Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, Adam Driver in Marriage story and Jonathan Pryce in The Two Popes. Photos / Supplied
Only five men will be nominated, but with at least a dozen solid contenders, including big names like Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, who will make the final cut?
Recent races for the best-actor Oscar have been awfully sleepy, as indisputable front-runners like Gary Oldman or Casey Affleck have cakewalked their way through a surprisingly thin category padded out with little-seen performances. (Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq., anyone?)
Not this year. Thanks to a large crop of male-driven best-picture contenders and a deep bench of dark horse fan favourites, the best-actor race is guaranteed to be Oscar's most brutal. Here, your Carpetbagger analyses 12 of the veteran Oscar nominees and hopeful first-timers vying for a scant five slots, which will be announced Jan. 13.
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker: One of the few sure bets for this category, Phoenix is riding high on a billion-dollar grosser that could score a best-picture nomination. Yes, he's playing the same comic-book villain that earned Heath Ledger a posthumous Academy Award, but Oscar voters are drawn to physically transformative performances, and the pained, emaciated Phoenix delivers that in spades. At 45, he has been acclaimed for so long as one of the best actors of his generation that you should expect many to argue that Phoenix is owed his first Academy Award.
Robert De Niro, The Irishman:Though De Niro is a two-time Oscar winner, he's earned only one nomination in the last 27 years, for his supporting role in Silver Linings Playbook. Could The Irishman provide the sort of career-capping star vehicle that will restore him to Oscar glory? The Martin Scorsese film has been a strong awards contender across the board, but De Niro was snubbed by both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild, suggesting that his performance as an obedient hit man may be too passive to galvanise voters.
Adam Driver, Marriage Story: Driver probably could have mounted an Oscar bid for his passionate performance in Amazon's political thriller The Report, but he has an even better opportunity with Marriage Story, which just earned more Golden Globe nominations than any other movie this season. Hollywood voters will be able to relate to Driver's character, a director dealing with the fallout of his failed marriage, and the last few scenes of the film give Driver so many major moments to play that it's near impossible to imagine a best-actor lineup that excludes him.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood: DiCaprio took four years to follow up his Oscar-winning role in The Revenant, and as the fading actor Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino's period piece he's funny and poignant. In any other year DiCaprio would be a lock to get nominated, but he hasn't done a lot of campaigning — perhaps he still feels burned out from what was asked of him during the last go-round — and his Revenant victory was so recent that voters may be tempted to overlook him this time.
Eddie Murphy, Dolemite Is My Name: As the comedian Rudy Ray Moore, Murphy turns in his most entertaining, engaged performance in years, and Netflix has persuaded the sometimes reluctant superstar to beat the drum hard for it. So far, Murphy has picked up a Golden Globe nomination, but Oscar voters may prove trickier to convince: They've nominated him only once before for a more dramatic role, in Dreamgirls, and Murphy famously bolted from the ceremony when he didn't win.
Christian Bale, Ford v Ferrari: Bale has scored four Oscar nominations over the last decade, and we shouldn't count out a potential fifth for this racing drama, where he plays the driver Ken Miles. Actors worship the way Bale makes a full-throttle plunge into every role, and the way he inhabits the wiry Miles is so distinctly different from his Oscar-nominated role as Dick Cheney last year that Bale has already scored SAG and Golden Globe nominations. Still, he'd be better situated for Oscar if the movie itself had earned top nominations from either awards body.
Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems: Every few years, Sandler decides to forgo his string of mediocre comedies for something more auteur-driven and ferocious, and for Uncut Gems, directors Benny and Josh Safdie enticed him far out of his comfort zone to play a jeweller who's forever on the edge of financial ruin. After the film earned strong notices at fall festivals, Sandler has been surprisingly willing to suit up for the press and industry events he usually eschews. Though he's been snubbed so far by the SAG and the Golden Globes, Sandler may find a last-minute fan base in the younger, hipper members the academy has added to its recent rolls.
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory: Critics' groups in both New York and Los Angeles named Banderas their best-actor winner for his masterly portrayal of a variation on his director, Pedro Almodóvar, in this quiet gem of a drama. Banderas is a charming campaigner and any voter who meets the man can't help but root for him; still, he won't be around much to shake hands, as he's been busy directing and starring in a revival of A Chorus Line in Málaga, Spain. After his exclusion from the SAG shortlist, that means his candidacy is on the bubble.
Taron Egerton, Rocketman: Though this Elton John biopic came out in the summer, Egerton's eagerness to do award-season events has kept him in the conversation and earned him SAG and Golden Globe nominations. Whether he's singing at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles or cutting birthday cake at a Chateau Marmont soiree, the affable Egerton is happy to hobnob, though his performance would be more prized if Rami Malek hadn't just won an Oscar for a superficially similar role as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.
Paul Walter Hauser, Richard Jewell: After stealing scenes as a dim accomplice in I, Tonya, this character actor got his most high-profile role yet as the title character in Clint Eastwood's fact-based drama about the security guard falsely accused of bombing the Atlanta Olympics. Hauser is affecting and ably supported by two Academy Award winners, Sam Rockwell and Kathy Bates, but unlike Eastwood's Oscar-nominated hit American Sniper, the new film is struggling at the box office and hasn't made much of an award-season impression so far.
Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes: Pryce deserved more attention for his pas de deux with Glenn Close in last year's The Wife, but if voters are looking to make it up to him, they could give the Welsh actor his first Oscar nomination for an endearing performance as the future Pope Francis in this Netflix dramedy. While the Golden Globes went big for The Two Popes, SAG snubbed it entirely, and Pryce is contending against three other Netflix leading men (De Niro, Driver and Murphy) who are significantly more famous.
George MacKay, 1917: MacKay is in nearly every frame of this arduous World War I film (due on Christmas Day), and it's all the more impressive that he musters up so much empathy despite long stretches of the film when his soldier on a mission says not a single word. If 1917 is a real threat to win best picture, it's imperative that the film scores at least one acting nomination and MacKay represents its best chance at that; still, the movie is arriving awfully late in the season and voters may not have enough opportunity to learn the 27-year-old actor's name before they begin filling out their ballots.
Written by: Kyle Buchanan
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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