OVP: Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Film: Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Stars: Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, Kyra Sedgwick, Raymond J. Barry, Jerry Levine, Frank Whaley

Director: Oliver Stone

Oscar History: 8 nods/2 wins (Best Picture, Director*, Actor-Tom Cruise, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing*, Score, Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Tom Cruise: click here to learn more about Mr. Cruise (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Growing up, Tom Cruise was not an actor that my parents liked a lot.  While stars such as Harrison Ford or Sandra Bullock being in a picture was pretty much a blank check ticket situation to see their new film, Cruise's movies were oftentimes only ones we would seek out if they had a lot of buzz.  When I would ask about this (as you can imagine, young John was always talking about movies), a big part of the reason was "I don't think he's a very good actor" which to be fair was something that was a relatively commonplace topic during much of Cruise's career with the general public.  Cruise, because of his arresting good looks (for me, it's always been the hair-Tom Cruise has spectacular hair) and the types of movies he picks (action films, franchise pictures, and romantic melodramas) has usually been dismissed as a pretty boy or a commercial star only.  This is something we've actually seen throughout this year: Errol Flynn, Charles Bronson, & Arnold Schwarzenegger were all never nominated for Oscars, and it took Sean Connery until the second act of his career to win one.

But Cruise, Cruise at the height of his fame did not seem content with being a pretty boy.  His onscreen idol was not Errol Flynn or Sean Connery...it was always Paul Newman, and Paul Newman got to be in action films and be nominated repeatedly for Oscars.  Born on the Fourth of July was not Cruise's first clear play at an Academy Award nomination (he had starred alongside Newman in The Color of Money, and the year before starred in the Best Picture winner Rain Man), but in both cases it was his costar that won Best Actor.  Born on the Fourth of July was the first time that Cruise got nominated, and it's a fascinating film that both signaled where he was headed with his career for the next decade (regularly appearing in films that were Oscar-adjacent) and also an anomaly, given it was the rare really "actorly" role that Cruise would take in his career.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Ron Kovic (Cruise), the quintessential American young man who wrestles for his school, is in love with the prettiest girl at school (Kyra Sedgwick) and devotes his passion to God and Country (specifically the Republican Party).  When fighting breaks out in Vietnam, Ron is the first to enlist, and he goes to war...and promptly realizes how much patriotism relies upon the sacrifices of an average man.  He becomes paralyzed from the waist down, unable to have children or to ever walk again, something he initially refuses (to the point where he nearly loses his legs through obstinance), and then slowly works back to reality, though first having bouts of severe alcoholism & depression.  This leads him away from the Republican Party that sent him to war, and eventually he becomes a vocal supporter of the anti-war movement, nearly being trampled during the 1972 RNC while they nominate Nixon to a landslide victory.  The film ends with this low point being countered with a high point, Kovic's real life speech at the 1976 Democratic National Convention.

It's worth noting before we get into Cruise's work here that this film is directed by Oliver Stone.  In an era where directors like Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, & Robert Zemeckis made films that were only subtly political (though politics are there, especially in Spielberg's work), Stone's films of this era were known for their hyper-political atmosphere.  Films like Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, & Nixon (all very popular with Oscar and usually with audiences) questioned authority to the point of feeling conspiratorial (as a youth who read entertainment & celebrity magazines weekly, I believe I learned the phrase "conspiracy theory" from it being linked to Oliver Stone).  The film's anti-war politics feel a bit more routine today, given that we've had decades of film that have been comfortable questioning the honestly of the US government in foreign affairs, but in 1989 it's worth noting that having the quintessential American boy next door (Tom Cruise) spouting off leftist dialogue in a year where ardent pro-Vietnam congressman George HW Bush had become president is an interesting counter.

The film itself occasionally feels underwritten as a result of the politics, mostly because Stone's politics are so well-honed into the script, sometimes at the sacrifice of character.  I loved, for example, the way that we are introduced to Kovic as a bit weak-willed (he's not the best wrestler, he doesn't have the guts to take the girl he likes to the Prom), and then seeing that the world doesn't actually care about him when he gets back.  He fervently believed in American exceptionalism, and in giving himself as a sacrifice, but when he gets back, he learns as he matures into a true adult that his sacrifice meant little to the people he did it on behalf of (and much of that was just talk, not deed), and those who stayed behind profited in his absence, or worse yet, simply want him to go away.  The cruelty of his not being perfect is felt on his parents, who want their old son back...and hate their new one (the relationship between Ron & his mother is really well done because it's so uncomfortable).  But this also means that we rarely get to know much about the side characters (Sedgwick and Willem Dafoe feel pretty two-dimensional from actors we know can do more), and I wanted to understand more about what made this story specific than trying to make it feel universal to fit Stone's lecture to the viewer.

As for Cruise?  I liked him in this.  I think Cruise, at the time very willing to mess with his star persona, plays Ron as unlikable, oftentimes nauseatingly so, but it works for the character.  I think the way that he embraces the arrogance that comes with youth, knowing that those around you couldn't possibly be right because they've lived longer and seen more of the world (something we all go through as young adults eager to be seen as equals) is really well done.  I do wish he had had more scene partner work-there are times when it feels like he's trying to inhabit the whole screen in his scenes, needing us to KNOW the message he's trying to convey, sometimes swinging a bit from scene-to-scene without giving consistency is an issue (though more the writer's fault), but this is proof of something I already know (I disagree with my parents on this one): Tom Cruise, when he wants to be, is a fine actor.

