5 Reasons Leonardo DiCaprio Should Win Best Actor Oscar This Year (And 5 Reasons Why He Won't)

1. A Career Of Great Work (He Should)

Oscars are often given out to actors who don't necessarily deserve the award for the film they worked on, but rather the body of work they have put together over the course of their career. Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar for his role in 1993's The Fugitive despite the fact that the film isn't necessarily typical Oscar-bait. Jack Nicholson won an Oscar for As Good As It Gets in 1997 because he was already a screen legend at the time. Leonardo DiCaprio hasn't been in the industry as long as Bruce Dern, and he hasn't gone without praise for most of his career like Matthew McConaughey, but he still has a remarkable list of outstanding performances to his name. Calvin Candie in Django Unchained, Howard Hughes in The Aviator, Billy Costigan in The Departed, Amsterdam Vallon in Gangs of New York, and now Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street are all great performances from a relatively young actor. I'm not saying that a lifetime achievement award is necessary now, or even that he is unlikely to ever win the award if he doesn't this year, but saying that other actors deserve it more than he does because of other films that they have done essentially undervalues DiCaprio's string of outstanding performances. He's only 39, and presumably has a lot of films left before his status or talent wane, but considering all of the great work he put in to The Wolf of Wall Street and his larger filmography, now should be the time in which he is awarded an Oscar. But...