Best Actor – 1985

Official Nominations: William Hurt. Harrison Ford. James Garner. Jack Nicholson. Jon Voight.

This is a more interesting list than we tend to get in the 80s, mainly because of the type of film the performances were nominated for. We have William Hurt picking up a deserved win for a steamy political thriller on one end of the spectrum, and a veteran nomination for James Garner in an okay Romantic Comedy nobody remembers. While for his body of work Garner deserved a nomination, I don’t think it should have been for this film.

Harrison Ford broke free from his Spielberg/Lucas leading man shackles with Witness, in which he showed he could carry a film and be a leading man in his own right. Jack Nicholson earns his yearly nomination for Prizzi’s Honor, and Jon Voight picked one up, rather bizarrely, for Runway Train. I like the performance and the movie, but it’s ostensibly an action movie which we know is a genre The Academy usually dismisses outright. I’m all for it. I’d be happy with any of these guys, picking up the win, though Garner’s would be cynical.

My Winner: William Hurt

My Nominations: William Hurt. Harrison Ford. Jeff Daniels. Eric Stoltz. Richard Pryor. Clint Eastwood. Michael J Fox. Tim Curry. Jonathan Price.

As always, my list is a mixture of legitimate choices, personal favourites who should have been in with a shout, and utter insanity. Only Hurt and Ford make it from the real list, and I reckon only Jeff Daniels from my list was in with a genuine chance of being nominated. Daniels was in The Purple Rose Of Cairo and picked up a Golden Globe Nomination. It’s Woody Allen – Academy darling, and Daniels had just come off the back of Ragtime and Terms Of Endearment. Plus, he’s good. Alas, no dice.

Mask was one of those movies which was always on in my house growing up. My mum must have liked it or something, not that we owned it. It was one of the first tear-jerkers I ever saw and one of the few I actually enjoyed, not that it was ever a personal favourite. Stoltz is great in the role, his partnership with Cher holding the film together.

Clint Eastwood would begin to become a greater force from a critical perspective through the 80s, namely as a director. Arguably that trend begins here with Pale Rider. While Clint never really changes as an actor from role to role, you know when he’s invested and when he’s not. When it’s his own material, he goes all in, and if you’re going to nominate him for something, it may as well be here.

Michael J Fox is the heart of Back To The Future and while its definitely an ensemble piece, such is his charm that you can’t imagine anyone else in the role. His measuring of the comedy beats, the action, and playing multiple personas in the 1950s and 1980s (which would of course be expanded upon in the sequel) is note perfect.

While Clue is only now being recognised as a worthwhile cult film, it was another one I had fun with growing up, even if I didn’t really understand the whole multiple endings thing. You get what you pay for with Tim Curry, and as the devious perma-grin Butler, you get bang for your buck.

Jonathan Pryce is great as the tragic lead of Brazil, again like other entries acting as the heart and glue of the piece, while Richard Pryor is my random insane vote. His wild-eyed bewilderment is always great to see in any movie, and I’m giving him a nomination here jsut to remind everyone of how good we was. Plus Brewster’s Millions is just a lot of fun.

My Winner: Michael J Fox.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Actor – 1984

Official Nominations: F Murray Abraham. Jeff Bridges. Albert Finney. Tom Hulce. Sam Waterson.

I’ve always found this year’s category a bit of a one horse race, possibly because of how strange some of the nominees seem to be. I love Jeff Bridges, John Carpenter is my favourite Director, but I don’t understand why Bridges was nominated for Starman. I don’t think the Academy ‘liked’ Carpenter enough to see this as an acknowledgement nomination and I don’t think it’s Bridges best performance when weighted against other performances he wasn’t nominated for. I suppose it’s Carpenter’s most Academy adjacent film so if they were ever going to nominate one for a major category, it would be Starman. 

Albert Finney is always great and Under The Volcano is a film which has slipped under the radar but is worth your time given the two central stars and director, while Sam Waterson seemed nailed on as a nominee given the success of The Killing Fields. That leaves Amadeus, and our two leads in Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham. While Hulce’s Mozart bears the name of the film, it’s his brother Salieri who is the obsessive focus of the film, with Abraham’s frenzied scheming and arch-rivalry leads both men on intertwining paths of destruction.

My Winner: F. Murray Abraham.

My Nominations: F. Murray Abraham. Eddie Murphy. Ralph Macchio. Robert De Niro. James Woods. Harry Dean Stanton.