OVP: Murphy's Romance (1985)

Film: Murphy's Romance (1985)

Stars: Sally Field, James Garner, Brian Kerwin, Corey Haim

Director: Martin Ritt

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actor-James Garner, Cinematography)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Sally Field: click here to learn more about Ms. Field (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Coming off of her second Oscar, Field felt a bit of the "Best Actress Curse" when it came to her career.  She continued to get lead roles, but not hits.  Both Punchline with Tom Hanks and Surrender with Michael Caine fell flat with critics, and her only mild success was Murphy's Romance, our film today, one that got her costar an Oscar nomination, not Field herself.  By the end of the decade, Field needed a win, and she got one in one of the most unlikely of places: an ensemble film starring a group of aging women.  In 1989, this wasn't a thing that happened very often (all-female ensembles were rare at the movies, and even rarer to be big hits), but Steel Magnolias was a runaway success.  In a year with Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ushering in a new era of blockbusters, Steel Magnolias made a very sizable $83 million, putting it in similar company to The Little Mermaid and When Harry Met Sally.  Field would not win an Oscar nomination for it (in fact, that would go to her costar Julia Roberts, who was about to usurp her crown as America's Sweetheart), but it was a much-needed hit for the actress.  As I have seen Steel Magnolias before, we won't review it today, but know that that was the movie that Field had been praying for in the late 1980's.

(Spoilers Ahead) Instead we'll talk Murphy's Romance, a movie about Emma Moriarty (Field), a divorced mother trying to make ends meet on an Arizona ranch where she raises & trains horses.  She's broke, and can't get a loan given her status as an unmarried woman, but also has moxie, which catches the admiration of the local pharmacist Murphy Jones (Garner).  The two strike up a relationship, one that might be romantic despite the age difference, but it's interrupted when Emma's ex-husband Bobby Jack (Kerwin) enters the picture.  This sets up a love triangle between the respectable-but-aging Murphy, and the age appropriate-but-irresponsible Bobby Jack, one that is ended when Bobby Jack's 18-year-old girlfriend shows up with his twin sons.  As he leaves, this allows Emma & Murphy to end up together before the credits roll.

I'm not against the concept of the May/December romance onscreen (I'm not a prudish Gen Z-er who thinks that women can never reach autonomy with a man older than them), so that isn't my problem here.  My problem is more with the way that the script is written.  Field's Emma is poorly drawn, as if she's changing her entire personality from scene-to-scene.  In some moments she's an adult who understands the compromises that come with life, and in the next scene she's acting like a petulant child, willing to throw away all of her gains for no reason.  She and Garner have chemistry, but her character is so inconsistent that it's hard to care.

The film won two Oscar nominations, one for the cinematography (occasionally fun & dusty, but too inconsistent, and it reads like Oscar wanted to go back to the many farm pictures it honored in 1984), and one for Best Actor.  James Garner is not noteworthy in this movie...he's honestly not even that good.  The nomination was the only one in his career, though, and it's hard not to think of this as a career nod for an aging actor who by all accounts was a pleasure to work with (most actors who worked with him spoke highly of him, including Field who called him the best onscreen kiss of her career), but come on-in 1985, there must've been better.

OVP: Absence of Malice (1981)

Film: Absence of Malice (1981)

Stars: Paul Newman, Sally Field, Bob Balaban, Melinda Dillon, Wilford Brimley

Director: Sydney Pollack

Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Actor-Paul Newman, Supporting Actress-Melinda Dillon, Original Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Sally Field: click here to learn more about Ms. Field (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

During the early 1980's, Sally Field became what she'd clearly always dreamed of becoming: a serious actress.  We talked last week about Norma Rae, the movie that launched her onto this platform, and won her her first Oscar, against actresses like Jane Fonda & Jill Clayburgh who were taken more seriously than the former Flying Nun.  Field kept the pedal-to-the-medal on trying to change her image in the coming years, appearing in commercial fare (Hooper, Smokey and the Bandit II), movies that upended her cutesy image like the hard-swearing Black Roads with Tommy Lee Jones, and more dramatic roles.  She would win a second Academy Award for her work in Places in the Heart in 1984, when she'd infamously utter the lines "right now...you like me!"...lines that would come to haunt her & in many ways underline the spunky actress she was trying to shed.  During this time, one of the dramatic films that she made was Absence of Malice, a serious film starring one of the biggest names of the era, and a guy who (unlike Field) was still in the hunt for his first Oscar: Paul Newman.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie follows newspaper reporter Megan Carter (Field), who is given a tip from Rosen (Balaban), who works in the US Attorney's office that they are investigating liquor wholesaler Michael Gallagher (Newman) for the disappearance of labor leader Joey Diaz (never seen, but if you can't tell they're making him seem like a Jimmy Hoffa-type figure during this time frame, you need to study your history more).  Carter publishes this based on a file on Rosen's desk, which was clearly planted for her to publish, but it upends Gallagher's life.  They don't actually have any evidence of the connection, but with the paper now saying "he's connected," he can't get out of it.  Gallagher is the son of a former crime boss, but is generally living a clean life...until Carter forces him to act dirty.  This comes to a head when Teresa Perrone (Dillon) provides an alibi for him-that he was taking her to a doctor to have an abortion.  But Perrone is devoutly Catholic, and when Carter's bosses insist they have to publish her name & that she had an abortion, Perrone kills herself.  This sets off a chain-of-events where Gallagher shows he learned something from his father, using a romantic relationship with Carter and implicit bribery of a US Attorney to get off...and to get their careers fried in the process.

