1. Best Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis
This year, Oscar history was made as Daniel Day-Lewis became the first actor to win three Best Actor awards. Daniel Day-Lewis is known for his method style of acting in which he completely immerses himself in his characters. In his last Oscar-winning role, DDL created the legendary anti-hero Daniel Plainview, an oil tycoon whose heart is as black as the liquid he obtains from the earth. In Spielberg's epic biopic Lincoln, Day-Lewis manages to channel the essence of one of the most famous and important men throughout world history. In an obviously remarkable performance, Day-Lewis' Lincoln is a generally quirky and soft-spoken man, a raconteur who is dead-set on changing the landscape of racial relations within his country. In the last few years in cinema, few performances if any have even started to approach the depths and subtleties that DDL pulls off in this film. Daniel Day-Lewis does not merely act in his films, but he becomes the character, proving again in Lincoln that he's one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screen.
Honorable mentions: Skyfall's Best Song, Zero Dark Thirty not being completely shut out. Your thoughts? Leave a comment or find me on my podcast in my bio below.