Best Actor Category:
This years, female performers don’t have much to complain about. In fact, the Best Actress race is far more crowded and competitive, filled with Oscar-caliber turns, than the Best Actor field.
I have divided eleven strong male performances into three categories: frontrunners, contenders, and also in the run, each arranged alphabetically.
Incidentally, this is the 31st year that I have been doing Oscar predictions, ever since my book, All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards, was first published, in 1987.
Featuring on its cover Halle Berry, the first black woman to ever win the Best Actress Oscar, in 2001, the book (updated every sic year) is now in its 11th edition.
Frontrunners:
Timothes Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
James Franco, The Disaster Artist
Gary Oldman, The Darkest Hour
Tom Hanks, The Post
Contenders:
Christian Bale, Hostiles
Jack Gyllenhaal, Stronger
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel Esq
Also in the Run:
Andrew Garfield, Breathe
James McAvoy, Split
Adam Sandler, The Meyerowitz Stories
Analysis:
The Best Actor race is defined this year by two great British actors: Daniel Day-Lewis (“Phantom Thread”) and Gary Oldman (“The Darkest Hour”). Day-Lewis, who had announced that he is retiring from acting, has already broken Oscar records. He is the only male to have won three Best Actor Oscars.
Jack Nicholson also claims three Oscars, but only two of them are in the lead category. The third is a Supporting Actor Oscar in the 1983 “Terms of Endearment.”
In theory, two of the Best Actor nominees could be African-American: Daniel Kaluuya in “Get Out” and two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington in “Roman J.Israel Esq.”
