2. Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne is, to many, an up-and-coming young actor who has yet to earn his stripes in Hollywood, playing the somewhat bland friend and confidante of Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn. However, in Les Misérables, he steps his game up considerably as Marius Pontmercy, the real surprise of the film given that nobody has really pegged him as a force to be reckoned with, yet now that critics have been allowed to see the film, he's garnering a lot of industry buzz regarding a Best Supporting Actor nomination. It's all the more impressive that Redmayne manages to imbue so much grit and determined emotion into the performance, given that so many of his scenes with Eponine and Cosette are where the narrative - at least in terms of Hooper's version - really sags. Thankfully, his performance is sufficient enough that he manages to pull it out of the embers and back onto the home straight. It's undeniable that this is going to raise his profile ten-fold, so expect him to be a major star to watch in 2013.