The 94th Academy Awards: Who Should Win (Part I)
On March 27, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will hold the 94th Academy Awards and reveal their selections for the best in film from the past year. In this article, I rank the contenders in each of the four acting races while delving into my take on the relative merit of the contenders.
Although I unabashedly adore the glitzy ceremony, behind-the-scenes drama, near-century of statistics and milestones, and fun of predicting the eventual winners, I care about the Oscars each year primarily because I love movies. I love watching movies, reflecting on movies, and debating the merits of movies. I believe that the art of filmmaking has shaped my life — and our culture — in profound ways.
Each year I make sure to see each film nominated in the “top eight” categories (Best Picture, Best Director, the four acting categories, and the two screenplay categories), along with as many of the others as I can squeeze in. Below, I rank the five nominees in each acting category from weakest to strongest based on my evaluation of the quality of the respective performances.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
5.) JK Simmons, Being the Ricardos (1 prior nomination and win for Best Supporting Actor for Whiplash). More years than not, the Academy throws in a nomination in the acting categories that is truly baffling either because the performance got virtually no awards attention prior to the nomination or because the performance is so unremarkable it seems bizarre that voters went out of their way to tick the box. This one is baffling for both reasons. JK Simmons, who had one of the most memorable and deserving Best Supporting Actor Oscar wins in history with Whiplash, scored his second nomination for his role as William Frawley in Being the Ricardos. Frawley famously played cantankerous Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy and in his brief screen time in the film is portrayed as an alcoholic Communist hater with brief displays of compassion. It is not a bad performance, but it is hardly one of the year’s best and one that many other actors could likely have pulled off equally well.
4.) Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog (1st nomination). Jesse Plemons has been consistently delivering fascinating and effective performances for two decades and has had a spectacular run recently, having appeared in a stunning 6 Best Picture nominees in the last 7 years (Bridge of Spies, The Post, Vice, The Irishman, Judas and the Black Messiah, and now The Power of the Dog). His performance as the reserved, kindly George Burbank is the least showy of of the film’s four central performances, but it is nonetheless a deeply skilled and highly effective one. He embodies a stubborn sense of decency and duty, as well as a pervasive air of loneliness, that provides texture to the film and hints at nuances in the character that perhaps even the novelist and screenwriter hadn’t intended.
3.) Ciaran Hinds, Belfast (1st nomination). Gifted character actor Ciaran Hinds finally received his first Oscar nomination after decades of memorable performances in films like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Munich, There Will Be Blood, Frozen, In Bruges, and First Man (not to mention his stint as Mance Rayder on Game of Thrones). As “Pa,” the young protagonist’s kindly grandfather in Belfast, Hinds delivers my second favorite performance in the film (behind the shockingly snubbed Catriona Balfe). His soulful, heartwarming work as he tries to empower his son (Jamie Dornan) and create a world filled with love and excitement for his grandson (Jude Hill) during The Troubles in Norther Ireland in 1969 is truly affecting, but it is his chemistry with Judi Dench in the brief glimpses of their domestic bliss that truly blew me away.
2.) Troy Kotsur, CODA (1st nomination). When CODA premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 14 months ago and then on AppleTV+ 7 months ago, I remember reading reviews that said things like, “It’s a shame that Troy Kotsur’s deeply affecting work is unlikely to remembered come Oscar time.” Here we are well over a year after the film premiered and the relatively unknown deaf actor has won the Screen Actors Guild, Critics Choice, and BAFTA Awards for Best Supporting Actor and looks poised to take the Oscar as well. It’s a true testament to how you don’t always need to be an A-lister or star in a flashy biopic to get the Academy’s attention. Sometimes, all you need to do is strike a deep emotional chord. As Gloucester, Massachusetts fisherman Frank Rossi, Kotsur is simultaneously hilarious (see his insatiable sexual appetite for his wife), ferocious (see his impassioned rebellion against new fishing regulations), and sensitive (see the emotionally overwhelming scene when he tries to understand his hearing daughter’s love of music). Kotsur may have just missed out on my first place ranking in the category, but I will be standing and applauding when he inevitably takes the prize.