Admittedly, I go off the rails a little on this one. I see no good reason why both De Niro and Woods were not respectively nominated for Once Upon A Time In America, with both men giving one of their best performances on some of their most challenging material, but outside of those two my other choices had little chance of ever being picked.

It was a year of breakthroughs for performers who had been around for a while. Macchio had done a few smaller movies but smashes home as the annoying yet endearing mini Stallone in The Karate Kid while Murphy hit box office gold in his turn as the wise-cracking Beverly Hills Cop. Finally, Harry Dean Stanton had been a supporting bit player for decades before grabbing a rare lead in Paris, Texas in which he shows he could hold the audience as the near mute Travis.

My Winner: James Woods.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Supporting Actor – 1983

Official Nominations: Jack Nicholson. Charles Durning. John Lithgow. Sam Shepard. Rip Torn.

A curious list of names this year, with Jack Nicholson picking up another win and a host of respected industry performers if not necessarily household names. Jack won for Terms Of Endearment, understandable because it’s him and because it’s good, but it feels more like a recognition for the recent performances he was not nominated for and the sheer success of the film. His co-star John Lithgow plays ‘the other man’ and is somewhat more straight than what he’s typically known for.

The rest of our nominees have sadly since passed away, starting with Charles Durning who stars as the blundering Gestapo leader in the little seen remake To Be Or Not To Be. It’s a silly, fun movie with a great cast, but the nomination feels out of place given the other names who missed out. Sam Shepard receives the sole acting nomination for The Right Stuff – something of an oversight – while Rip Torn seems like something of a veteran nomination too for Cross Creek. A nice but mostly forgettable film with a few good performances.

My Winner: Sam Shepard.

My Nominations: Jeff Goldblum. C Thomas Howell. Sam Shepard. Ed Harris. Mickey Rourke. Steven Bauer.

An almost entirely different line-up for me, with only Shepard’s Chuck Yeager making it over to my list. Joining him is Ed Harris as John Glenn, one more of any number of performers deserving of a nomination in The Right Stuff. From Best Picture nominee The Big Chill comes Jeff Goldbum – he plays the celebrity journalist Michael but you could just as easily pick Tom Berenger. Similarly, from The Outsiders you could pick anyone but I’ve gone for C. Thomas Howell and for Rumble Fish, Mickey Rourke.

My winner though, obviously out-shadowed by Al Pacino, is Steven Bauer as Montana’s best friend Manny who is just as excitable but less unhinged than his partner in crime.

My Winner: Steven Bauer.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Actor – 1983

Official Nominations: Robert Duvall. Michael Caine. Tom Conti. Tom Courtenay. Albert Finney.

In an unimpressive year, the Academy falls back on one of its favourite ‘bits’ – chucking the Best Actor award over to someone who should have won one already. Robert Duvall wins at the fourth attempt, for Tender Mercies. It’s a good performance – it’s Robert Duvall for fudge’s sake – and it feels a little cynical to say that it’s a heritage award. That’s what it is, but I’m not sure anyone else deserves the win over him, in this particular category in this particular year. He’s certainly not losing to Michael Caine in Educating Rita, a film I’ve never had much affection for.

In fact, the whole category is a little bit ironic; it’s like the non-movie version of the Hollywood villain trope – all British people are evil. You see, Robert Duvall, the sole American is the winner against Caine and three other Brits. Tom Conti, like Duvall in Tender Mercies, plays something of a soulful drunk and scumbag. Guess what – he’s good, but not winning against Duvall. Finally, Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney team up in The Dresser as <insert title here> and the actor he… dresses. Guess what – both good.

It’s a very ‘these actors are good and give good performances, but the movies are a little dull’ category.

My Winner: Robert Duvall

My Nominations: Robert Duvall. Jeroen Krabbe. Robert De Niro. Tom Conti. Al Pacino. James Woods.

Look, I’m all for nominated people who deserved to have won or should have been nominated in a previous year, but not to the detriment of others in the current year. Especially when those people are Robert De Niro for The King Of Comedy and Al Pacino for fucking Scarface. 

So Duvall gets a nomination from me, and Conti does too, but for Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, a film which doesn’t and didn’t get the credit it deserves. James Woods is manic, but not sheer insanity, in Videodrome while Jeroen Krabbe gives one of those full blooded, all-in performances in The Fourth Man. 

Which leaves an equal choice between De Niro and Pacino. Both actors are hamming it up to the extreme, in places, but between those extremes is some of the finest characterisation of their careers. Who do you go with? Who did I go with?

