93rd Academy Awards: Handicapping the Best Actor Nominees

by Ben Miller

Few years can boast the overall performance strength of this season's Best Actor lineup.  In a category with two previous Best Actor Oscar winners and two up-and-coming screen stars, the conversation has been blanketed by the shadow of tragedy.  What is the likelihood of each nominated actor coming out on top on Oscar night?

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BAFTA Winners: Anthony Hopkins, Frances McDormand, and More...

by Nathaniel R

Richard E Grant accepts Best Actress on behalf of Frances McDormand

It's the last major stop before Oscar night. The BAFTAs were held over two days this weekend and the winners list is now in. It was a spread the wealth kind of year. Nomadland led with four awards including the top prize but The Father, Sound of Metal, Promising Young Woman, Soul, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom each won two statues.

We notated whether or not we correctly predicted the wins below as well just for fun...

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The 25 Oldest Men Ever Nominated for Best Actor

by Nathaniel R

John Wayne just misses the list. Denzel almost double dips. And Hopkins tops the list setting a new recordWe did a "Youngest Best Actor" list a few years back so we thought we should balance it out with their counterparts given the return of Sir Anthony Hopkins this year at 83 years of age with The Father. He makes history in the process as the oldest nominee ever in this category. As we all know Oscar likes some years on his men (as opposed to how he feels about women) but that doesn't mean the golden years. Oscar loves men to be in their late 30s through mid 50s (whereas with women they prefer late 20s through mid 40s) but ageism  works against men, too. Just not as severely as it does against women. The roles still dry up at a certain age... though perhaps that's more on filmmakers and studios than the Oscars themselves. 

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH MINOR CORRECTIONS. (04/02). And a surprising piece of trivia about this list. Only one of the top 25 oldest nominees in this category actually won the Oscar. Not a strong success rate for senior men. Oscar likes to bid them farewell but doesn't feel the need to send them off with the statue (or a second statue)...

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The New Oscar Actor Hierarchy - Anthony & Denzel Rising

by Nathaniel R

We last updated the male version of this list (see the actress list here) just after Leonardo DiCaprio was finally crowned for The Revenant (2015) but it's time for some adjustments. What follows is a list of Oscar's 34 All Time Favorite Actors. The only brand new addition to the list is Anthony Hopkins who enters the exclusive club due to two new consecutive nominations (including this year's bid The Father) significantly changing his previous 4/1 record. But there are other big changes. Actors who improved their standing since the last update five seasons ago are Denzel Washington (up several notches and a tier due to Fences and Roman Israel Esq), Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio (up a handful of notches each due to recent nominations), Jeff Bridges and Al Pacino (up a couple of notches each), and Daniel Day Lewis (up a tier with that Phantom Thread nomination but the same numeric placement -- the higher up you go the harder it is to rise much after all). A handful of other men are getting very close to joining this club after recent Oscar favor, too.

This royal club is restricted to men with 5 or more nominations. Only the acting statistics are accounted for so George Clooney, for example, is not (yet) ranked...

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Almost There: Anthony Hopkins in "The Lion in Winter"

by Cláudio Alves

As the Oscar nomination morning approaches, it seems certain that Anthony Hopkins is about to receive his sixth nod. Seeing as he's considered a wizened old thespian of stage and screen, it may be difficult to recall the days when he, like so many others, was a young actor. In 1968, Hopkins was nearing his 30th birthday when his second ever feature premiered. Thanks to that film, he got the first brush with film awards and might have even come close to an Oscar nomination. In Anthony Harvey's adaptation of James Goldman's The Lion in Winter, Hopkins plays Richard, future king of England, son of Henry II…

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