1.) Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog (1st nomination). The Power of the Dog simply could have not have worked without the right casting in the role of Peter, the withdrawn and socially awkward teenage son of Kirsten Dunst’s Rose Gordon. Given the fascinating twists and turns that the film’s screenplay takes (which I will not delve into here for fear of spoiling the film), the role needed to be embodied by someone who could effectively operate on multiple levels simultaneously. It is a remarkably complex performance that is difficult to truly appreciate without multiple viewings. Regardless of whether he takes home the trophy, this 25-year-old Australian looks to have an impressive career ahead of him.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
5.) Judi Dench, Belfast (7 prior nominations — Best Actress for Philomena, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal, Iris, and Mrs. Brown; Best Supporting Actress for Chocolat and Shakespeare in Love; she won for Shakespeare in Love). Judi Dench is an absolute legend and the performance that she turned in at age 86 is deeply affecting. As the young protagonist’s “Granny,” she is mostly on the periphery for the film’s first half, occasionally delivering a sassy one-liner or huffing in annoyance. But in the film’s second half she gets some truly lovely moments that Dench imbues with strength, compassion, and ambivalence. The reason she ranks so low here is twofold. First, this is a stacked category with roles that are much richer and more expansive than Dench’s. Second, this slot undeniably should have gone to Dench’s co-star Catriona Balfe, whose stunning work as Granny’s stubborn and deeply angry daughter-in-law is far and away the film’s highlight. The Academy’s decision to select Dench’s performance over Balfe’s here is a great mystery for the ages.
4.) Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter (1st nomination). Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut is a captivating but undeniably frustrating tale of an ornery professor named Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman) who becomes obsessed with an overwhelmed young mother named Nina (Dakota Johnson) who she meets while vacationing in Greece. Leda’s inner life and outward behaviors are quite perplexing, at least until the film shifts into flashbacks of Leda as a new mother desperately struggling with motherhood. As the younger Leda, Buckley has a remarkably challenging task in this film, as she is saddled with providing key exposition and a compelling justification for the older Leda’s actions in the present, all while convincingly emulating Colman’s mannerisms and vocal stylings. Buckley is a brilliant actress and she doesn’t strike a single false note here. It’s a testament to how good the following three performances are that I didn’t rank her higher.
3.) Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard (1st nomination). You might have to pay me to watch King Richard again, but I would pay good money to watch a follow-up film centered on Ellis’s Oracene “Brandy” Price. Every single thing that did not work for me in the film disappeared when the remarkably talented Ellis arrived to command a scene. As Venus and Serena Williams’s devoted mother, Ellis crafts a much more interesting, empathic, and fascinating portrayal of parental devotion and struggle over adversity than her on-screen husband Will Smith does with much more screen time and narrative focus. She is an extraordinary talent who hopefully will soon get the showcases she richly deserves.
2.) Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog (1st nomination). In 1994, at the mere age of 12, Kirsten Dunst broke out in Hollywood with her performances in Interview with the Vampire and Little Women. Since then, she has become one of Hollywood’s most under-appreciated and fascinating actresses starring in a mix of big screen comedies (Bring It On, Wag the Dog), historical dramas (Marie Antoinette, Hidden Figures), blockbusters (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy), and indie dramas (Melancholia, The Virgin Suicides), in addition to outstanding work on television (Fargo, On Being a God in Central Florida). Her first Oscar nomination has finally come for her performance as Rose Gordon, a lonely widow in 1925 Montana who marries a kindly rancher only to descend into alcoholism as she is psychologically tortured by his brother. She is tasked with the difficult role of an emotionally fragile and largely passive woman and knocks it out of the park, imbuing it with profound empathy and quiet moments of strength.
1.) Ariana DeBose, West Side Story (1st nomination). Steven Spielberg’s thrilling retelling of iconic Broadway musical West Side Story was one of the year’s most delightful surprises. The original film, released just over 60 years ago, swept the Oscars. Among its wins were Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Puerto Rican triple threat Rita Moreno for her show-stopping performance as the strong-willed Anita. Here we are 6 decades later and another brilliant triple threat looks to win in the same category for the same role. Broadway star Ariana DeBose is a force of nature in the film, nailing the quiet moments of horror and devastation toward the film’s end just as well as she nails her sassy and euphoric rendition of “America,” arguably the highlight of the new film. She gives the best performance in a film with many great ones and manages to create a new interpretation of an iconic character that is equally impressive as Moreno’s legendary work.
