Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

The five nominees are...



Austin Butler, Elvis
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Bill Nighy, Living

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

I haven't seen The Whale yet, but Fraser would be my prediction.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

Fraser deserves it. Farrell or Butler could steal.

I Can see Butler winning, especially given Lisa Marie’s recent death. It would be a feel good moment the academy wouldn’t pass up, allowing Butler to not only dedicate it to her father, but his daughter as well.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

Only seen Farrell. Lots of catching up to do.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

All first time nominees. Neat.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

Haven't seen it, but think it'll be Fraiser

Only seen two of the nominees...loved Austin Butler, but I gotta go with Colin Ferrell
here...it's his turn. I've heard nothing but amazing things about Fraser. but I haven't been able to find a place to watch The Whale yet.

I miss Ralph Fiennes in The Menu here. He was on the Golden Globes.
Also seen Farrell and Butler. Currently in searching for the Bill Nighy's movie.

Even though I knew it wasn't going to happen, I had a secret desire to see Fiennes get nominated for The Menu as well.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

This will be the most competitive category. Butler, Farrell, or Fraser. It would be cool to see Butler win. I like the guy. He's going to be the next big movie star alas Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp...etc. His performance in Elvis was commanding. He also gave a great speech at the Globes. But Fraser's performance in The Whale was quite moving and his speech at the Critics Choice made me tear up and that's something that I don't do when listening to award speeches. Farrell seems like a cool guy but I was just never a fan of him as an actor, and thought his performance in Banshees was kinda bland.

It could happen, but since Anthony Hopkins won the award over Chadwick Boseman (R.I.P.), it seems like real-life events don't have as much of an influence over the awards that they used to.

I'm rooting for Colin Farrell, partially because it would be nice for a comedic performance to win for a change.

Even though he deserves the nomination, I really don't see Butler winning because Lisa Marie died. And am I the only one who found nothing comedic about The Banishees of Inisherin?

Yes.

Paul Mescal was excellent in Aftersun. It's a shame the film as a whole didn't get more nominations.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

Each nomination is so deserved. Have only seen three of the five (Farrell, Frasier, Mascal). Out of those three, Brendan F should get it, though Colin Farrell winning is possible too.

Just watched Aftersun, so I have now seen 3 out of the five nominees. Having a really hard time finding somewhere online to watch The Whale if anyone could help me with that, I'd be grateful. Actually, can't find anywhere to watch Living either.

Living is the one I still haven't seen, nice for Bill Nighy to get the nod although I think he's a long shot in this category.


Brendan Fraser is good in The Whale. It's not really a good film and he didn't have much to work with in terms of the script but he managed to convey a lot of emotion and character when not speaking. I think he will probably win and would deserve to.

I've seen only three of the five films nominated, but it's the three most people are talking about. I thought it was meant to be Colin Farrell vs Fraser for the Oscar, but I keep hearing people bring Austin Butler up for his Elvis, and all I can think is NO! No no no no no no. That won't do. For starters I don't want the Oscar to automatically go to the person who is impersonating someone in a biopic in whatever year the Oscar is handed out - it happens too often. There's a worse example in the Best Actress category. I didn't think he was better than Farrell or Fraser overall. I think Colin Farrell obviously deserves to win this year, and if he's beaten by Austin Butler I'll have a fit.

I thought Brendan Fraser had that Oscar-bait kind of role in The Whale, but he was also putting everything he had into it, and it's worthy of recognition. But ever since I saw Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin I thought it was his, and should go to him.

I could change my mind if I see Aftersun or Living - to be fair.

If he won I'd say it was fair, and deserved, and I'm tipping him.

I would have liked to have seen that as well, and I also knew it wasn't going to happen. I think I put him on my MoFo nominees ballot.

Bill Nighy has become a welcome ubiquitous presence in films on both sides of the pond the last twenty years. That sort of visibility started with Love Actually. He was already fifty-five. Now he’s in his seventies and enjoying his first Oscar nomination. Eternally likeable and constantly working, he has won BAFTAs and if he can hang on for five or six more years he may hit the combo of likeable performance in a great, high-profile project and he may well be back at the Oscars. But for somebody whose career took off later in his life, this nomination is a nice acknowledgement.




