2025 Oscar Viewing Project

Just in time for Oscar next weekend, I have officially seen all of the Oscar Viewing Project contenders for 2025!  For the second year in a row, I've done this before the ceremony, which feels very in-theme for how we operate.  For those that are new, the Oscar Viewing Project has me watching every single narrative, feature-length nominee at the Academy Awards (i.e. no shorts or documentaries, unless they're in the traditionally feature-length, narrative categories), and rating them in a vacuum, picking my choices based on whom Oscar selected based solely on the quality of the 3-5 nominees in front of me.  If you are truly new, this is the 32nd of the 98 Oscar ceremonies we've done this for, and you can see links at the bottom of this list for past contests.  For the first time since 2001, we have a new category that will be added, and it will be covered (Casting), and I will also be adding it to the My Ballots going forward (though not retroactively).  I have a few more screenings left to finish up the 2025 My Ballot (where I pick the nominees), including one specific animated film that's been annoyingly hard to get ahold of, but in the meantime, we will sort through Oscar.  As a reminder, here was where the domestic box office ranked in 2025:

1. Zootopia 2

2. A Minecraft Movie

3. Lilo & Stitch

4. Avatar: Fire and Ash

5. Superman

6. Wicked: For Good

7. Jurassic World: Rebirth

8. Sinners

9. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

10. How to Train Your Dragon

(Note: I will point out this is the current lineup as of the last writing.  Avatar: Fire and Ash, specifically, is still making relatively decent domestic money, though likely not enough to outearn Lilo & Stitch and move onto the medal stand)

Of these 10 films, I've seen eight of them, skipping both of the live-action animated remakes because, as a general rule, I think these are terrible.  I think it's notable, looking at this, how we have at least one truly original movie (Sinners becoming the highest-grossing totally original story since Gravity), and that the MCU truly just fell from grace here, with Thunderbolts not even crossing the $200M mark domestically and Captain America: Brave New World making $700M less than the last Captain America movie did at the box office (and only Fantastic Four making the Top 10).  Looking down the box office list, most of the unseen movies that I haven't caught yet are horror movie sequels, though The Housemaid stands out as maybe the movie I should've caught and might try to sneak in before the My Ballot (I will definitely be seeing How to Train Your Dragon given so many people loved the visual effects).

But now, it's time to go back just a few months to a time we all were getting a crush on Zohran Mamdani, watching Taylor & Travis get engaged, and seeing the first American pope.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. The Secret Agent

4. Sinners

5. Sentimental Value

6. Train Dreams

7. F1

8. Bugonia

9. Marty Supreme

10. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: This is a solid list in what was honestly a very good year for movies, maybe the best since 2021 or even 2017.  But there's no competition for Paul Thomas Anderson here-One Battle After Another is a profound, challenging picture with universally good acting and writing.  Hamnet is really special in second place, proving that Chloe Zhao is emerging as one of our most thoughtful and introspective directors, and I have a sincere enjoyment of the craftsmanship of something like The Secret Agent or Sinners, but One Battle is on another level, and as you'll see, is going to be batting really well this write-up.

Director

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

2. Chloe Zhao (Hamnet)

3. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

4. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

5. Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: A second showdown between Anderson & Zhao (both of whom are going to repeat when we get to the 2025 My Ballot), but I won't pretend this is a close race.  I've actually been much kinder to PTA than Oscar has (his films have plenty of My Ballot statues), but I'm glad on some level that Oscar waited for (what I hope) will be a coronation here as this will become the defining work of his career.  Also, I want to say for the record that Josh Safdie's personal troubles are not why he's in last...I just really did not like his movie.

Actor

1. Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

2. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

3. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

4. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

5. Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: Best Actor remains the best lineup of the 2025 acting races, and I will own that none of these (not even Timmy in a movie I didn't like) is a bad performance.  In terms of a win, though, Leo's best work in years is really going to take it over Michael B. Jordan adding nuance to two different characters and Wagner Moura's steady, marked performance in The Secret Agent.  Leo's so good here-a man that even in his prime was over-his-head but in love with ideals and a woman who wouldn't stay, having to reengage with life to save the only thing he truly cares about...this is the kind of star power electricity that Leo promised when he was in his Chalamet years.

