FINAL 2022 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR

Will Smith’s Oscar journey started exactly 20 years ago, when he was nominated for his performance as famed boxer Muhammed Ali in 2001’s Ali. He was a megastar at the time, with the 1-2-3 punch of Bad Boys, Independence Day and Men in Black in the mid-90s cementing his box office status alongside the likes of Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts as stars who could open a film and command a huge payday in the process. He had dabbled in more ‘serious’ fare here and there like 1993’s Six Degrees of Separation but he was never a big awards magnet for his work in film outside of the Image Awards, MTV Movie Awards, Blockbuster Entertainment Awards and the like (he does have three Grammys from his DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince days).

2001 was not only his first of three acting Oscar nominations (he also has one for Best Picture as a producer on King Richard this season), it was his first match-up with Denzel Washington, who won that year for Training Day. His next came from 2006’s The Pursuit of Happyness, which was no match for the steamroll of Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland.

But now it’s 2022 and we have a rematch between Smith and Washington but one that will have decidedly different results. While Smith’s critics’ run was meager at best (just four total) in the face of The Power of the Dog‘s Benedict Cumberbatch, who amassed a season-best 24 wins, this has been a year where narrative took precedent. Warner Bros made the gutsy move of premiering King Richard at Telluride, the most surefire Best Picture pitstop that we have. While Smith didn’t attend the mountain fest, the film and performance were met with raves and it set out on a successful fall festival run grabbing up audience awards left and right.

Even before we had a set pic or a production still, Smith was essentially coronated as a future winner and it’s one that simply never let go. Think Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables, Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln or Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour. You just know. As awards season kept unfolding, King Richard remained a top tier contender and as any of us that follow these races religiously year to year know, Best Actor and Best Picture are very closely tied. The last Best Actor winner to win without a Best Picture nomination was Jeff Bridges in 2009’s Crazy Heart, and he came with an even stronger overdue narrative that got him over that hump. But for Smith, his bonafides were and have been real; King Richard landed film nods with every precursor, including a SAG Cast nomination and ended up with six Oscar nominations overall, including Best Picture and Best Film Editing.

As Richard Williams, the father of tennis legend Venus and Serena Williams, Smith has won the Grand Slam of Oscar precursors and is playing a singles game against no other competitor.

Here are my final Oscar predictions for Best Actor.

1. Will Smith – King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max) – GG, CCA, SAG, BAFTA
2. Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog (Netflix) – GG, CCA, SAG, BAFTA
3. Andrew Garfield – tick, tick…BOOM! (Netflix) – GG, CCA, SAG
4. Denzel Washington – The Tragedy of Macbeth (A24/Apple Original Films) – GG, CCA, SAG
5. Javier Bardem – Being the Ricardos (Amazon Studios) – GG, SAG