Absence of Malice sounds better than it actually is when I describe it above.  It reads like an ambitious, greedy reporter wanting to make a name for herself, who sacrifices her soul and in the process has a man who had lived an honorable life go back to his criminal roots to punish her and those around her who destroyed the life of Teresa, the only truly innocent person in the picture.  That's not what it is though.  The writers desperately want us to care about the romantic relationship between Field & Newman, but you don't...because you realize that Megan is not a good person, even if she's played as bubbly & sweet in Field's hands.  The film could've ended on Megan admitting she was involved with Gallagher but knew nothing about him, but instead ends on a conversation between the two, potentially setting up a reconciliation.  But why?  They should hate each other, particularly him hate her...what's there, given so much of what came before was fake?

This hurts the performances.  Field is badly miscast here .  Field was in that "I can do anything" part of her career in 1981, but she is not right for this-you need an actress who can play fragile-but-brittle, and she is not a brittle performer (you kind of think someone like Susan Sarandon might've been better off with this part).  Newman is better, but again-this is a great character until the writers come in the way (you see hints of what might've been decades later when Newman would play a similar character in Road to Perdition), and you feel like you only get half a performance.  Melinda Dillon got her second-and-final Oscar nomination for her work here, and she does create a shadow over the film (her confession scene, where she tries to convince Megan not to publish that she had an abortion, knowing that she'll end up killing herself if she does but not having the guts to say it, is really well-done); again, though, much of the work in the back-half of the film takes air out of her performance by cheapening it.  Wilford Brimley, honestly, is pretty good in his one extended scene, giving the film some life, but at that point, it's too late-the script has already wrecked the promising premise.

OVP: Actor (1999)

OVP: Best Actor (1999)

The Nominees Were...

Russell Crowe, The Insider

Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story

Sean Penn, Sweet & Lowdown

Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

Denzel Washington, The Hurricane

My Thoughts: The Oscars are an unusual beast.  There are years where a lineup is considered "indisputably great," and others where it's definitely one that AMPAS phoned in...and then there are years like 1999 Best Actor where I honestly feel like your mileage may vary.  The big thing about this lineup is that it features a lot of really good actors.  Four of these men would eventually win Best Actor, only one never getting the trophy (though he had gotten a now-forgotten Supporting Actor nod in 1978), so they're generally considered to be "good" actors, but with maybe 1-2 exceptions, I'd argue none of these actors are giving all-time great performances.

Case in point, we have Denzel Washington, who was nearing the end of his "Denzel Washington should really have an Oscar" years with The Hurricane.  The movie is not good, in my opinion.  This is a paint-by-numbers biopic, a type that has gone out of fashion (now it's more the subject, not the movie star at the center, that is the big focus).  Washington is good (when is he not?), but it's not easy to elevate a movie this hokey, and I don't know that I can give him much credit beyond being good, as the movie isn't capable of a great performance, and is really just trying to acclimate to the cheesy plot and score.

Richard Farnsworth's nomination is so lovable it's hard to begrudge him his first nomination in 20 years, but I'll be real-like The Hurricane, The Straight Story is not a good movie.  It has some Lynchian touches (there's a cameo near the end of the picture by a Lynch staple), but it's generally just a nice Iowa senior citizen driving around in a tractor.  There's not enough beyond Farnsworth's expressive eyes here for me to grade.  Farnsworth is capable of solid acting (look at him in the Anne of Green Gables miniseries a few years before this), but this is just kind of blasé.

Sean Penn is hardly blasé (and a weird anomaly...Allen's films almost always got supporting nominations-other than Woody himself in Annie Hall, this is the only Lead Actor nomination he ever directed), but he might be a bit too committed to the bit in Sweet & Lowdown.  He's acting with ticks, at this point both trying desperately not to care about winning an Oscar, as well as clearly needing it to cement his legacy.  He'd thankfully win for a much better performance four years later...this is honestly one of those performances that end up nominated for a famous actor in the heat of their fame that no one remembers getting into the field after that moment has passed.

The same cannot be said for Russell Crowe's first nomination for The Insider.  Crowe was, like Penn a few years earlier, such an electric new screen presence that every performance felt like an event at this time.  He crafts maybe my favorite piece-of-work from him as an actor here.  He's transformational (this is not the sexy movie star Crowe would be in Gladiator), but his depth doesn't disappear behind the makeup.  There's a haunted quality to this man who keeps getting gutted as he tries to share the truth, and I think Crowe adds that well-the blend of honor, fear, and exhaustion you need to be this type of a whistleblower.

