Gold Rush Gang 2016 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (June)

Some big changes this month in Best Actor. The top two guys, Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant are still firmly in #1 and #2, respectively, and even move up in points a bit. Redmayne, now with 49, has 1st place votes with nine of the ten Gold Rush Gang members (I’m looking at you, Jacqui!) and DiCaprio managed to stay afloat even as his film and its director tumble this month.

The big news though is Tom Hiddleston in the Hank Williams biopic I Saw the Light shoots up to 3rd place with a vote from every GRG member save Long. Presumably Sony Pictures Classics‘ main Best Actor contender (but look out for Robert Redford in Truth), they’ll be able to put everything behind him getting in and possibly a win. Hey, they’ve managed two Best Actress wins in a row so it’s entirely possible. Michael Caine also bursts into the top 5, tying Hiddleston for the #3 slot, with Youth. He’s one of the big gainers from the Cannes Film Festival with the GRG but can he sustain it? He will have Fox Searchlight behind him and with back to back Best Picture Oscar wins under their belt, they’re just about the best players in the business right now.

Something else happened in Cannes; Harvey Weinstein showed Southpaw in a few private screenings (including one attended by our own Jason Osiason) and Jake Gyllenhaal is apparently so impressive that most of us have swapped out his potential nomination for Demolition for his pugilistic pic instead. The film, which opens July 27th, has the potential to be a massive hit and could carry Gyllenhaal through the fall but I think the film is going to have to be a modestly successful one critically as well. But then, director Antoine Fuqua was able to secure a Best Picture win for Denzel Washington in Training Day for a film with a 70 on Metacritic rating (Fuqua’s highest score for a narrative, by the way). We all know how strong The Weinstein Company is at this so Gyllenhaal’s chances (as well as Eminem possibly scoring another nod or win in Original Song) look good.

This means that Bradley Cooper in Adam Jones and Tom Hanks in Bridge of Spies take a bullet this month, both falling down to single vote support. Both can still rally, it’s only June after all.

For the rest of the Best Actor contenders click here.

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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), 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.

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