Actress

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

2. Emma Stone (Bugonia)

3. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

4. Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)

5. Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

The Lowdown: I will largely skate by the elephant in the room (I love Rose Byrne, I love Kate Hudson, but these performances are not ranked incorrectly...do with that what you will), and instead focus on the real competition: Jessie Buckley's spiritual work as a mother trying to connect with a man she loves but can't understand and a boy she knows but cannot grasp, and Emma Stone's terrifying girlboss incarnate, totally grasping on to Bugonia's bizarre (and oftentimes off-kilter) wavelength.  I'm going with Buckley because I think she is able to connect more to the ending than Stone.

Supporting Actor

1. Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

2. Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

3. Stellan Skarsgard (Sentimental Value)

4. Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

5. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

The Lowdown: I like #3-5 in other things (truth be told, there is no acting performance of the 20 that I truly disliked even if there are movies that were cited that I disliked, which is rare), but for me it's a competition between the two Oscar-winning acting titans in One Battle After Another.  I'm going with Penn not because he's the bigger performance, but because I think that big performances sometimes get a bad rap in modern acting (del Toro is certainly subtle), but you need them when you're playing a big character like he is, and he totally inhabits a unique type of weak toxicity that's rarely seen represented in the movies (but oftentimes on cable news).

Supporting Actress

1. Amy Madigan (Weapons)

2. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

3. Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)

4. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

5. Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas (Sentimental Value)

The Lowdown: Madigan gives one of the most unhinged supporting performances in recent years, channeling in many ways actors like Kathy Bates in Misery or Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby to give us something truly terrifying (and speaking of Trump, if you think the red-haired clown terrorizing a group of children isn't an allegory for the guy that has plagued the Epstein list, watch again).  Taylor would be a really worthy winner too, and I love the imprint she made on this movie with only time in the first 40 minutes or so, but this is Madigan by the widest margin of the acting races.

Adapted Screenplay

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. Train Dreams

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: One Battle is not done with its wins yet, and takes another one for PTA.  One Battle is honestly one of the rare one of Anderson's films that is more of a director's achievement than a writing or acting one, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the oomph to best Hamnet, which is also a wonderful and deceptively strong screenplay (the way that it folds ideas of Shakespeare into the film, while also feeling vaguely universal).  The rest of this category I'd probably upend, and will when we get to the My Ballot.

Original Screenplay

1. Sinners

2. Sentimental Value

3. Blue Moon

4. It Was Just an Accident

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I'll be honest, the writing categories are where a relatively decent Best Picture lineup (like I said, 2025 is one of the best years for movies so far this decade) shows some chinks in the armor, as you have films like Marty Supreme & Bugonia where I actively disliked the endings and felt they took down chunks of the movie.  There is a touch of that with Sinners, so I will note that it is just barely beating out Sentimental Value (which nails its ending), but the inventive plotting and the way that it unfolds a closed door horror so well means I'm going to slightly favor the vampires over the Swedish introspection.

Animated Feature Film

1. Elio

2. Little Amelie, or the Character of Rain

3. Zootopia 2

4. Arco

5. KPop Demon Hunters

The Lowdown: In what was otherwise a strong year for cinema, I'll own that animation was terrible.  It's not even a case where we have a bunch of better films sitting around-KPop is good when the music is playing and Zootopia is good if you don't constantly compare it to the original and Arco is good if you pretend the melancholy ending was at all earned by the rest of the picture...but overall this is not an impressive list.  If I have to pick a winner, it'd be Elio, a somewhat forgettable Pixar movie that nonetheless has gorgeous animation, beautiful music, and some really strong emotional plotting, but would stand out more if Pixar hadn't been using the same plot for every non-Toy Story film since Cars 3).

International Feature Film

1. The Secret Agent (Brazil)

2. Sentimental Value (Norway)

3. It Was Just an Accident (France)

4. Sirat (Spain)

5. The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

The Lowdown: The movies of this category used to, on very rare occasion, get nominations in other fields, but this year we have four of them nominated elsewhere and two nominated for Best Picture.  Even with this category, the Academy is becoming entirely focused on the Best Picture field.  Thankfully that's where this should be, as those are the two best movies of the bunch, with weirdly similar plots (both movies are essentially about how you can never know your parents).  I prefer The Secret Agent, a subtler movie with a more sprawling historical look behind it (and the better central performance), but honestly either one here is a winner.