Which brings us to Kevin Spacey.  Spacey's performance in American Beauty is not the best of his career (that would be The Usual Suspects), but it's mesmerizing, and because of his offscreen troubles, undoubtedly the role he'll be most-remembered for at the movies.  I think what he brings to Lester that's really smart is an adolescent attitude.  Look at the fights he picks with his wife, the ones that feel so petty-he wants her to be his girlfriend again, or his mother...he doesn't care that she's become her own woman.  I think Mendes' film would've aged a little bit better if it was clear that Bening wasn't supposed to be the villain, but Spacey's performance is channeling that.  We understand that he is perpetually going to fail, that even in his final moments he's clinging to things that aren't real.  It's one of his better pieces-of-work, and one that makes American Beauty a great picture.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split between Comedy/Musical and Drama for their nominations, so we had 10 nominees to mention from the HFPA.  Drama went to Washington, besting Crowe, Farnsworth, Spacey, and Matt Damon (The Talented Mr. Ripley), while Comedy/Musical went to Jim Carrey (Man on the Moon) beating Oscar nominee Sean Penn, as well as Robert de Niro (Analyze This), Rupert Everett (An Ideal Husband), & Hugh Grant (Notting Hill).  SAG kind of got creative, giving the statue to Spacey against Crowe, Carrey, Washington, & Philip Seymour Hoffman (Flawless), while BAFTA also went with Spacey, besting Crowe, Jim Broadbent (Topsy-Turvy), Om Puri (East is East...which I've never seen-is it good?), and Ralph Fiennes (The End of the Affair).  In sixth place, I think you've got three options.  First is Damon, and my theory for sixth because it's that sweet spot of "out of character" and "prestige drama" (plus Oscar loves a killer).  I would also entertain Carrey, but if he wasn't going to get in for The Truman Show, do we really think this was happening?  And third is the precursor-less Tom Hanks for The Green Mile, who was largely counted out at the time because he'd been so well-rewarded, but the Best Picture nomination makes me think it was closer than you'd guess.  Hanks does have a weird history of being in films nominated for Best Supporting Actor where he missed; it's happened eight times (Apollo 13, The Green Mile, Catch Me If You Can, Road to Perdition, Charlie Wilson's War, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Captain Phillips, & Bridge of Spies) while only one of his Best Actor nominations (Forrest Gump) got a supporting player in-it's one or the other with Hanks.  The trend has continued in reverse in his supporting actor years (Hanks lands but Matthew Rhys doesn't for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Hanks misses but Austin Butler scores for Elvis).  A bit of Oscar trivia for you there.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Damon for sure-this is the best performance of his career, it's silly that he didn't get a nomination for his hypnotic Tom Ripley.

Oscar’s Choice: The Academy went with Spacey, probably more so over Crowe than over Washington despite what some will protest given Oscar doesn't like giving films Best Actor on their sole nomination.

My Choice: This is a good reminder that we always pick OVP winners in a vacuum.  Usually when I say that, I am referring to we're just picking based on the five performances in front of us (not the actor's larger body of work or considering they might already have a statue), but in this case we don't consider their off-screen behavior.  Given what we now know about Kevin Spacey, I morally couldn't have voted for him in a real world example, and would've instead picked my second place choice Crowe, but for the record I think Spacey is the best performance of the five, and we're giving him the OVP title.  Washington, Farnsworth, and then Penn follow them (in order).

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does everyone think (based solely on performance) that the finest of these five is Kevin Spacey, and if not-who is?  Is Denzel Washington the last time we'll see a real push for "they have to have a win in lead" working as an Oscar momentum situation?  And was it Hanks, Carrey, or Damon in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 1999: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously, in 1999

Past Best Actor Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

OVP: Actor (2023)

OVP: Best Actor (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Bradley Cooper, Maestro

Colman Domingo, Rustin

Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers

Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

My Thoughts: We are now moving into the Best Actor race, and similar to Best Supporting Actress, I'll own right now that this is not a field I was super impressed by.  The actual actors in this field are kind of exciting.  We have three first-time nominees, all longtime character actors who were finally getting their due...that's always worth celebrating.  But the performances themselves (save one) are none of these actors' best.  This is what happens when you rely too heavily on biopics (three of the five), where impressions of the actors are so an ingrained part of how we judge these actors that they get surrounded by movies that can't support their work.

This is the case with Colman Domingo, who was cited for playing civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.  Netflix has sort of become the place to churn out paint-by-number biopics that get you a nomination just for wearing the right makeup & being in the right spot in your career to get the Academy's attention.  But the movies they churn out are bad, and this is not a good film.  That's not how you should judge a performance, of course, but any touches that Domingo is adding here (and I'll be real-I'm a fan, but there's very little happening here that feels beyond two-dimensional, both in the film and the performance) are drowned out by how hopelessly generic the approach is.  It's all bon mots and monologues, and not in a good way.