Paul Mescal is not well known, but he gives a wonderful, complicated, touching performance in Aftersun that rightly landed him among the Best Actor class. This is writer/director Charlotte Wells’ feature debut and she is a talent to watch, as is her leading man. You may have noticed him a couple years ago in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and he won a BAFTA for the Brit TV piece ”Normal People”, but after his charming, painful work in Aftersun he has arrived. It would be a huge upset if he were to actually win, though if enough of the Academy voters sit down and watch Aftersun it could be a night to remember.




Unlike Mescal, Colin Farrell is famous and has been famous for two decades. He quickly made the leap from small British productions to big American ones. Unfortunately a lot of those films, though they had good paychecks and got his face in a lot of cinemas, were not very good (Daredevil, The Recruit, American Outlaws, Hart’s War). That initial period of his career kind of culminated with Oliver Stone’s overblown and ridiculous Alexander with Farrell terribly miscast as Alexander the Great, though with that script and direction I doubt any actor could have made much out of it. His personal life was a bit chaotic at the time as well, but he got sober and started making better, more interesting choices and better filmmakers. Malick’s The New World, Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled remake, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Martin McDonogh’s debut In Bruges. He keeps his hands in straighter fare too, but it is better balanced and he has proven he is much more than the heartthrob he broke through as. In the same year that he played a new Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman and a diver in Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives he has maybe his best role yet in The Banshees of Inisherin. His character is guileless and honestly confused and quite possibly the dumbest person on this small Irish island, and his defacto best friend has suddenly severed their relationship because he is dull. But Farrell plays such depth of feeling and humanity in a character who could have been reduced to caricature. The sadness and befuddlement is touching. I would vote for him, but he’s likely gonna finish third in this horse race.





There are co-favorites in this category as both Austin Butler and Brendan Fraser have been splitting most of the awards this season. I am too old to know Austin Butler from his Nickelodeon/Disney Channel TV roots as a child actor. The first time I really noticed him was a few years ago in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as the Manson Family’s Tex Watson who Quentin gave a very different fate to than history. As the latest actor to inhabit the legendary Presley, he has become an overnight star. Everybody on the planet can do an Elvis impression so the trick is to make him more than the lounge level recreation of his drawl, hair, and outfits. For me I don’t think he added much depth or nuance to it, but hey, somebody loves it. Brendan Fraser had a great start to his career, a star in his twenties and thirties. Dopey comedies like Encino Man and Airheads, dramas like School Ties and Gods & Monsters, and blockbusters like George of the Jungle and The Mummy franchise. Sometime around when The Mummy movies ran their course Fraser seemed to fall out of favor, for whatever reason. He never stopped working, but he wasn’t making any high-profile projects anymore. When he popped up in Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move two years ago it seemed like he had returned from a long exile. Aronofsky then tapped him for The Whale and this year he’s in Scorsese’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon. What a resurgence. There was a touch of pushback in some corners because Fraser had to wear a fat suit to play the outrageously obese character, but I think that has faded. He should win Best Actor in a few weeks and complete this “comeback”, at least a comeback to prominence.

Just watched The Whale, so I have now seen four of the five Best Actor nominees. Haven't seen Living yet, but it's kind of moot since I am now convinced that Brendon Fraser is going to win.

I saw Aftersun today, and it looks like Living is going to be released here too late to be able to see it before the Oscars (boo!) so it's 4/5 for me - I think Paul Mescal would be deserving, but I'm still pretty sure the Academy are going to vote either Brendan Fraser or Colin Farrell - with the edge in typical voting pattern meaning Fraser will come out on top in the end.

Doesn’t look like I will get to see Living before the ceremony, so I voted. As much as I liked Elvis, Banshees was close behind. I’m going with Farrell because I think I like that performance slightly better.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

I think it will be Fraser. But I watched Elvis this weekend, and I was impressed with Austin Butler. But i think it will be Fraser.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

It's hard to choose. Maybe Colin Farrell

Brendan Fraser did win the Oscar for Best Actor.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

Yea, I really blew it with my pick for Butler here, which seems asinine in retrospect. Anyway, still need to see The Whale, but I haven't been in the mood for the emotional gut punch recently.

Re: Oscar's Best Actor 2023
 

So thrilled that Fraser won, he really deserved it and I LOVED his acceptane speech.