Oscars 2014: Ranking The Best Actors From Worst To Best

5. Christian Bale €“ American Hustle

Bluntly speaking, Christian Bale's performance as con-man Irving Rosenfeld in critical darling American Hustle is without a shadow of a doubt at the bottom of the pile. Bale's entire nomination is completely out of left field, and comes across as the Academy looking to shower American Hustle with as much praise as they possibly can. It's not even up for debate, they're over the moon and into another galaxy for the film. To be fair though, while Bale's performance initially feels just like a crowd-pleasing, totally off-the-wall, portrayal of a professionally experienced con-man, it's actually much more than that. Bale is often fairly successful at disguising his Welsh accent for a general American one, but pulling off an American New York accent is a much tougher feat that he nails. He's also essentially unrecognisable after adding in the fact that he legitimately gained over 60 pounds to play the role. In a nutshell, some dedicated method acting along with an already fantastic performance pushed Bale over the edge for a nomination, but in comparison to the other nominees it's unfortunately the most forgettable. Realistically though, Bale has a moderately sized chance at winning considering that, as mentioned, the Academy loves American Hustle.