The same can be said for Bradley Cooper in Maestro.  It's clear (in another Netflix biopic, I might add) that this is the vehicle Cooper thought would land him an Academy Award, and he does all of the aging, mincing, & unnecessary backstory (that "years of composing lessons" story really did not help your case here, Bradley) that you'd expect from a Best Actor win for playing a gay man.  But it's all mimicry and no understanding.  We spend so much of this film focusing on his relationship with his wife, we don't really understand anything about Bernstein himself, which is crucial for the "any questions" glibness of the ending.  Cooper, like Domingo, is a good actor, but this is the first time the Oscars nominated him for a bad performance.  Honestly, given he's capable of more, I'm glad he didn't win here.

Instead it was in the third biopic where we found our winner.  Cillian Murphy is the best of the three biopic performances, as he gives more of Oppenheimer than the Netflix dramas ever could (because there's more style to his film).  I love the internalized conversation he seems to always be having on his face, the way that he won't share his thoughts with the world, but he is clearly giving them to himself over-and-over again.  I don't care about the film's politics when it comes to judging his acting, and I do think the movie does a good job of projecting a perspective on Oppenheimer even if it's not the real-life version of him.  I do wish I knew more about his romantic relationships by the end of this given that it's so crucial to the story (whom did he really love?), but Murphy nails Oppenheimer's relationship to his own creation.

Paul Giamatti's gotten a lot of flack on this blog through the years (I think of him generally as an over-actor, and he's not my cup of tea).  So color me delighted that this is the first time I've really enjoyed him onscreen since Sideways.  The script cheats him out of a great moment at the end where his character really connects with the film's arc (mostly because Payne's script doesn't really give him a full arc), but that's a small complaint when we get a lot of rich detailing prior to it.  We understand why he has devoted his life to teaching, how he has spent so much of his existence walled into his own ideas, afraid of experiencing a world that might contradict them (or, worse yet, make them murky).  This is good stuff-I want more material like this for him in the future.

Our final nomination is for Jeffrey Wright, no longer a go-to-answer for "greatest working actor without an Oscar nomination" (that would be...Carrie Coon now, maybe Sarah Paulson?).  Like Giamatti, he's playing a fictional character, and that helps because we get a lot of layers to his Monk Ellison.  I think the film overall struggles with some balance issues (the literary satire is so good that the counterweight of the family drama takes a backseat), but you don't get that in Wright's work.  He plays Monk as a very imperfect flesh-and-blood man, one who has never quite fit in (both in his life, and in his family).  He doesn't have what it takes to sell every aspect of the over-complicated ending, but that's a small quibble (and really more a task for the writers).

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split between Comedy/Musical and Drama for their nominations, so we had 12 names in total from the...anyone know what they call this voting body now that it's no longer the HFPA?  Drama went to Murphy over Cooper, Domingo, Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon), Barry Keoghan (Saltburn), & Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers), while Giamatti won Comedy/Musical against Wright, Nicolas Cage (Dream Scenario), Timothee Chalamet (Wonka), Matt Damon (Air), & Joaquin Phoenix (Beau is Afraid).  The SAG Awards were a verbatim copy of Oscar (winner & nominees), while BAFTA went with Murphy atop Cooper, Domingo, Giamatti, Keoghan, & Teo Yoo (Past Lives).  In sixth place, the smart money would be on Leo (he was the only one of the three campaigned actors in his film to miss in a big Best Picture), but I do think Andrew Scott was closer than him.  Leo's been in this situation a few times now (J. Edgar, Don't Look Now) where he does well all season but Oscar isn't interested, and Scott had a lot of passion at the close.  I think he was next up.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Andrew Scott gave the best performance onscreen I've seen in at least five years.  That he was clearly so close to an Oscar nomination and the Academy chose not to honor him...shame, shame, shame.

Oscar’s Choice: The season started out with it being a horserace between Murphy & Giamatti, but once Murphy took the SAG Award, all intrigue was gone, and Oscar completed the Oppenheimer sweep.

My Choice: I'm going to be contrarian here and pick Wright (I have yet to see someone echo this sentiment in my Twitter followers).  I think he adds the more perspective to his film than his chief competition, and also has the trickiest part to balance.  Behind him (in order) is Giamatti, Murphy, Cooper, and then Domingo.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you all-in for the billion-dollar success of Cillian Murphy, or would you like to dare-to-be-different by sticking with Jeffrey Wright & I?  Is everyone else as sick-to-death of these hopelessly disposable Netflix biopics as I am?  And how badly is that Andrew Scott miss going to age in the coming years?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2023: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Actor Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Actor (1931-32)

OVP: Best Actor (1931-32)

The Nominees Were...

Wallace Beery, The Champ

Alfred Lunt, The Guardsman

Fredric March, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

My Thoughts: We are moving next into the Best Actor field, which in 1931-32 was a bit different than what we'd expect today for said field.  For starters, there were no supporting performances nominated in their own category.  This didn't always mean, though, that there were no supporting performances in general.  Oftentimes, we'd see performances (such as Franchot Tone in Mutiny on the Bounty) that would've been supporting in a normal year still get into lead.  In fact, Tone's nomination against his costars Clark Gable & Charles Laughton in much bigger roles, became one of the principle reasons that Oscar created the supporting categories.  But for this field, we've got three actors very much taking the lead...and in a first-and-only case for this category, more than one of them won the category.

