Christian Bale for American Hustle Bruce Dern for Nebraska Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club There was no category more competitive in the nomination process than Best Actor this year, with such strong contenders as Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips left on the outside looking in, and even after the nominees have been settled, there is no acting race with a wider range of possible winners than Best Actor. In fact, each of the nominees probably has a slight chance of taking home Oscar gold with the exception of the one nominee who has actually won an Oscar before, Christian Bale. At the very edge of possibility sits Bruce Dern for his performance as the increasingly senile Woody Grant. The Academy loves to give Oscars to long suffering acting veterans (see Paul Newman's win for The Color of Money) and in weaker year, the story line that goes along with a Bruce Dern win could prove irresistible for the Academy, but I think he will have to settle for a nomination this year. Leonardo DiCaprio has a rabid fanbase (of which I consider myself apart of) and the fact that he has yet to win an Oscar is a going vocal concern for many a cineaste. The Wolf of Wall Street is completely his movie as well, so if there is a large underlying support for that film, DiCaprio may stun everyone and finally get his Oscar. More likely though, the Oscar will come down to Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey took home both the SAG award and the Golden Globe award for Best Actor, but Ejiofor has seemed to be the preferred choice of many critics. Both films are nominated for Best Picture, although 12 Years a Slave is the only one that has a legitimate chance of winning the award, so the edge there goes to Ejiofor, particularly since the film may not win very many other Oscars if it doesn't take Best Actor. McConaughey though has the advantage of having a weekly campaign reminder in the event-of-the-year good television show True Dective, where his performance as the character Rust Cohle (a character that will go down in television, and even all fiction, history books as one of the greatest characters ever written) is truly transcendent and some of the best acting you will ever witness. Plus, McConaughey's incredible run of terrific performances (dubbed by McConaughey himself as the "McConaissance") is one of the single greatest two-year stretches of any actor ever. Combine this with the actual brilliant performance McConaughey gives in Dallas Buyers Club, and I give the slight tip of the hat to McConaughey. Will Win: Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers ClubCould Win: Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a SlaveShould Win: Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
