9 Brilliant Performances That Were Robbed Of Best Actor Oscars
Advertisement
It seems like movie-industry people hold the Academy Award in higher esteem than any other film-related award. While filmmakers consider it high praise to receive a Golden Globe or a Critics' Choice award or whatever else, it's always the Oscar nominations and wins that get plastered all over DVD cases, while the others fade away into obscurity. I don't know if we outside the movie industry will ever understand why the Academy Award stands so high above the others. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that, unlike any other film award, the Oscar comes from one's peers. While the whole body of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences choose the nominations for each category, it's solely actors who make final votes on the acting awards, only screenwriters who vote for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, and so on. Receiving an Oscar is like having one's fellow craftsmen pat one on the back and say: "We couldn't have done it better ourselves." Unfortunately, however, we know that the Academy doesn't always get it right. Because there's really no objective way to judge a craft like acting, those voting in such categories often seems to go the safe route, voting for the performance that featured in the highest-grossing film or the portrayal that critics think ought to win. While this process generally results in the award going to the most deserving performer, sometimes, the award ends up honouring a performance that pales in comparison to one or more of its competitors. This article will look at ten Best Actor-nominated performances that were robbed of their awards by less-deserving actors.