We'll start with the guy that didn't win, Alfred Lunt.  Lunt was a major star on the boards, eventually having a Broadway theater named after he and his wife Lynn Fontanne.  They rarely worked together on screen, and after seeing The Guardsman, I kind of get why.  The two do not modulate well (at all) to the movies, playing to the back of the rafters, and it's too hammy.  Lunt plays dual roles, but only an idiot would ever be convinced they aren't the same person, to the point where you spend much of the movie wondering why the character's marriage works.  It's a total waste, and the only good thing about this nomination is that it provides a decent amount of trivia given how strange a married couple getting nominated for the same film is.

The other two films are better, and Fredric March is a good reminder as to how someone can be theatrical and still marvelous onscreen.  His work as both the kindly Dr. Jekyll and the notorious Mr. Hyde are fantastic.  I love the ways that he plays them so differently, when notes of each character play in the other, it feels like it's almost the character breaking through, and not just because it's the same actor playing the part.  Kudos have to go to the terrific makeup & visual effects teams responsible here, but it wouldn't work if you weren't properly terrified of March on the big screen.

Wallace Beery is our final nominee.  Beery's work in The Champ is widely celebrated now, perhaps more so than even fellow winner March, because it's such a textbook example of a father-and-son sports movie.  I will own that I think Jackie Cooper is actually better in this movie than Beery is (I think he lands some of the bigger moments at the end, and unlike Beery, he doesn't have a clear back story that we're skipping over & making the film feel thinner), but this is a fine, if two-dimensional look at the way our crushed dreams never truly leave us.

Other Precursor Contenders: I think if we are looking for the fourth place here, it's going to be one of two people.  The first would be Jackie Cooper, who had to have just missed for his child star turn in The Champ...I wonder if a year after he was nominated for Skippy if the Academy didn't think it was appropriate to nominate a child actor for back-to-back statues.  The other option would be Ronald Colman, whose staid work in Arrowsmith isn't nearly as good as Cooper's, but given his decent run at the Oscars (four nominations and one statue in total), he was probably on their radar.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Lionel and Ethel Barrymore both won Oscars at some point in their careers, but their brother John (the tragic Barrymore sibling) never got nominated, and it's a damned shame as he was one of the most consistent presences in early sound film.  Surely there was room for him for Grand Hotel?

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar's choice was Fredric March, but thanks to a strange anomaly in the Oscar bylaws which resulted in a tie if you were separated by three or less votes (this would be changed afterward), Wallace Beery was also honored for Best Actor having lost by only one vote to March, so both of them won the statue.

My Choice: First off, if I get only one year to give out a tie for Best Actor, it's going to go to something like 1962 or 1974, not this year, which I'll happily hand to March.  Beery follows, then Lunt...which is the first time I can say with absolute certainty that Oscar & I matched exactly.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  What do you think of Oscar's tie rule-do you wish they'd bring it back (and invite more ties)?  Am I alone in thinking that Alfred Lunt is not strong in The Guardsman?  And between Cooper & Colman, who do you think just missed this lineup?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 1931-32: Adapted Screenplay, Original Story, Art Direction, Cinematography, Previously in 1931-32

Past Best Actor Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Actor (2000)

OVP: Best Actor (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls

Russell Crowe, Gladiator

Tom Hanks, Cast Away

Ed Harris, Pollock

Geoffrey Rush, Quills

My Thoughts: All right, let's move into the lead actors, and a reminder of how I miss the era of the 5-wide Best Picture nominees sometimes.  In 2000, if you can believe it, only one of the Best Actor nominees (usually the category with the most correlation with Best Picture) was from one of the top films of the night.  This isn't to say that there weren't films that would've made it in a ten-wide field.  In a ten-wide field Cast Away for sure and maybe Quills is going to get into the top race, making this feel more generic than it seems, but in 2000 it was only one man, getting his second of three back-to-back nominations from the Academy (his only three nominations to date, bizarrely enough).

That man is Russell Crowe, who gets to be one of the final vessels for me to complain about Ridley Scott's Gladiator.  It's not that Crowe is necessarily bad here.  He gives, for my money, the best performance in Gladiator, and finds some humanity in a characterization that easily could've been a bland, Mel Gibson-style performance.  There's just not enough of it.  I needed more swagger...it might've helped if Crowe had had a little more chemistry with Nielsen (or hell, Phoenix), but for someone who was billed as a sex symbol at the time, the film is not interested in capitalizing on that.  It's also just not written to be a great performance-Crowe would need more swagger as an actor to make this jump off-the-screen in a bigger way, and that's not how he's playing it.

Quills is a film that is very much written to be sexy, but it's not, and not because Rush is not generally considered a sex symbol in the way that Crowe is (though Rush does have more sexual chemistry with Joaquin Phoenix than Crowe does in his movie!).  This is the least of Rush's Oscar-nominated work, and it's a performance that indulges many of his worst traits as an actor.  Rush is not a subtle performer, and pretending he is always gets you into trouble (his best performance is in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, which uses that overacting to its advantage).  That's a problem in the messy back-half of Quills, where he takes an already "too much" character and turns him up to eleven, which is a bad counter to some of the more grounded work Kate Winslet is doing here.