Click below to check out my rankings of the Oscar acting nominees at recent ceremonies:
BEST ACTOR
5.) Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos (3 prior nominations — Best Actor for Before Night Falls and Biutiful; Best Supporting Actor for No Country for Old Men; he won for No Country for Old Men). Much ado was made about the casting of Being the Ricardos, with particular controversy regarding the casting of arguably the most famous working Spanish actor (Javier Bardem) as arguably the most famous Cuban actor in history (Desi Arnaz). That controversy aside, I actually thought Bardem gave a strong turn in the film. He balances machismo and vulnerability skillfully and he captures Arnaz’s charisma. However, he never truly disappears into the role and the power of his performance is overshadowed by the more prominent and interesting performance of his female counterpart (Nicole Kidman’s Lucille Ball).
4.) Will Smith, King Richard (2 prior nominations — Best Actor for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness; he has an additional nomination this year for Best Picture for King Richard; he has never won). As Richard Williams, the father of tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams, Will Smith got a dream role that seems destined to bring him Oscar glory. After flexing his dramatic chops in films like Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness (both of which scored him Oscar nominations for Best Actor), Smith faded from the critical and commercial limelight for several years before he came roaring back with his latest. I think he is just fine in the film, but for me he falls short of Oscar-worthy. Admittedly, though, my main problem with the film is its screenplay. The thornier (and to me, much more interesting) aspects of Williams’s character — the sometimes reckless stubbornness, bordering-on-delusional narcissism, and values-inconsistent infidelity — are repeatedly glossed over in favor of bland hagiography. Smith does strong work with the material, but the material disappoints.
3.) Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of MacBeth (9 prior nominations — Best Actor for Roman J. Israel Esq., Fences, Flight, Training Day, The Hurricane, and Malcolm X; Best Supporting Actor for Glory and Cry Freedom; Best Picture for Fences; he won for Training Day and Glory). Far and away the most Oscar-nominated black actor in history, the now 67-year-old legend Denzel Washington added yet another jewel to his crown with his seemingly effortless embodiment of one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragic figures. The visually astonishing film by Joel Coen may be most notable for its production values, but it is also exquisitely acted with Washington giving the film’s most impressive turn.
2.) Andrew Garfield, tick, tick…BOOM! (1 prior nomination for Best Actor for Hacksaw Ridge; he has never won). Andrew Garfield gave arguably the best performance of his career to date as Jonathan Larson, the man who struggled through numerous professional setbacks only to create the 1990s musical sensation Rent and then tragically die at age 35 before he could see the astonishing success and impact of his work. In his directorial debut, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda eschews the traditional biopic structure and creates a vivacious and inventive musical biography that for the most part works thrillingly. And it would likely have fallen apart if the role of Larson had been given to a lesser actor. Garfield shows not only a hitherto unknown singing ability in the film, but also a degree of charisma unlike anything he has displayed before. Although he just missed out on the top spot for me, I would be thrilled to see him win for his work here.
1.) Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog (1 prior nomination for Best Actor for The Imitation Game; he has never won). As Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock, Dr. Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Alan Turing in the Oscar-winning The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch essentially cornered the market on unfathomably brilliant but deeply socially awkward curmudgeons. None of those iconic performances prepared me for what he did with the role of Phil Burbank. As a crass and cruel rough-and-tumble cowboy tortured by the loss of his mentor and secret lover Bronco Henry, Cumberbatch pulls off a fascinating character study that explores internalized homophobia, repressed sexuality, grief, and jealousy with superb skill. Some complained that he made an awkward cowboy, but that was precisely the point. Phil Burbank is cosplaying hyper-masculinity, a remarkably difficult scenario to play, but nevertheless one Cumberbatch does extraordinarily.
BEST ACTRESS
5.) Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos (4 prior nominations — Best Actress for Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, and Rabbit Hole; Best Supporting Actress for Lion; she won for The Hours). I think that Nicole Kidman is a brilliant actress who should have more than 5 Oscar nominations at this point in her extraordinary career. I also think that she gave a daring and effective performance in Being the Ricardos. The fact that I ranked her last is much more of a testament to how strong this category is than any issues I have with the performance. In stark contrast to her Oscar-winning turn in The Hours, Kidman refreshingly eschewed heavy makeup and prosthetics for her turn as iconic sitcom star Lucille Ball. She focused on nailing her mannerisms and vocal stylings, and largely succeeded. She may never convince you that she is Lucille Ball but she gives a compelling performance that captures her spirit. The only aspect of the performance that I struggled with was the fact that in the film’s brief recreations of iconic moments from I Love Lucy, Kidman just can’t emulate Lucy’s comic brilliance (which is admittedly a tall order).