Score

1. Hamnet

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: I am a total sucker for Max Richter, whose soft melodies and gorgeous, romantic use of strings and swelling orchestras is a callback to the man I frequently confuse him with (Max Steiner).  Hamnet earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and I struggle to find a reason not to give him this (the OVP is in a vacuum, as a reminder, so I'm not trying to make up for lost time-just noting that Richter has gotten multiple My Ballot nods at this point, and will get another one in 2025 from me when we get there later this month).  One Battle After Another, by another favorite of mine (Jonny Greenwood) is really aces as well, even if it isn't quite as distinctive as we're used to from Greenwood's collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson.

Original Song

1. "I Lied to You," Sinners

2. "Golden," KPop Demon Hunters

3. "Sweet Dreams of Joy," Viva Verdi!

4. "Train Dreams," Train Dreams

5. "Dear Me," Diane Warren: Relentless

The Lowdown: I sometimes struggle with how to grade this category, because I do feel that it should not just be about the quality of the song, but also about how it is incorporated into the movie.  "Golden" is an ear worm that I have not stopped listening to since it came out (there's a reason this became a genuine pop hit), but the "I Lied to You" sequence in Sinners is easily one of the best scenes of the year, and in my opinion deserves this statue even if "Golden" might be a better piece of music outside the realm of the movie.  Of the three also-rans (i.e. the songs you don't know), "Sweet Dreams of Joy" is much better than you'd expect, and sadly "Dear Me" is exactly what you'd expect (we really should've just given Diane Warren that Oscar for Burlesque and none of this would've happened).

Sound

1. F1

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. Sirat

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: After watching Sirat, I realized why this was nominated (the sound work is on full-display throughout, and honestly is a supporting actor in how prominent it is), though unlike The Zone of Interest, I wasn't as impressed, and felt it bordered the line between best and most that sometimes tech categories can't distinguish.  I was far more impressed with F1 and Sinners, the former a sea of zooming cars & "you're practically there" race scenes, the latter a wonderfully constructed semi-musical.  I'm going to go with F1, a movie I think did both mixing & effects well (I'm old-school), but either would make a good winner.

Casting

1. Hamnet

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. The Secret Agent

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: The first year of this category, I also kind of need to set my own parameters of how I'm going to grade this, as (like editing) you don't entirely know what was left in the cutting process.  For me, I think it comes down to how well the cast works together, how ingenious/inventive the casting process is (particularly if an actor isn't an obvious choice), and whether there are any clear standout good/bad casting decisions that elevate/demote it.  For me, I have Hamnet over the next two-I don't think there's a bad choice in the casts here, which is saying something as there usually is, but Hamnet had the stunt casting of two actual brothers to underline one character and the character he inspired, and that on top of Mescal & Buckley being perfect for their parts puts it in the lead.

Cinematography

1. Train Dreams

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: Sinners has, for my money, some of the best cinematography of the year.  The Golden Hour shots are honestly breathtaking, but the night scenes suffer (by my personal tastes), with them trying to patch over some of the gaps in the visual effects (I liked the makeup, but the visual effects were more hit-or-miss for me), by making the screen too dark to see properly make it hard to judge overall as a success.  As a result, I am all in on the beautiful Train Dreams, a gorgeous Lubezki-esque take on the passage of time with a camera.  In a year where, in general, Cinematography was lacking (this is somehow going to be the weakest of my My Ballot lists in a few weeks), this is the one film that really embraced looking like a movie you'll remember forever.

Costume Design

1. Sinners

2. Hamnet

3. Marty Supreme

4. Avatar: Fire & Ash

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: It's possible I totally upend this entire list (looking like the only category I'll do that with), but for me it's all about the outfits specifically worn by Michael B. Jordan & Michael B. Jordan in the film.  Part of Sinners ability to inspire is that you kind of need to be horny for the dual MBJ's (this is a very sexy movie, with an early sex scene and Jack O'Connell clearly meant to be both figuratively and literally carnal), and the gorgeous teal-and-red combo that Ruth E. Carter brings here is better than the peasant period fare in Hamnet or the out-of-this-world third spin on Avatar (the craziest nomination of 2025).  I will note that the Mia Goth peacock outfit in this photo is so good it makes me forget that I was largely uninspired by the rest of Frankenstein.

