At the Oscars, it’s usually the Best Actress race that is unreasonably stacked year after year – packed to the rafters with contenders who’ve given performances for the ages. This year, that category is strong, no question, but, for once, the Best Actor line-up is stronger – so impressive, in fact, that a number of commanding turns (Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams, Jesse Plemons in Bugonia, Lee Byung-hun in No Other Choice) couldn’t even make it onto the shortlist. As for those who did? Well, in the run-up to Oscar night, there seems to be a feasible path to victory for every single one of them. Here are the five ways it could go.
The bonafide movie star from the history-making contender: Michael B Jordan for Sinners
Following a record-breaking nominations haul from Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller (16), it’s very possible that its charismatic lead – who plays not one, but two characters – could mount a surprising victory. From Fruitvale Station to Creed and Black Panther, Jordan has always been a magnetic screen presence, but also consistently underestimated by an industry which considers him a bankable action star rather than an awards-worthy character actor. In Sinners, he gets to do it all – delicious scenery-chewing and swaggering across ’30s Mississippi assembling his dream team, and then full-blown, all-guns-blazing bravado, tinged with heartbreak for his fallen comrades.
Jordan has spoken eloquently about how he made each of the Smokestack twins feel distinct – he wore shoes which were either too big or too small to alter how they stood and walked, considered their subtly different backstories, and spoke in slightly different styles – and he is, unquestionably, the force which holds this wild film together. Should a late-breaking Sinners wave sweep it over the line to take Best Picture, it’s easy to see how it could propel Jordan forward, too.
The returning favourite: Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another
The Academy has a patchy history with the heartthrob-turned-industry heavyweight – it took them more than two decades and five nominations before they finally handed him a statuette, for Best Actor in The Revenant in 2016. But now that he has one, would they be more open to giving him another? It’s unclear – he was nominated for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2020 but, memorably, not for Killers of the Flower Moon in 2024. One Battle After Another feels different, though. Paul Thomas Anderson’s revolutionary epic has been sweeping the board and still, just about, feels like the favourite to take Best Picture. It contains showier performances – Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor, all also Oscar nominated – but, from start to finish, it’s Leo who is at the centre. If it’s your favourite movie, why not reward him?
Sure, he gives a more comedic turn than he has in the past – usually a turn-off for Oscar voters – but, in truth, it’s a pleasure to see him as a bumbling stoner rather than the more po-faced characters he’s been playing of late. Plus, since the beginning of this particular race, it’s been billed as Leo versus Timothée Chalamet – they were seen as the only two guaranteed nominees – so, it tracks that some older voters, who are not yet ready to anoint a 30-year-old, chronically online renegade would plump for DiCaprio instead, now 51 and with a more-than-four-decade-long career under his belt. He’s one you shouldn’t count out.
The international dark horse: Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent
Never underestimate the Brazilians – this nation of film obsessives, plugged into social media and formidable in their campaigning, did much for Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here just last year. That modestly-scaled drama wasn’t really in the race – but then, its star, Fernanda Torres, beat both Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman to the Best Actress in a Drama Golden Globe. Many more voters caught up on the film and, lo and behold, it got three Oscar nominations, including Torres in Best Actress. Many prognosticators believe that her inclusion in this line-up, and the clear support behind her, took votes away from The Substance’s Demi Moore, another well-regarded actor with a long career, handing Anora’s Mikey Madison the victory.
Its compatriot, The Secret Agent, is on a similar trajectory – Kleber Mendonça Filho’s contender is surging at just the right moment, and has done one better than I’m Still Here, securing four Oscar nominations, including Wagner Moura for Best Actor. Even though he missed out on BAFTA and SAG Actor Award nods, he won the Best Actor in a Drama Golden Globe, and was utterly charming on stage. The Secret Agent is, at times, a strange and slippery film, but there’s no disputing that Moura is totally masterful in it – an old-school leading man you just can’t look away from. He’s been a respected, internationally-working actor for almost three decades, perhaps previously best known for Netflix’s Narcos, and given the Academy now has more global voters than ever before, they could very well rally behind him. There’s a world where he comes from behind to scoop the prize on the big night.
The overdue veteran: Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon
The “it’s time” narrative is one of the most powerful in the Oscars’ acting categories, and if anyone is worthy of it this year, it is surely the five-time nominee. The 55-year-old has had a long and extraordinary career across indie darlings and more mainstream fare – Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites, the Before trilogy, Training Day, Boyhood, and this more recent renaissance with the likes of First Reformed – but that Academy Award has always evaded him. What’s more, this latest part is also easily one of the best of his oeuvre – as the quippy, balding composer Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s wistful chamber piece, he gives exactly the kind of all-consuming, utterly transformative performance that frequently wins this prize (The Whale’s Brendan Fraser, Joker’s Joaquin Phoenix, Darkest Hour’s Gary Oldman, The Theory of Everything’s Eddie Redmayne, Dallas Buyers Club’s Matthew McConaughey). At points, Hawke entirely disappeared for me, and all I saw was the sensitive, funny, frequently frustrating 1940s showboat he was playing.
Having said that, Blue Moon is the smallest film on this list, and the one with the fewest Oscar nominations – just two, the other being for Best Original Screenplay. It’s a release many voters still haven’t seen, and if they don’t catch up on it, Hawke’s wonderful work could pass them by. But this, in my humble opinion, is the best performance in this category and would be the most deserving win.
The frontrunner: Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme
And then there’s the presumed winner: last year, Chalamet came within a hair’s breadth of clinching the Best Actor Oscar with his portrayal of an inscrutable young Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, but, in the end, lost out to The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody. This time around, he looks poised to take it with his relentless, gung-ho embodiment of a maddeningly ambitious table tennis player in Marty Supreme. It’s a deeply committed, no-holds-barred performance, straddling comedy, more serious drama and a demanding physicality, and increasingly feels like the Academy’s only path to rewarding Josh Safdie’s nine-time nominated romp. (One Battle, Sinners and Frankenstein seem to be the stronger prospects in the other categories in which it’s recognised.)
Despite being just 30, it does feel like Chalamet should have an Oscar by now – he’s his generation’s first box-office friendly but also prestige-laden movie star, with four Academy Award nominations and one hell of a CV – Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, Hostiles, Beautiful Boy, Little Women, The French Dispatch, Bones and All, Wonka, the Dune movies. He’s worked with lauded auteurs, made consistently bold and interesting choices, avoided homogenous franchise fare and still raked in profits – an ideal symbol for what much of the industry wants the future of Hollywood to look like, especially in this fraught time of closing cinemas, corporate mergers and rampant AI. His coronation would certainly feel triumphant.
So far, Chalamet has taken the Critics’ Choice Award, Golden Globe and countless other critics’ prizes, and has increasingly pivoted his campaign away from headline-grabbing stunts to modest speeches and more traditional glad-handing. More so than with his last Oscar campaign, he is playing the game – and voters will surely appreciate that. Come Oscar night, his relative youth could count against him – if he wins, he’ll be the second youngest Best Actor recipient in history, after the aforementioned Adrien Brody for The Pianist – but he remains the one to beat.