Best Leading Actor
WINNER: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) The second that Daniel Day-Lewis accepted the lead role in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, we all knew we were in for something very special indeed; the actor chooses his roles wisely, and delivers here an Abraham Lincoln that virulently avoids caricature, eschewing the low-pitched Lincoln boom we're used to in favour of a more historically accurate, higher-pitched twang. Day-Lewis paints a Lincoln who has a fatherly, jocular presence, at once very witty and charming but also thoroughly authoritative and commanding. It's safe to say that he's going to clean up the awards season, and he's probably the strongest lock that any Academy Award category has this year.
RUNNERS UP: Joaquin Phoenix (The Master) Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt) Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) Frank Langella (Robot and Frank)
Best Leading Actress
WINNER: Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) One of the year's more understated performances is also, alongside Day-Lewis', its best; Emmanuelle Riva is astounding as Anne, one half of the octogenarian couple at the center of Michael Haneke's devastating Amour. Anne is afflicted by a series of strokes at the start of the film, sending her into a degenerative spiral, while her hapless husband, Georges, attempts to care for her. Riva delivers a subtle performance that concedes the heartbreaking power of nature's inevitability, from the blank, child-like face she expresses at the film's start, to the withered husk that she comes to resemble as the film progresses.
RUNNERS UP: Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Smashed) ‰milie Dequenne (Our Children) Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone) Best Supporting Actor and Actress are on the next page.