4.) Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers (3 prior nominations — Best Actress for Volver and Best Supporting Actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Nine; she won for Vicky Cristina Barcelona). This was the final of the 20 acting contenders that I saw and I was hoping that it would blow me away, not only because I adore Penelope Cruz’s acting and the films of Pedro Almodovar, but also because I was desperately seeking some clarity about the Best Actress category. I have been having a great deal of trouble deciding who my pick was given the numerous of extraordinary lead actress performances this year (including several who didn’t make the final five like House of Gucci’s Lady Gaga, The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve, Passing’s Tessa Thompson, and West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler). As photographer Janis Martinez Moreno who has a shocking realization about her daughter, Cruz is predictably brilliant, never striking a false note and never veering into histrionic melodrama even when the screenplay and direction undoubtedly tempt her to do so. She is utterly superb, but the screenplay doesn’t quite give her the memorable material to allow her to rise above the following three contenders.
3.) Kristen Stewart, Spencer (1st nomination). Perhaps no 2021 film was as divisive as Spencer and the same could be said about Kristen Stewart’s performance as Princess Diana. Pablo Lorrain’s hybrid of historical fiction and psychological horror was heralded as an Oscar front-runner and instant classic among many earlier reviewers only to be rejected by general audiences and most major awards-granting bodies. After high profile snubs at the Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA Awards some doubted that long-presumed frontrunner Stewart would even be nominated at the Oscars. She eked out a nomination (the film’s sole one) but now seems a long shot to win. It’s not hard for me to understand why the film is so divisive. I found much to appreciate, but also found it to be wildly melodramatic and thematically heavy-handed. In contrast, it is hard for me to understand why Stewart’s performance is so divisive. She takes on the daring task of embodying one of the most iconic figures of the past century and does a dazzling job of capturing her style, speech patterns, gestures, and — most importantly — tortured psyche. For me it is not the grand moments like the pearl-chewing or the meltdown on the dilapidated staircase, but the lighter and quieter moments driving in the car and playing with her children where the true power and skill of her performance is most evident.
2.) Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter (2 prior nominations — Best Actress for The Favorite and Best Supporting Actress for The Father; she won for The Favorite). As ornery college professor Leda Caruso who becomes preoccupied with an overwhelmed young mother (Dakota Johnson) while vacationing in Greece, Colman delivers a remarkably complex and deeply discomforting performance. Whether she’s lashing out at rowdy kids, making painfully awkward attempts at flirting, or engaging in small acts of cruelty, Colman is never less than fascinating and utterly convincing. Those looking for clear answers about exactly why Leda is the way she is and does the things she does will be frustrated by the film, but anyone who can go along for the ride should be able to appreciate the utterly remarkable things that Colman does with a challenging and unlikable role.
1.) Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2 prior nominations — Best Actress for Zero Dark Thirty; Best Supporting Actress for The Help; she has never won). Jessica Chastain’s performance as televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker was treated as an afterthought by many Oscar prognosticators, only to catapult into frontrunner status after recent wins from the Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice Awards. Her rise to the top of the pack has irritated many who are understandably exhausted by the Academy’s near-obsession with biopics. And to be fair to these naysayers, The Eyes of Tammy Faye commits numerous biopic sins, including an over-reliance on makeup and prosthetics, a lack of clear viewpoint regarding the film’s subject, and the wildly over-expansive time frame of the film’s narrative. But for me, even though the film fell short in many ways, Chastain was never anything less than extraordinary. I have trouble believing that those who said she went over the top had much familiarity with the woman she was portraying. In fact, I found that she did an absolutely remarkable job of excelling both at the light and dark sides of her character. She is equally convincing in the scenes showcasing her folksy charm and undeniable charisma as she is in the increasingly tragic scenes of ruin and humiliation. She manages to imbue a heavily ridiculed and disgraced figure with profound nuance and empathy. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that Chastain is by far the most overdue for a win of the 5 contenders (Kidman, Cruz, and Colman have won previously and Stewart has yet to amass the body of work that Chastain has).
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