Film Editing

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. F1

4. Sentimental Value

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I mean, sometimes this category gets something a bit out-of-the-box (F1 was probably further along here than in the Best Picture race), but there are days I think "Oscar didn't try to think beyond his five favorite movies in the editing branch...should I even bother?"  I will note that One Battle After Another's win here comes from the way it unfolds tension-the bank robbery scenes, the harrowing conversation late in the film between Sean Penn & Chase Infiniti...it's something to behold.  Sinners might have had a better shot if it had had more consistent cinematography lighting, as well as had the good sense to cut that post-credits ending which feels nonsensical and totally unnecessary (but the building tension there is something else).

Makeup & Hairstyling

1. Kokuho

2. Sinners

3. Frankenstein

4. The Smashing Machine

5. The Ugly Stepsister

The Lowdown: Oscar has historically struggled with horror in his category even though it is very much the bread-and-butter of the genre, so it's weird to see a lineup where the majority of the nominees come from that world.  I am not so apathetic (I nominate horror more regularly for the My Ballot), and while I was impressed with the violent deformity of Sinners and the albino care of Frankenstein, my heart belongs to the remarkable beauty and elegant aging of Kokuho, giving us a first-hand at the look of kabuki theater.

Production Design

1. Sinners

2. Marty Supreme

3. One Battle After Another

4. Hamnet

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: We're going to give Sinners its final trophy here (genuinely curious how this compares to its count with Oscar-it ended up taking three statues from me), with the sets in this feeling so authentically barren.  There's so much personality and touches in the dancehalls and railway stations in Coogler's work, and yet they feel appropriately isolated-there's nowhere to run.  I'll note that most of this lineup is good, and this is Marty Supreme's worthiest nomination (I love the on-a-budget redesign of New York City that never feels like it's on a budget at all), but Sinners feels like it lives in the set the most, and adds the most to the story.

Visual Effects

1. Avatar: Fire & Ash

2. F1

3. Jurassic World Rebirth

4. Sinners

5. The Lost Bus

The Lowdown: Putting Avatar in a lineup of Visual Effects always feels like you're playing on cheat mode.  The latest round doesn't have the "how the hell did they do that?" impact that its predecessors had, but in an era where visual effects are increasingly sloppy, overdone, and clearly glossed over by darkened cinematography (looking at you, The Lost Bus), it has beauty and looks fantastic, and even against something as impressive as the technical virtuosity of F1, it's unbeatable.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

OVP: Actor (2006)

OVP: Best Actor (2006)

The Nominees Were...

Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond

Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson

Peter O'Toole, Venus

Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

My Thoughts: We are not keeping track of which acting lineups are the worst, though maybe someday I'll go back & give out that prize.  Best Actor of 2006, while probably not the worst, is definitely one of the least-inspired lineups in Oscar history.  There were better choices even in a weak year (we'll get to them next week when we conclude our 2006 run with a My Ballot post), but Oscar didn't take them.  The men of this lineup, several of them have given truly seismic, film-defining performances, but here we are at best getting to the adequate.

We'll start with the winner of the trophy, and the only man of this bunch to be a one-and-done Oscar nominee (honestly, a rarity for Best Actor), Forest Whitaker.  Whitaker has spent most of his career either directing or taking on supporting parts, but here he is central stage as Idi Amin.  This is a showy role, one that Whitaker cannot seem to ground, playing him to the hilt.  He gets some points for being able to convey a realistic madness through the character, particularly toward the end when his paranoia's scope sets in, but there's too much scenery-chewing and not enough back-and-forth chemistry with James McAvoy.  This is kind of a textbook definition of Oscar getting enamored with a biopic without really standing back to see if the movie has any merit.

