2017 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (April)

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) may still hold the top spot this month but he’s not alone; Nate Parker (The Birth of a Nation) moves up in points to join him in a tie for first place. Joel Edgerton (Loving) also moves up a spot to tie Andrew Garfield (Silence) for #3. Edgerton moves up based on individual rankings here; he only has 1st, 2nd and 3rd place showings whereas Garfield’s are more scattered with 1-5th place showings. Previous Best Actor winners Denzel Washington (Fences) and Colin Firth (Deep Water) stay put at #5 and #6, respectively.

Michael Keaton (The Founder) finds support from one Gold Rush Gang member (yours truly) even with the August release date for his film being speculated as The Weinstein Company not feeling very confident of the film. The first poster and still was released last week, you can find them here.

After Keaton, the next four men find extremely limited support with just one or two votes apiece. Brad Pitt (War Machine), Joe Alywin (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), Tom Hanks (Sully) and Woody Harrelson (Wilson) are going to have to work hard to even keep themselves in the top 10 when there are plenty of ‘Other Contenders’ ready to pounce. Any one of them, from Miles Teller (Bleed for This) to Michael Fassbender (The Light Between Oceans) to Jacob Tremblay (The Book of Henry) to Ryan Gosling (La La Land) could move up.

Here are the April 2016 predictions for BEST ACTOR. Follow the Gold Rush Gang’s predictions in this category here.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

Latest posts by Erik Anderson (see all)

• 2025 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (November) - November 21, 2024
• 2025 Oscars: Eligibility Lists for Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards - November 21, 2024
• Nava Mau, Sean Wang Among 2024 BAFTA Breakthroughs Championing New ‘Must-Watch’ Creatives - November 21, 2024