most obvious choices, specially if they have a big distributor campaigning for it, but the AMPAS is getting edgier than ever and I could see some "surprise" nominees in the final nominees shortlist like Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) or Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers).
The first spot goes to the current Best Picture frontrunner's star - Cillian Murphy, for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer - since his amazing turn (very internal, yet so potent!) in one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year (and the highest-grossing biopic of all time from a director who's overdue for some Oscar love) seems to be tailor-made for the Academy members! Next in line... Leonardo DiCaprio for Killers of the Flower Moon, who I consider to still collecting the Academy's favor in name of his multiple Oscar snubs of the past (Titanic, The Departed, Revolutionary Road and Django Unchained) and he gets bonus points for the Best Picture-caliber of the movie, the Martin Scorsese signature and Apple's campaigning power (the same distributor that turned CODA into a Best Picture winner) - a nomination seems locked for him, specially considering the "best performance of his career" reviews he got. Third spot goes to... Bradley Cooper for his personal project Maestro - the much waited biopic of Leonard Bernstein and his love story with his wife Felicia. Reviews from the Fall film festival circuit have been quite positive, not enthusiastic, but Cooper's performance has received a lot of acclaim... which makes me consider him to be pretty secure in this Oscar race (plus, it's a biopic about a huge Hollywood figure and Netflix is good with getting its films nominated). The fourth place might go to Jeffrey Wright, the star of Toronto International Film Festival's big winner of the 2023 edition - American Fiction. It's a comedic performance, which might detract Wright from the "winning positions" considering the AMPAS members are not as keen to embrace comedy as they do with dramatic turns... but he got rave reviews and the movie was met with huge critical acclaim (and audience love from Toronto!), which means Wright might coattail a Best Actor nomination (winning TIFF means getting a Best Picture nomination in recent years). The fifth spot is a tough pick, but I am going for Barry Keoghan for Emerald Fennell's Saltburn - the young promising actor received the kind of enthusiastic reviews that generate passion for a performance and I can see a scenario where he gets the lone Oscar nomination for Saltburn. Still, Colman Domingo is a very strong contender for a much more conventional film and performance: Netflix's Rustin, about African-American civil rights and gay rights activist Bayard Rustin. Like Keoghan, Domingo also got some enthusiastic reviews, but the more "usual biopic" vibe of Rustin might have it getting lost during the awards season, while Saltburn is a movie that promises to stand-out. I believe it's going to be an Amazon vs. Netflix battle for that 5th spot.
The first spot goes to the current Best Picture frontrunner's star - Cillian Murphy, for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer - since his amazing turn (very internal, yet so potent!) in one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year (and the highest-grossing biopic of all time from a director who's overdue for some Oscar love) seems to be tailor-made for the Academy members! Next in line... Leonardo DiCaprio for Killers of the Flower Moon, who I consider to still collecting the Academy's favor in name of his multiple Oscar snubs of the past (Titanic, The Departed, Revolutionary Road and Django Unchained) and he gets bonus points for the Best Picture-caliber of the movie, the Martin Scorsese signature and Apple's campaigning power (the same distributor that turned CODA into a Best Picture winner) - a nomination seems locked for him, specially considering the "best performance of his career" reviews he got. Third spot goes to... Bradley Cooper for his personal project Maestro - the much waited biopic of Leonard Bernstein and his love story with his wife Felicia. Reviews from the Fall film festival circuit have been quite positive, not enthusiastic, but Cooper's performance has received a lot of acclaim... which makes me consider him to be pretty secure in this Oscar race (plus, it's a biopic about a huge Hollywood figure and Netflix is good with getting its films nominated). The fourth place might go to Jeffrey Wright, the star of Toronto International Film Festival's big winner of the 2023 edition - American Fiction. It's a comedic performance, which might detract Wright from the "winning positions" considering the AMPAS members are not as keen to embrace comedy as they do with dramatic turns... but he got rave reviews and the movie was met with huge critical acclaim (and audience love from Toronto!), which means Wright might coattail a Best Actor nomination (winning TIFF means getting a Best Picture nomination in recent years). The fifth spot is a tough pick, but I am going for Barry Keoghan for Emerald Fennell's Saltburn - the young promising actor received the kind of enthusiastic reviews that generate passion for a performance and I can see a scenario where he gets the lone Oscar nomination for Saltburn. Still, Colman Domingo is a very strong contender for a much more conventional film and performance: Netflix's Rustin, about African-American civil rights and gay rights activist Bayard Rustin. Like Keoghan, Domingo also got some enthusiastic reviews, but the more "usual biopic" vibe of Rustin might have it getting lost during the awards season, while Saltburn is a movie that promises to stand-out. I believe it's going to be an Amazon vs. Netflix battle for that 5th spot.
Andrew Scott's Oscar case for All of Us Strangers reminds me of Paul Mescal's last year for Aftersun - a movie able to ignite some true love and a truly moving leading performance. Searchlight is a very strong distributor and I can see a lot of critics group going for Scott's turn (and for the movie itself), but with so many great turns in the game... it's going to be difficult to break the "traditional Oscar bait" contenders. Paul Giamatti would be a non-brainer Best Actor nominee for The Holdovers in a not-so-competitive year, considering the rave reviews he got for his performance and the Best Picture (and across the board) buzz Alexander Payne's latest has been getting since its TIFF première. It's a traditional, old-school dramedy with a heart, a true crowd-pleaser, and Giamatti is an actor I consider to be underappreciated... but I can see the actors branch going for it in Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor and back a little in this category due to the caliber of Giamatti's competitors here (most of them feel kind of "undeniable" at this point). Most people talk about Greta Lee for Past Lives, but Teo Yoo is the heart of the movie for me and I suspect he might over-perform during the awards season (specially the first awards), which might boost his Oscar dreams. A24 is going for Past Lives almost for sure and I can see Yoo catching the awards train - the vulnerability and love he displays is simply heart-wrenching. The last spot... I suspect it might not be released in time, but there was a lot of enthusiasm around Richard Linklater's Hit Man during the Fall film festival season and I suspect Glenn Powell would benefit from all the buzz and crack the Best Actor race... critics call it some kind of a "star turn" and the AMPAS often gets impressed with those. Still, I suspect Hit Man might for a 2024 release considering Netflix has a full plate for the awards season already.
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