Whitaker, though, brings that madness to his character that I found interesting even if it didn't ultimately work.  I have nothing really redeemable to say about Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness.  The picture itself is schmaltzy garbage (and that deliberate typo in the title is maddening), and Smith is the kind of actor who will lean into the schmaltz rather than elevate it.  His work here as a man about to be evicted from his home who eventually becomes a millionaire brokerage firm manager is the kind of uplifting story that makes for great Today Show copy, but rarely can transform into intriguing acting, and Smith mines it for easy tears without ever giving us a complicated look at our principle character.

Peter O'Toole, at least, is trying.  In his last of eight nominations, O'Toole plays a dying lothario who is romancing a young woman through wooing her since he has been rendered impotent by his prostate cancer.  O'Toole is saddled with a very weird film, one that doesn't quite gel (Jodie Whittaker's Jessie is underwritten & Whittaker can't fix that), but he makes it work.  O'Toole is a fine actor, and this is a solid bit of character study in a strange film.  O'Toole occasionally veers into coasting on his film legend status, perhaps because even he doesn't know what to do with this atypical approach to a cancer drama, but this isn't entirely a "legend getting in for being old situation"-O'Toole is genuinely good in the movie.

This is not something I can say for Leonardo DiCaprio.  DiCaprio gave a complex, fascinating look at privilege, crime, & loyalty in The Departed, which was nominated for Best Picture & would've been among his best citations from the Academy...so of course Oscar decides to reward him for a film & piece-of-work that is every bit The Departed's inferior.  It's difficult to believe, considering this is his signature as an actor, but DiCaprio's work here is without charm, unable to gain chemistry with Jennifer Connelly & he falls flat in the final hour of the movie once his opportunity for banter has left.  Leo DiCaprio is a great actor, but similar to Rosalind Russell & Spencer Tracy, he was too often-cited for work that didn't play to his strengths, which is light comedy & soapy romance (Blood Diamond is neither of those things).

Our final nominee is Ryan Gosling, who was graduating here from The Notebook heartthrob into a very serious actor; it's hard to remember, but there was once a time when Gosling's ability in front of the camera wasn't yet proven.  His work as an unorthodox teacher is, like all of the men in this category, in a movie that doesn't quite work.  Half Nelson is the best of these movies, but it's still a cliched education drama with familiar beats.  Unlike DiCaprio or Smith, though, Gosling elevates the work & makes it a much better movie.  He gives a subdued, informed performance as Dan Dunne, someone who is both an authority figure but also a bit lost in his own maturity.  That juxtaposition feels solid for Gosling's wheelhouse, and I'm glad Oscar was paying attention to such a small movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama gave us most of the Oscar lineup, with Gosling out and Leo DiCaprio (double-nominated) in for The Departed (Whitaker won), while Comedy/Musical went to Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) over Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean 2), Aaron Eckhart (Thank You for Smoking), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Kinky Boots), & Will Ferrell (Stranger than Fiction).  SAG went exactly for Oscar's lineup (winner & nominees), while BAFTA totally did its own thing-Whitaker won, but beat Leo (for The Departed), O'Toole, Daniel Craig (Casino Royale), & Richard Griffiths (The History Boys).  In terms of sixth place, the only logical answer is Sacha Baron Cohen, which would've been a mind-bend kind of nomination-you could make an argument for Greg Kinnear (Little Miss Sunshine) or Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima) since they are in Best Picture contenders, but as someone who lived through this Oscar race, there was real talk about Baron Cohen getting the spot.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Well, I would've cited DiCaprio for the right movie, that's for darn sure.  I also know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but two years after the Academy invited Clive Owen to the club with his (deserving) work in Closer, why exactly did they skip out on nominating him for the best performance of his career in Children of Men?

Oscar’s Choice: Easy win for Whitaker.  A bit perplexing in hindsight, but like I said above, sometimes Oscar just gets the biggest crush on a biopic performance & the fever doesn't break until it's too late (and hey, Whitaker is better than Rami Malek).

My Choice: I'm going to go with Gosling over O'Toole, since he does a bit better with incorporating his performance into the film in question.  Behind them would be Whitaker, DiCaprio, & Smith.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you joining the stampede for Whitaker or will you stay in detention with Ryan Gosling & I?  Would Maria Bakalova's bizarre awards run earlier this year have felt so strange if SBC had gotten the fifth slot here?  And what is the weakest ever Oscar acting lineup?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2006: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006

Past Best Actor Contests: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Actor (2004)

OVP: Best Actor (2004)

The Nominees Were...

Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda

Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator

Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby

Jamie Foxx, Ray

My Thoughts: All right, we are in the final four now as we hit the closing stretch of our 2004 write-ups.  This week, we'll be tackling both lead categories with the Oscars, and we'll be starting with the gents.  The 2004 Oscars featured a record number of black actors nominated (at the time), including two in this field.  We also had the return of Leonardo DiCaprio, back a decade after his last nomination and commencing what would be a march to inevitability with an Oscar win.  We'll start there, because Leo's end result (winning an Oscar for one of his least performances in The Revenant) actually began in a much stronger position, and one wonders what might have happened had he just won during his pretty boy phase.

DiCaprio's second outing with Martin Scorsese is perhaps his best (though they've made magic a few times, so I put an asterisk next to this statement).  DiCaprio has such a buoyancy in his acting style (he's so much better at lighter comedy or romance than heavy drama) that lends itself well to Howard Hughes as a young man, when his intense promise & massive privilege afforded him the luxury of pursuing his adolescent fantasies (planes, movies, & beautiful women).  DiCaprio uses that memory of a young Howard as the film progresses, making him fall apart and lose his sense of balance in the film's final third.  This is not the best part of the movie, and it's where most actors would've leant in the hardest (and DiCaprio does, occasionally showing some strain), but he's laid such groundwork in the previous chapters that it has a different aura than an actor who would've solely approached Hughes through his own disabilities.

Jamie Foxx is also playing an iconic 20th Century figure in his film, but he does so with less internal dialogue.  Foxx's work is all about mimicry, playing Ray Charles with the same sort of body language & intonation as the legendary singer.  This is skillful, and it's a talent that Foxx has shown off in countless talk show appearances (he's a very good impressionist), but it's not really acting in the sense of what DiCaprio is doing.  Foxx doesn't give us enough of the character Ray Charles, and of course he's not doing his own singing in the movie, so much of the majesty in some of the film's musical numbers aren't something that you can attribute to him.  This isn't a complete whiff (after all, film history is littered with people lip-syncing & giving us great work), but without some sort of depth in the actual performance he's giving offscreen, there's not much there in his work-this is showy surface-level stuff, not anything of note, and the kind of performance that feels like the makeup team deserved the Oscar more than the actor.

Johnny Depp is playing a famous person as well, but unlike DiCaprio & Foxx, he doesn't need to really look or sound like him-JM Barrie is not well-known to the mass audience for anything other than creating Peter Pan.  Despite some of my misgivings about the film as a whole, Depp is good in this movie.  He plays Barrie as a man lost, someone who cannot quite understand where the magic of his life has gone, and finds the ability to recapture it.  However, this isn't Oscar-worthy work, and feels like the kind of afterglow nomination that happens when the Academy finally sits up and notices your talent.  While Jack Sparrow is so good you'd be forgiven for thinking that it deserves two Oscar nominations, that isn't really how the OVP works and so I'd say this is middling in terms of conversations about Depp's career (we'll get to his splendid work in Pirates eventually, possibly as soon as this fall).  

Don Cheadle has shown a knack in recent years for comedy & genre work, which is not where his career initially began.  Hotel Rwanda is his only nomination (to date), but it's also one of my least favorite of his performances.  Cheadle excels at his best when he's given something naturalistic to play onscreen, bringing an ease to his characters.  That's not the case of Hotel Rwanda, where he's asked to essentially just experience tragedy-after-tragedy, but gives us little insight into the man he's playing.  This isn't really his fault.  Unlike Foxx or Depp, the script doesn't give him a lot to do other than be miserable for two hours & heroic in the face of increasingly long odds, but it's also not a particularly strong performance that elevates its unimpressive source material.