Ed Harris is also at-odds with his work in Pollock, though it's not always his fault as an actor.  Harris (as director) is pulling double duty, and in the process he feels like he's pulling away from the character onscreen.  Pollock writes Jackson as being full of misery, and only focuses on that misery.  This makes the film feel like half a picture, and the characterization as half a performance-we're meant to understand that Jackson has at least some draw beyond just his art (that people are fascinated by him), but it doesn't come across in Harris's work (in many ways, this is how I felt about Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, another actor, like Harris, I generally enjoy but was in the minority on one of their most lauded performances).

Speaking of actors I run hot-and-cold on, let's get to Javier Bardem.  I do not generally enjoy the films of Julian Schnabel, whose films feel like they're stuck in a kaleidoscope (and not in as pleasant of a way as that sounds, as generally that'd be my thing).  Bardem's work here is surprisingly nuanced.  Like Rush, he's someone that frequently overacts, but as a dying gay poet, a role filled with indulgences, he is far more naturalistic than you'd expect.  I just wish the movie was able to anchor around that work a bit more, finding a way to steady itself so they felt more in sync.

Tom Hanks in 2000 was at the top of his game, and it would be so weird to think that he'd soon be entering his "Oscar wilderness phase."  This is particularly true because Oscar would pick such a fine piece-of-work to go out on until he became Mr. Rogers.  Cast Away has been parodied quite a bit in the years since Hanks made it a genuine blockbuster (the film is, after all, a movie about a man obsessed with a volleyball), but that doesn't take away from his achievement here.  The work he does, oftentimes having to have chemistry with an inanimate object, and giving us a hopeful, human story is really splendid work.  For an actor that I think is thought of more as a "movie star" than a thespian, there are scenes here that number amongst the best of his career (particularly the "Wilson goodbye").

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  The Drama statue went to Hanks, atop Bardem, Crowe, Rush, & Michael Douglas (Wonder Boys) while Comedy/Musical went to George Clooney (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), besting Jim Carrey (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), John Cusack (High Fidelity), Robert de Niro (Meet the Parents), & Mel Gibson (What Women Want)...side note, but don't you miss the era where they would only have proper comedies in this category & we'd get five names that weren't in contention at the Oscars?  SAG gave their statue to Benicio del Toro for Traffic (I believe this was a mistake in filing for the wrong category that showed just how unstoppable del Toro was for Supporting Actor), against Crowe, Hanks, Rush, & Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot), while BAFTA favored Bell against Rush, Douglas, Crowe, & Hanks.  At the time, most assumed Michael Douglas would get in for the spot that went to Harris, and that's probably the case even if Bell makes more sense based on how we think about the Oscars as a game of math today (an article for another day, but I do think that that over-prognostication of awards season may have inadvertently ruined awards season), given that the Academy has never been kind to nominating young male actors for lead acting roles.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I don't generally nominate young actors either (I do think there's something to be said for them being a product of strong direction), but there's no way I'd miss Bell here, particularly knowing what a fine actor he'd grow up to be.  His work in Billy Elliot is aces, and adds so much to a film that could've been an otherwise disposable coming-of-age picture.

Oscar’s Choice: Crowe's win at the time was something of a surprise (Hanks was expected to win his third statue even with Crowe's name in the game, and a lot of heat for Ed Harris), and would unknowingly make Denzel Washington's win the following year possible.

My Choice: It's easily Hanks, who is the only person in this lineup giving a truly Oscar-worthy performance.  I debated between Bardem & Harris for second, and while I had Harris in that position when I started this article, I've talked myself into giving it to Bardem, whose work is subtler and better for his picture.  Crowe is in fourth, and I'll leave Rush in last place.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you think Oscar got it right with the Gladiator, or will you be stuck at sea with Tom & I?  What do you think Ed Harris's, a four-times nominated actor who likely will never win, best performance is?  And was it Jamie Bell or Michael Douglas in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2000: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Actor Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Actor (2001)

OVP: Best Actor (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind

Sean Penn, I Am Sam

Will Smith, Ali

Denzel Washington, Training Day

Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom

My Thoughts: Outside factors oftentimes come into play when you talk about the Oscars.  As much as it shouldn't be, it is rarely just about the performance; instead, it is oftentimes about the politics.  For those who didn't live through it, Russell Crowe in 2001 was a whirlwind of a celebrity.  After Gladiator, he was an incredibly bankable name in Hollywood, and A Beautiful Mind clearing $300 million at the worldwide box office cemented that.  He was also persona non grata in the tabloids.  He had broken up the marriage of America's Sweetheart Meg Ryan on the set of Proof of Life, and was known as something of a bad boy offscreen, including getting into a fight at that year's BAFTA Awards, with producer Malcolm Gerrie after Gerrie cut off Crowe's speech.  All of this is to say-in 2001, the only thing that people were focusing on talking about this category was the personal life of Crowe, then one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, and whether that would hurt him in getting a second consecutive Oscar.

