Oscars 2023: Best Actor Remains a Cliffhanger (POLL!)

17 times since 2000, one of the Best Actor winners at the Golden Globes went on to win the Oscar. Over that same period, only once did the SAG winner go on to win the Oscar without first winning the Golden Globe (Sean Penn, Milk).

19 times the Best Actor winner starred in a Best Picture nominee. In the era of the expanded ballot (from 2009), only once did the winner come from a film not nominated for Best Picture (Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart).

Here are the Globe winners that missed the Oscar win:

Tom Hanks, Cast Away — lost to Russell Crowe, Gladiator
Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind — lost to Denzel Washington, Training Day

Pause here to note that these two examples which came from back-to-back years were the exact reverse. Cast Away was not a Best Picture nominee, but Gladiator won Best Picture. A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture but Training Day was not nominated. In the case of Russell Crowe and Gladiator, Benicio del Toro won for Traffic in lead at the SAG Awards but then won in supporting at the Oscars.

Denzel Washington was the beneficiary of a late-breaking scandal involving Crowe and the reading of a poem at the BAFTAs along with a physical scuffle offstage.

2002 had a split vote scenario happening, with Jack Nicholson winning the Globe for About Schmidt and Daniel Day-Lewis winning the SAG for Gangs of New York, while Adrien Brody was the beneficiary at the Oscars.

And, of course, in 2020 Chadwick Boseman won the Globe and the SAG before losing the BAFTA and the Oscar to Anthony Hopkins for The Father, which also had a Best Picture nomination.

I have not factored in the Critics Choice because they don’t have a reliable recognizable pattern where Best Actor is concerned. They are hit and miss in terms of matching.

This year, we have these two winners from the Golden Globes:

Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Austin Butler, Elvis

Brendan Fraser won at the Critics Choice but The Whale did not earn a Best Picture nomination. From a stat perspective, which may or may not bear fruit, he would be the longshot pick. But here, you have to be like Luke Skywalker with the blast shield down. “Let go your conscious mind and act on instinct.” “You can’t even see, how are you supposed to fight?”

The point being, stats only take you so far. Some things have to be “felt,” and this Best Actor race might be one of them. There are unpredictable factors to consider, like Fraser’s relationship with the HFPA, like the nature of his role, like the emotional response of his winning.

We just can’t know who is going to win the SAG Award but you can pretty much bet that whoever wins there will go on to win the Oscar.

It is definitely down to these three, with an Adrien Brody-type situation perhaps brewing if Farrell and Butler split the vote. We won’t see clues about this until the SAG Awards, of course, which aren’t until the 26th of February. SAG voting ends on Feb 24th.

Figuring out the “buzz” is not going to be easy this year. We have weeks to go, for one thing and who knows what kind of “Shittus Interruptus” is going to occur. Will there be (more) controversies? How much will the contenders campaign? Will that matter?

This year, the BAFTA does factor in quite a bit, namely because of the Anthony Hopkins/Frances McDormand surprise from 2020. Since 2010, every Best Actor winner at the BAFTA has won the Oscar. There is no reason to think that pattern is going to change this year. Although — remember the blast shield.

They clearly loved both the Banshees of Inisherin and Elvis. The BAFTAs come first, just before the end of SAG voting, which puts them in the sweet spot. I would imagine that Colin Farrell is going to win there, but it’s possible Austin Butler does and if so, then the Oscar is his.

The case for Brendan Fraser is that he has the best “Oscar story,” meaning it’s a comeback role for him. He is playing a doomed character, as do Austin Butler and Colin Farrell. It’s a tearjerker and it helps that Fraser himself has made headlines for crying every time he gets a standing ovation or a win. Also, from a stats perspective, the ONLY time a Best Actor winner came from a non-Best Picture nominated film in the era of the expanded ballot was 2009 when Jeff Bridges won for Crazy Heart.

And just like that year, there were ten BP nominees and three of them had lead actress nominees. So we could be looking at a replay of sorts of that year.

Fraser would be like Bridges: winning more as a career award than because they wowed by the role and the film.

The case for Colin Farrell is pure love for the movie, the Banshees of Inisherin, which is just a delight from start to finish. It has by far the year’s best ensemble from an acting perspective. It’s like watching a Swiss watch. They’re all so perfectly in tune with one another, with the language, with the story. These are a group of actors absolutely on their game with not a weak link in the bunch. Does it go home empty handed or does Farrell become the one winner for the film (if it isn’t Martin McDonagh for Original Screenplay, which he absolutely deserves).

The case for Austin Butler is that it was a one in a million shot he could get Elvis exactly right. He had to nail the looks, the charisma, the voice, the moves, and most of all — the sex appeal. Somehow, inexplicably, with a lot of hard work he managed it. He did what so far no one else has been able to do. That he was able to bring the story to life just before the passing of Lisa Marie is a bittersweet element to the story. The film is obviously beloved, though not perhaps quite as beloved as Banshees, but it’s up there.

Needless to say, when it comes to men — for the most part, with a few exceptions here and there like an Eddie Redmayne — Oscar voters like to give awards to actors who have a career behind them rather than ahead of them. The only thing that’s going to matter is what it feels like when an an actor takes the stage and gives a speech.

At the moment, it remains a cliffhanger. Perhaps it’s time for a poll. Let us know what you think.