My Winner: Al Pacino

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Actor – 1982

Official Nominations: Ben Kinglsey. Dustin Hoffman. Jack Lemmon. Paul Newman. Peter O’Toole.

Kingsley’s your runaway winner year. Even if The Academy didn’t have its bizarre fetish for awarding people for impersonating real life figures, Kingsley would still deserve the win for his transformation and performance. It’s one of the best examples of an actor becoming someone else, a real life someone else.

In any other year, Hoffman would be a good shout for winner thanks to Tootsie. I’m not the biggest fan of the movie, and without Hoffman I’m not sure it would have been close to the success that it was. At this point it was becoming clear that O’Toole was never going to win. If we’d won for this, it would have been an upset – not because he’s bad in it (he’s great) – but because My Favourite Year is such an underseen and strange film. O’Toole is playing a swashbuckling 1950s actor who is mostly drunk and living off his prior status, and he spends the week with a young writer and up and coming fan. It’s in the same vein as Arthur in many ways. It’s sweet, should be seen more.

Finally, you can take your pick between the veteran nods of Jack Lemmon and Paul Newman. Lemmon is somewhat against type, Newman is the grizzled hero standing up for what’s right when he can barely stand up himself… both great, but you would expect that.

My Winner: Ben Kingsley.

My Nominations: Ben Kingsley. Dustin Hoffman. Jack Lemmon. Paul Winfield. Mel Gibson. Kurt Russell.

In truth, while this year features some of my all time favourite films, I struggled to justify adding any performances from those. I could have added Ford for Blade Runner, but it’s too deliberately monotone to stand alongside my other picks. Kurt Russell’s performance in The Thing is similarly terse, but has more life, a touch of humour and energy. I may not get many chances to nominate Kurt, so here we are.

Mel Gibson had made a few cult movies before 1982, but it was his performance in The Year Of Living Dangerously which brought him his first notable critical attention in the US, looking every bit like the next big hearthrob, but one with an edge and a genuine talent. Finally, Paul Winfield burns through the screen in Sam Fuller’s White Dog as a dog trainer working to change a vicious dog which has been trained to attack black people on sight. It’s a movie which isn’t always successful in its message, but Winfield is excellent.

My Winner: Ben Kingsley.

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Actor – 1981

Official Nominations: Henry Fonda. Warren Beatty. Burt Lancaster. Dudley Moore. Paul Newman.

I’m not a big fan of this year’s nominations. It feels way too ‘political’ in the ‘we have to vote for these guys because of all they’ve done’ rather than based on the individual performance. Performance wise, I think there’s really only one guy who deserves to be here, and he’s my winner. That’s not to say the other performances are without merit – every actor here is a clear legend and they’re all great. But I would pick other performances over these. Fonda gets the Official Win for On Golden Pond. It’s hard to feel too bad about this because it’s Fonda and it’s his final performance. I don’t love the film or the performance, weighing it against Fonda’s other work and the other films this year. Beatty could have appeared in a remake of Cannibal Holocaust and earned an Oscar nod in 1981, such was his influence. Again, good performance, not something I’d ever pick.

Burt Lancaster is the gangster with a heart in Atlantic City – decent movie, decent work from Lancaster and would maybe be my pick for second place out of this list. Paul Newman would be my third choice as the victim of fake news and becoming embroiled with the journalist going after him. It was a good comeback for Newman and a reminder of his craft. My win goes to Dudley Moore for Arthur, a film I have little reason to like given the rest of the cast and much of the plot, but for whatever reason it’s a film I’ve always enjoyed, always found very funny, and it was the role Moore was born to play.

My Winner: Dudley Moore.

My Nominations: Dudley Moore. Harrison Ford. William Hurt. Mel Gibson. Klaus Maria Brandauer.

Only fuddly Dudley makes it over to my list, and to be honest its a year I struggled to find a variety of nominees I was happy with. Harrison Ford goes in for Raiders, breaking free from the rogueish shackles of Han Solo and doing in his own more hapless spin on the the cavalier larger than life heroes which Lucas and Spielberg grew up with. You know someone’s going to take over in the future, but when you think of Indiana Jones, you think of Harrison. Next we have a couple of actors nominated for a couple of performances – William Hurt would get his Oscar noms later, but in 1981 he stood out for his performances in two Neo-Noirs – Body Heat (as the dumbass lawyer who becomes embroiled with Kathleen Turner) and Eyewitness (as the Sigourney Weaver obsessed cleaner who pretends he has information on a murder Weaver is reporting on just to get close to her). Mel Gibson gives two wildly different performances this year, upgrading from the wide-eyed bewilderment of Mad Max into the silent, wily survivalist of The Road Warrior, and as the drifter who enrols in the Army and witnesses the brutality of War. Finally, Brandauer goes full Brando in Mephisto. 