Crowe's performance, it should be noted, is definitely worthy of an Oscar (or at least a nomination).  Of all of the elements of A Beautiful Mind, he's the best (after the score), and delivers as John Nash.  This is not a Forrest Gump situation, where he is playing a man with mental health issues as comedic or a punchline.  Instead, he's played as someone wrestling with his own personal demons.  Most actors would've felt the need to skip some of the charisma & sexuality of the leading man (Crowe at this point of his career was, indeed, quite sexy & charming when he wanted to be), but that isn't stolen from Nash-instead it serves as a cover for why so many people struggled to see what he was compensating for underneath.  Crowe was on a role in 2001, and this is fine stuff.

His chief competition for the Oscar was Denzel Washington, who at this point it'd become something of a common refrain of "when is he going to win Best Actor?" (Julia Roberts spent months personally campaigning for him in a way that apparently is only a problem if you're cheering on Andrea Riseborough).  Washington is sensational in Training Day, giving us a charismatic villain that you almost find yourself rooting for despite him being increasingly violent the further you get into the movie.  Training Day isn't a great movie, but it's a good movie with a great performance, which used to be called a "star vehicle" and that's what happens here-Washington nails the lived-in pathology of a unique character, and definitely came to play against Crowe.

None of the other actors were really in the hunt for a nomination in 2001.  Will Smith was just starting what would be his own quest for a statue with Ali.  Smith, like Crowe, was a new A-list star in 2001 after a bunch of action blockbusters, and his nomination for Ali was a "welcome to the club" moment.  Unfortunately, it's not very good acting.  Smith looks the part (he is, as Ali might say "so pretty"), but doesn't give the role enough depth.  Ali was still alive in 2001, which is always a dangerous place to come from with a biopic, and that might be why we aren't seeing some of the downsides of Ali's personal journey, just the road blocks in his way.  This means Smith doesn't get to play with the most compelling aspects of the role, and we get a limited performance.

If Smith was being welcomed to the club, in 2001 Sean Penn was getting another down payment on his inevitable Oscar.  Unlike Crowe's Nash, Penn's role in I Am Sam is played for laughs, and is insensitive (to the point it would become a running joke in the movie Tropic Thunder seven years later).  It was criticized at the time (though not crucified the way Penn would be today), but even putting aside the inappropriateness of how Penn handles this role, it also isn't a good performance.  It's over-the-top, poorly-modulated, and inconsistent.  I wish Oscar had just skipped this entirely...it wasn't like we weren't aware Sean Penn needed an Oscar by 2001 without them nominating him for I Am Sam.

Our final nominee is Tom Wilkinson, getting the one "he's a character actor we'll nominate once" citation (though Wilkinson would go on to a second nomination six years later for Michael Clayton, proving that adage wrong).  Wilkinson is so good here though.  Sissy Spacek gets to play maternal grief, but he gets an even more difficult role-playing the father who encouraged his son, wanting to live vicariously through him as he pursued a woman that would've been out of his league.  The ending, where he has to come to terms with his own actions, and what it will be like after (spoiler alert!) his son has died & he will forever feel the pull of how his encouragement might've led to it is heartbreaking, and gives us a fulfilling, ambiguous close to the movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  The Drama statue went to Crowe, beating Smith, Washington, Kevin Spacey (The Shipping News), & Billy Bob Thornton (The Man Who Wasn't There), while Comedy/Musical went to Gene Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums) against Hugh Jackman (Kate & Leopold), Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), & Billy Bob Thornton (Bandits).  SAG went to Crowe as well, beating Penn, Washington, Wilkinson, & Kevin Kline (Life as a House), and BAFTA (as already mentioned) went with Crowe as well, here atop Wilkinson, Spacey, and two actors who were cited for supporting with Oscar: Jim Broadbent (Iris) and Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring).  In sixth place, I think it was probably Gene Hackman.  I want to say there was some slight confusion over category placement for him at the time (I can't find evidence of this online, but it is in my head which means I don't think it's entirely made up), which may have hurt him, but this was considered a bit of a comeback for the actor and could've been the spot Penn got.  Kevin Spacey or Kevin Kline both had heat as well headed into the Oscars, but their films got totally ignored by AMPAS so I'll guess Hackman.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Sexy men and male leads in musicals both struggle when it comes to the Oscars, but given he was the lead in a Best Picture nominee and also given he has never been close to a nomination in the years since, Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge! was such a missed opportunity to come in instead of Sean Penn.

Oscar’s Choice: Had it not been for the Meg Ryan affair or the fight at the BAFTA Awards, I think Russell Crowe takes this-it was that close, and it was that big of a deal at the time.  But with those in place, Washington barely won his Best Actor Oscar.  It's worth noting Washington would be cited four more times to date after this, while Crowe has never been invited back to the Oscars.

My Choice: I'm going to split the difference and go with Tom Wilkinson, who gives the most well-paced performance of the three, and also gets the biggest payoff in the end.  Behind him (in order) would be Washington, Crowe, Smith, & Penn.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does King Kong have nothing on you & Denzel, or do you want to go for a car ride with Tom Wilkinson & I?  Do you also think that Russell Crowe's offscreen behavior cost him a second Oscar?  And was it Hackman, Spacey, or Kline that nearly knocked out Sean Penn?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2001: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

Past Best Actor Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022