This category's five actors had a total of twenty-two Oscar nominations coming into this season and five wins. Only one of the five has never won before, and he's the favorite to finally get his this time.
Tom Hanks is seemingly an industry unto himself. He has been a steadliy working actor since the early 1980s, became a movie star by the end of that decade, and a double Oscar winner in the next. He is one of the most beloved, bankable, and charming people in Hollywood. Deservedly so. His portrayal of Fred Rogers in
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is his sixth nomination. While six nominations is more than respectable it also seems a little light given his stature and likeability. His previous nominations were all as Best Actor in
Big (Dustin Hoffman won for
Rain Man), then the historic back-to-back wins for
Philadelphia and
Forrest Gump,
Saving Private Ryan (Roberto Benigni won for
Life is Beautiful), and
Cast Away (Russell Crowe won for
Gladiator). No other nominations for Hanks in all those years, not for
Captain Phillips or
Bridge of Spies or
Sully or
The Post or
Saving Mr. Banks not to mention going back to
Catch Me If You Can, Apollio 13, and
A League of Their Own. He could easily be in double digit nominations by now, but for whatever reason - perhaps most of all that he didn't "need" them - he seemed to be the performance that didn't quite make the cut.
He won't win this year for
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, it is largely unnecessary coming on the heels of the incredibly moving documentary
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018), but it's nice to see Hanks among the five nominees again.
Sir
Anthony Hopkins had been working on stage and screen for over twenty years before Hannibal Lecter made him a household name and an Oscar winner as Best Actor for
Silence of the Lambs. He wasn't even the main character, he has relatively limited screentime, but his performance was so seductive and memorable he triumphed with the Academy. He has had four Oscar nominations since his initial foray as Hannibal the Cannibal: Best Actor for
The Remains of the Day (Hanks won his first for
Philadelphia), Best Actor as Oliver Stone's
Nixon (Nicolas Cage won for
Leaving Las Vegas), Supporting Actor as John Quincy Adams in Spielberg's
Amistad (Robin Williams won for
Good Will Hunting) and now Supporting Actor again as Benedict in
The Two Popes. Hopkins continues to work, but in recent years he doesn't seem interested in taking big dramatic swings anymore, most visible this century as
Thor's Odin in The Marvel Cinematic Universe and on HBO's
"Westworld". At 82 he has more than earned that right, but when Fernando Meirelles came along with
The Two Popes he couldn't resist. For the man who has played Captain Bligh, Adolph Hitler, and Dick Nixon, why not add in a German-born Pope named Ratzinger?
Hopkins won't win, but he can still bring his charm and gravitas to the screen and his fellow actors adore him.
With this pair Martin Scorsese's films have now produced 23 acting nominations here at the Oscars with five wins: Ellen Burstyn for
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Robert DeNiro for
Raging Bull, Paul Newman for
The Color of Money, Joe Pesci for
GoodFellas, and Cate Blanchett for
The Aviator.
Al Pacino was one of those actors who got a mountain of nominations in the beginning of his career but had to wait a while to actually win.
The Irishman is his ninth nomination, but first in twenty-seven years. Pacino's first nod came for his big breakthrough in
The Godfather as Best Supporting Actor (nominated with co-stars Jim Caan and Robert Duvall it was Joel Grey who won for
Cabaret), then four Best Actor nominations in the 1970s for
Serpico (Jack Lemmon won for
Save the Tiger),
The Godfather Part II (Art Carney won for
Harry & Tonto),
Dog Day Afternoon (Jack Nicholson's year for
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), and
...And Justice for All (Dustin Hoffman won for
Kramer vs. Kramer). Al took much of the '80s off but when he returned he got three more Oscar nominations as Supporting Actor for
Dick Tracy (this is Pecsi's win for
GoodFellas), then double nominated in the same year as Supporting Actor for
Glengarry Glen Ross (Gene Hackman won for
Unforgiven), and finally his win as Best Actor for
Scent of a Woman. No more nominations in all the years since, not for
Carlito's Way, Heat, Donnie Brasco, The Insider, Insomnia or anything else. To be fair he's made a lot of junk the past twenty-plus years or so too (somehow he was overlooked for
Jack & Jill), but after multiple collaborations with Francis Ford Coppola and Brian DePalma it is his first time working with Martin Scorsese that brings him back to the Oscar fore. His spirited portrayal of Jimmy Hoffa won't win him his second Academy Award, but it's nice to see him working in a prestige project again.
This is
Joe Pesci's third nomination, all for Scorsese movies. His first was as Joey La Motta in
Raging Bull and a decade later he won playing the gleefully psychopathic Tommy in
GoodFellas.
My Cousin Vinny made him an unlikely movie star for a while, but Pesci chose to fade away into retirement in this century, appearing in only two other films since
Lethal Weapon 4 back in 1998: in the all-star
The Good Shepherd (2006) directed by Robert DeNiro and Taylor Hackford's
Love Ranch (2010) with Helen Mirren. Otherwise he was seemingly content to play golf and not worry about the whole acting thing. But DeNiro and Scorsese convinced him to join them, Harvey Keitel, and Pacino in
The Irishman as Russell Bufalino. I think it is his best work ever, restrained yet powerful, absolutely magnetic on the screen. He won't win his second Oscar but boy was it great that his cinematic pals coaxed him back to the set.
Brad Pitt is the sh
!t. But while he was put on the pretty boy movie star track early on he wisely decided he would much rather play weird character parts. After
Legends of the Fall and
A River Runs Through It he could have easily settled for safe, matinee idol romantic leads and made a ton of money. Instead he hooked up with Terry Gilliam, David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh, Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Coen Brothers, and Quentin Tarantino. Brad has now racked up four Oscar nominations as an actor: Supporting Actor for
12 Monkeys (Kevin Spacey won for
The Usual Suspects), Best Actor for
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Sean Penn won for
Milk), Best Actor for
MoneyBall (Jean Dujardin won for
The Artist), and now Supporting Actor for
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. That he has always been impossibly good looking but self-deprecating has made him endearing, including to the industry itself. That he is clearly the co-lead and not a supporting role in
OUATIH helps his cause, too. There are no hard and fast rules to enforce what constitutes a lead vs. a supporting role, so often parts are strategically shopped. Rather than have Pitt and DiCaprio compete against each other for Best Actor we'll call Pitt's role supporting. OK, fine, whatever. Oh, and plus Pitt is excellent as the mellow stunt double Cliff Booth who is more than capable of kicking ass when needed, though mostly he chauffeurs Rick Dalton around town and drinks beer. But boy is he the guy you want watching your back. For his portrayal of this handsome, self-assured Hollywood hanger on the real life reluctant movie star is about to become an Oscar winner.