Some movement this month in Best Actor – with the exception of the #1 and #2 spots as Oscar winner and three-time nominee Christian Bale (Backseat) and two-time Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling (First Man) still hold onto those.
But a lot of shakeup elsewhere. Oscar nominee Steve Carell moves up to #3 with Beautiful Boy. The first look at the October release from Amazon with Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet hit last week, with a full trailer on the way soon. With BlacKkKlansman‘s huge Cannes success, star John David Washington moves up in the rankings as well and Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased) finds himself back in the top 5. Both Washington and Hedges are from Focus Features and have earlier than usual release dates (August and September, respectively) but I think they can both find a way in – Focus did a superb job doing just that this last Oscar season with Gary Oldman and Daniel Day-Lewis.
The big move is Bradley Cooper in A Star Is Born. He debuts this month at #6 on the strength of the great word of mouth his directorial debut is getting. He’s already a four-time Oscar nominee and clearly well-liked within the Academy. He’s also a producer and writer on A Star Is Born so we could be looking at a George Clooney-esque run with this film.
With Sony Pictures Classics picking up Jason Reitman’s Gary Hart sex scandal drama The Front Runner, Hugh Jackman could be adding a second Best Actor nomination to his list. All of this movement bumped two-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate) down quite a bit. Although his Julian Schnabel-directed biopic of Vincent Van Gogh got picked up during Cannes, it was by CBS Films which might struggle with this. They previously had Hell or High Water, which got them Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor nominations but that film was also a late summer sleeper hit. They’ll have to work hard for Dafoe here as the Best Actor field gets deeper and deeper.
With the first trailer for Bohemian Rhapsody dropping last week, Rami Malek hangs on to the #10 spot.
Here are my predictions for Best Actor as of May 23, 2018.
| 1. Christian Bale – Backseat |
| 2. Ryan Gosling – First Man |
| 3. Steve Carell – Beautiful Boy |
| 4. John David Washington – BlacKkKlansman |
| 5. Lucas Hedges – Boy Erased |
| 6. Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born |
| 7. Hugh Jackman – The Front Runner |
| 8. Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate |
| 9. Brad Pitt – Ad Astra |
| 10. Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody |
| NEXT UP |
| Steve Carell – The Women of Marwen |
| Rory Kinnear – Peterloo |
| Viggo Mortensen – Green Book |
| Robert Redford – Old Man and the Gun |
| John C. Reilly – The Sisters Brothers |
| OTHER CONTENDERS |
| Javier Bardem – Everybody Knows |
| Chadwick Boseman – Black Panther |
| Timothée Chalamet – Beautiful Boy |
| John Cho – Search |
| Jesse Eisenberg – The Hummingbird Project |
| Colin Firth – The Mercy |
| Ben Foster – Leave No Trace |
| Garrett Hedlund – Burden |
| John Huston – The Other Side of the Wind |
| Oscar Isaac – Operation Finale |
| Roman Kolinka – Maya |
| George MacKay – The True History of the Kelly Gang |
| Jack O’Connell – Trial by Fire |
| Nick Offerman – Hearts Beat Loud |
| Robert Pattinson – High Life |
| Joaquin Phoenix – The Sisters Brothers |
| Joaquin Phoenix – You Were Never Really Here |
| Chris Pine – Outlaw King |
| Jonathan Pryce – The Wife |
| John C. Reilly – Stan and Ollie |
| Paul Rudd – The Catcher Was a Spy |
| Toni Servillo – Loro |
| Alexander Skarsgård – The Hummingbird Project |
| Christoph Waltz – Georgetown |
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