The final nominee is Clint Eastwood, playing the only fictional character in this entire bunch in Million Dollar Baby.  Eastwood's politics and recent spell of movies (which have had increasingly poor results), sometimes negate the fact that he can act, and is actually quite a good actor with the right role.  That's what happens in Million Dollar Baby, where he gives (by my estimate) the best performance in the picture, imbuing his boxing coach with a sense of not only lost opportunity (getting the relationship with Hilary Swank's Maggie that he could never have with his own daughter), but also a sense of the passage of time.  Life is not fair, and Eastwood's Frankie Dunn knows this.  Eastwood isn't stretching his acting muscles too hard here (this is right in his wheelhouse), but a good director & movie star knows to pick scripts that play to their talents, and Eastwood certainly does that here.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama went to DiCaprio, over Cheadle, Deep, Liam Neeson (Kinsey), & Javier Bardem (The Sea Inside), while Comedy/Musical gave their trophy to Foxx over Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Kevin Spacey (Beyond the Sea), Kevin Kline (De-Lovely), and Paul Giamatti (Sideways).  The SAG Awards gave their trophy to Foxx as well, with the entire Oscar lineup (save Eastwood) showing up, along with Paul Giamatti.  BAFTA also gave the trophy to Foxx, here skipping both Eastwood & Cheadle in favor of Carrey and Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries).  In terms of sixth place, I have to assume it's Paul Giamatti, though the case could be made that Neeson or Bardem was in the hunt as well (though their films weren't nearly as successful with Oscar as Sideways was)-Eastwood's nomination was an indication that Million Dollar Baby was about to win a lot of Oscars.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: When people talk about how Jim Carrey deserves an Oscar nomination, this is surely where he deserved it the most.  His work in Eternal Sunshine is the rare case of a comedian playing a straight role but losing none of his natural charisma-truly bravura work.  I also would have included Bruno Ganz for Downfall-if they're going to cite it for Foreign Language Film, there's no reason we aren't also getting his seismic work a trophy for this performance.

Oscar’s Choice: Revisionist history might make you think DiCaprio was close, but he wasn't.  Jamie Foxx was a landslide all season long.

My Choice: I'd give it to Leo-his work is the most complete, and uses his natural gifts the best.  Following him (in order) would be Eastwood, Depp, Cheadle, & Foxx.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Is everyone still on Team Jamie or are some of you willing to join me over on the Leo side of things?  Do we think Clint Eastwood will ever win an acting prize for the Academy or will he join the likes of Orson Welles & Woody Allen with only behind-the-scenes trophies?  And how exactly did Sideways score so big but not get an acting nomination for Paul Giamatti?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2004: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2004

Past Best Actor Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Actor (2019)

OVP: Best Actor (2019)

The Nominees Were...

Antonio Banderas, Pain & Glory

    Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Adam Driver, Marriage Story

Joaquin Phoenix, Joker

Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes

My Thoughts: We move into the lead categories this week, and our Best Actor field.  Toward the end of these series I sometimes run out of things to say about the movies in question, and to a degree we're entering that mode with the 2019 contenders.  Oscar was so unoriginal in what he was pulling off here-the films that are in contention here have all been mentioned, and with one exception, we're already discussed them more than once at this point.  But weirdly we have spent very little time discussing most of these lead performances as we've gone through the movie's technical elements, and as a result there are still some chapters left to analyze in this lineup.

Specifically, I don't know that I've actually mentioned Leonardo DiCaprio during all of these write-ups (and it's not because I don't like him, as Leo is a frequent favorite of mine).  This is weird because in my notes on this performance, Leo gave a solid bit of acting.  I always appreciate him better in lighter roles (which this is), and his chemistry with child actor Julia Butters is one of the better parts of the movie.  This isn't a standout performance in his career, but it is well-grounded (he plays this as a man who came close to stardom but couldn't quite reach the echelons), though one wonders if this nomination was necessary-there were better performers in 2019, and he had just won.  Usually Oscar makes the actors wait a little bit longer, so perhaps they want him to get a second after his long drought?

It's harder to begrudge Jonathan Pryce his nomination, as he is a "long-working character actor getting his due" but I felt somewhat similar about his work here.  Pryce's Pope Francis doesn't have the internal drive & "awards clips" that Hopkins' performance elicits, and while I'm not shy about enjoying less bait-y work (and indeed, the chemistry between the two actors is a both-sided situation), this is a bit routine from Pryce, and you leave not knowing enough about Francis in the way that you do about Benedict by the film's end.  Still, as I've said multiple times this is a better (and lighter) film than one would expect considering the biopic subjects.

