Subtlety isn’t always the Academy’s bait amidst fake teeth, fake noses, fat suits and more but sometimes a performance can seep through and live inside a viewer rather than demand to be let in from the outside.
There’s something about David Strathairn in A Little Prayer from Sony Pictures Classics that I think can do just that. Debuting at Sundance, SPC scooped it up quickly after its premiere, reuniting the studio with Angus MacLachlan, who wrote the screenplay for 2005’s Junebug, which earned Amy Adams her first Oscar nomination. In A Little Prayer, Strathairn plays Bill, a man who tries to protect his daughter-in-law (an incredible Jane Levy) when he discovers his son (Will Pullen) is having an affair, touching upon a variety of issues in a changing modern South, including a woman’s volition over her own body, war veterans grappling with PTSD, and the limits of patriarchal interference. While it may seem like the story is trying to cover a lot of ground – and it is – it nevertheless remains a thoughtful and contemplative examination and at the center is Strathairn’s nuanced performance, elegantly weaving faith and reality, right and wrong as he strains to keep the threads of his family’s life together.
As a previous Best Actor Oscar nominee (also from a 2005 film – Good Night, and Good Luck – no less), Strathairn is a respected veteran due for a triumphant return and if SPC plays its cards right, this is his ticket.
Here are my 2024 Oscar predictions in Best Actor for June 2023.
Bradley Cooper – Maestro (Netflix)
Colman Domingo – Rustin (Netflix)
Leonardo DiCaprio – Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
David Strathairn – A Little Prayer (Sony Pictures Classics)
Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers (Focus Features)
Barry Keoghan – Saltburn (Amazon Studios)
Anthony Hopkins – Freud’s Last Session (Sony Pictures Classics)
Joaquin Phoenix – Napoleon (Apple Original Films/Sony Pictures)
Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Kingsley Ben-Adir – Bob Marley: One Love (Paramount Pictures)
Other top contenders: Matt Damon – Air (Amazon Studios), Zac Efron – The Iron Claw (A24), Jamie Foxx – The Burial (Amazon Studios), Christian Friedel – The Zone of Interest (A24), André Holland – The Actor (NEON), Wagner Moura – Civil War (A24), LaKeith Stanfield – The Book of Clarence (Sony Pictures), Kôji Yakusho – Perfect Days (NEON)
Other contenders and/or possible 2024 releases:
Jay Baruchel – BlackBerry (IFC Films)
Gael García Bernal – Cassandro (Amazon Studios)
Demián Bichir – Without Blood (Freemantle)
Austin Butler – The Bikeriders (20th Century Studios) – lead or supporting?
Timothée Chalamet – Dune Part Two (Warner Bros)
Timothée Chalamet – Wonka (Warner Bros)
Paul Dano – Dumb Money (Sony Pictures)
Adam Driver – Ferrari (STX Entertainment)
Alden Ehrenreich – Fair Play (Netflix)
Mike Faist – Challengers (MGM) – lead or supporting?
Michael Fassbender – The Killer (Netflix)
Michael Fassbender – Next Goal Wins (Searchlight Pictures)
Rafael Federman – Society of the Snow (Netflix)
Tom Hardy – The Bikeriders (20th Century Studios) – lead or supporting?
Ed Harris – Long’s Day Journey Into Night (MGM)
Kelvin Harrison Jr. – Chevalier (Searchlight Pictures)
Paul Mescal – Foe (Amazon Studios)
Josh O’Connor – Challengers (MGM) – lead or supporting?
Josh O’Connor – La Chimera (NEON)
Ben Platt – Theater Camp (Searchlight Pictures)
Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) – lead or supporting?
Adam Sandler – Spaceman (Netflix)
Andrew Scott – Strangers (Searchlight Pictures)
Sebastian Stan – A Different Man (A24)
Callum Turner – The Boys in the Boat (MGM)
John David Washington – The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Teo Yoo – Past Lives (A24) – lead or supporting?
Ramy Youssef – Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) – lead or supporting?
Without U.S. distribution: Paul Bettany – The Collaboration (TBD), Ralph Fiennes – Conclave (TBD), Anthony Hopkins – One Life (TBD), Benoît Magimel – The Pot au Feu (TBD), Pierre Niney – The Book of Solutions (TBD), Jeremy Pope – The Collaboration (TBD), Aswan Reid – The New Boy (TBD), Peter Sarsgaard – Memory (TBD), Ben Whishaw – Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie (TBD)
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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.
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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.