2017 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (May)

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After tying for 1st place last month, Nate Parker (The Birth of a Nation) now holds onto the #1 all by himself, pulling ahead of former #1 Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea). Andrew Garfield (Silence), who was tied with Loving‘s Joel Edgerton last month, also breaks a tie and moves ahead for sole ownership of the #3 position. Denzel Washington (Fences) maintains his #5 slot but with a point increase.

Currently, the top 5 contains two actors who are also the directors of their films (Parker and Washington), a semi-rare feat to make it all the way to Oscar, something that hasn’t happened in over ten years. Sixteen actors have directed themselves to a Best Actor nomination but only two have won; Laurence Olivier in Hamlet and Robert Benigni in Life is Beautiful. To date, there has never been a year when two actors directed themselves to Best Actor nominations and no non-white actor has ever done it.

Elsewhere, Dev Patel is a new entry this month for Lion and Brad Pitt (War Machine) falls off the list.

OTHER CONTENDERS
Jim Carrey – True Crimes
Jason Clarke – HHhH
Alden Ehrenreich – Untitled Howard Hughes Film
Alden Ehrenreich – The Yellow Birds
Michael Fassbender – The Light Between Oceans
Ryan Gosling – La La Land
Jake Gyllenhaal – Nocturnal Animals
Woody Harrelson – LBJ
Ben Mendelsohn – Una
David Oyelowo – A United Kingdom
Brad Pitt – Allied
Brad Pitt – War Machine
Chris Pratt – Passengers
Will Smith – Collateral Beauty
Miles Teller – Bleed For This
Jacob Tremblay – The Book of Henry

Follow the updated Gold Rush Gang predictions in other Oscar categories here:

BEST PICTURE
BEST DIRECTOR
BEST ACTRESS
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BEST FILM EDITING
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

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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.

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