Joaquin Phoenix would of course win this trophy, becoming the second actor to take the Oscar for playing the Joker onscreen.  If you'll recall I gave this trophy to Ledger when we profiled his performance in 2008, but Phoenix's work is not going to repeat that feat.  There's an intense physicality  to this performance that I have to respect, as his actions & body need great control to pull off some of the consistent ticks & swerves of this character, but I'm not as impressed by physical changes as the Academy is.  And once you take that away, there's not much there-Phoenix, a truly great actor, gives his Arthur little depth or dimension, instead making him some sort of bizarre creation without a driving soul.  Gone is some of the care he's put into better work like The Master or Her, and instead we're given a performance that feels (for me) quite flat.

Adam Driver, on the other hand, is an "of the moment" actor who completely lands this characterization.  Driver's work kind of makes-or-breaks the film, as it is ultimately his arch (the big Sondheim number where he realizes what he lost & what he must let go of) that will land the film.  Driver creates his Charlie as someone who had ambitions, and is sometimes obtuse to the feelings of a partner that he clearly loves on some level, but dislikes for not being the person he wanted her to be.  Playing characters of this ilk, where they're meant to be unlikable but human, is hard because the cartoonish angles or crutches are there if the actor wants to partake, but Driver is so committed to us feeling Charlie's journey (even if we aren't "siding" with him) that he doesn't take them.

Banderas' nomination is in some ways similar to Jonathan Pryce's-a longtime trouper getting his moment in the sun with the Academy-but while Pryce has been a character actor at the edges, Banderas is that rarer breed of proper movie star who finally gets recognized for his talent.  This is another Oscar trope, and sometimes it's even better than the character actor because it gives us a career-defining role that made us rethink what we thought about a matinee idol.  Banderas has always been good, but this ranks up there as some of his best work as a director working through his inner-demons, frequently frustrated by his inability to move beyond a long-ago success story, and also giving us a tender love story (not just for himself & a past lover, but also with his complicated relationship with his mother).  Banderas creates his own soul, but uses his decades of work with Pedro Almodovar to blend in personal elements of the director's life & personality into the characterization to give us a fully-realized performance.

Other Precursor Contenders: As we've said a few times here, the precursors didn't bring many new names into the Oscar conversation, and uniformity was the theme.  The Globes gave their Drama trophy, therefore, to Joaquin Phoenix over Driver, Pryce, Banderas, & Christian Bale (Ford vs. Ferrari), while the Comedy/Musical went to Taron Egerton (Rocketman) over DiCaprio, Daniel Craig (Knives Out), Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit), & Eddie Murphy (Dolemite is My Name).  SAG went with Phoenix as their winner, besting Bale, DiCaprio, Driver, & Egerton, while BAFTA also favored Phoenix over DiCaprio, Pryce, Driver, & Egerton.  Throw in Robert de Niro (The Irishman), who was probably on some ballots considering his longtime perch at the Academy, and this is a really sturdy lineup...I would have to believe that Egerton was in sixth place and surely would've been nominated were it not for the stench of the Bohemian Rhapsody wins a year earlier.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Even with a slate that's not terrible, I'd upend almost the entire lineup personally.  I'd include Brad Pitt, who was considerably better in Ad Astra than he was for Hollywood (which you'll remember I did enjoy), and would've kept de Niro, who brings an empty soul quality that I liked to The Irishman.  Jimmie Fails (Last Black Man in San Francisco) announced himself as a talent with his sensitive portrayal of disappointment & hope in that movie, while Franz Rogowski gave a star-making performance (if anyone bothered to watch) in the beautiful Transit.

Oscar’s Choice: Phoenix skated through easily in a role that twenty years ago would've struggled to get a nomination-honestly not sure even who was second it was such a foregone conclusion (maybe Banderas?).

My Choice: Driver-he brings the most to his work, and creates the best (if not always as famous) characterization.  Banderas, DiCaprio, Pryce, & Phoenix follow him in that order.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you with me siding with Driver, or am I a little mad for not picking Phoenix?  Is this the end of the line for Banderas or Pryce, or can they come back like Gary Oldman did & win a trophy?  And did Rami Malek cost Taron Egerton his first Oscar nomination?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2019: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2019

Past Best Actor Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016