My Winner: Harrison Ford

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Actor – 1980

Official Nominations: Robert De Niro. John Hurt. Robert Duvall. Jack Lemmon. Peter O’Toole.

We all know who’s winning this, right? It’s almost a shame because we have multiple deserving winners in any other year. Jack Lemmon gets another shot, his second in a row. Raging Bull is one of the must sees of the 80s and the movie which cemented De Niro as a master (if it wasn’t apparent from Taxi Driver and The Godfather II). De Niro delivers one of the most iconic all time performances by putting himself a gruelling regime and body changes which would inspire the likes of Daniel Day Lewis, ushering in a new era of near over-committing to a role. Physically embodying a character is one thing, but delivering a performance which you cannot take your eyes off is another.

In any other year John Hurt would be your winner, and even here it’s a pretty close race. While the prosthetics seem like the star, there’s a man underneath, an actor who gives a passionate, sympathetic performance. Rather than Merrick himself, you need to look past the surface. It may be Hurt’s best work, and he’s had numerous classics. Robert Duvall is the only other likely winner, already on an upwards trajectory and in The Great Santini he is very strong as the stern authoritarian military pilot who wants to control his family and command their respect in the same way he expects from his co-workers. Good performance, decent film, but not as memorable, interesting, or powerful as the big boys.

The final two nominations are legacy noms, with O’Toole and Lemmon a cert for noms in most years. O’Toole is as good as ever in the underrated The Stunt Man while Lemmon is perfectly fine as the dying man trying to make amends in Tribute. 

My Winner: Robert De Niro

My Nominations: Robert De Niro. John Hurt. Donald Sutherland. William Hurt. Tatsuya Nakadai. Bob Hoskins. Jack Nicholson.

I carry over the front-runners to my own nominations, which include one snub, one impressive debut, and one huge star going full Nicholson. Nicholson, of course, goes full Nicholson in The Shining – as fashionable as it has become to say his performance is at 100% from the first scene, it’s much more nuanced than that. It’s clear he’s unhinged, and the character isn’t as well written or rounded as in the novel, but Nicholson steps through levels of mania, withdrawal, and obsession, topping it off with some of horror’s most famous moments.

Tatsuya Nakadai is more worthy of a legacy nom than most, appearing in the likes of The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, The Human Condition Trilogy, and Kwaidan, but his performance as both the titular Kagemusha and his double, the scheming feudal Lord is strong enough for a regular nomination. Sticking with the foreign performances, Bob Hoskins made his first major impact as the cockney gangster in over his head in The Long Good Friday, leading to bigger offers in Britain and the US.

William Hurt made his debut in Ken Russell’s eternally bewildering Altered States, experimenting on his mind and body to the point of obsession and of no return. A difficult role and subject matter to tackle, Hurt’s devolution is convincing and would open the door for the body horror sub-genre.

My Winner: Robert De Niro

Let us know your winner in the comments!

Best Actor – 1979

Official Nominations: Dustin Hoffman. Jack Lemmon. Al Pacino. Roy Scheider. Peter Sellers.

It seems appropriate that the final Awards of the decade should end with such a 70s looking list. Dustin Hoffman got his win as the sympathetic Daddy Kramer, another extension of the everyman characters he had been playing for much of the decade and becoming one of his most famous roles. It’s difficult to argue against him getting the win, even if I’m not the biggest fan of the film. The same could be said for any of the nominees in this category this year – Jack Lemmon would have felt like a veteran nomination, but for the fact he had already been nominated several times, and won twice by this point. Lemmon is the power plant worker who believes something is amiss and that a meltdown is imminent, tries to convince first his management and then the general public that the plant is not safe. Lemmon was also best as an Everyman, here is frustration growing steadily and convincingly – it’s easy to see why the public may not be able to tell if his character is genuine or has lost his mind.

Al Pacino grabs another vote for one of his lesser known 70s works, this time as the jaded and fiery Defence Attorney who ends up defending a Judge he has a difficult past with. As it’s Pacino, you know you’re going to get plenty of grandstanding and explosive speeches, and that’s precisely what he delivers – while not letting the sympathetic side of the character down. Roy Scheider basically plays Bob Fosse in All That Jazz – a workaholic and pressure addict who refuses to stop or accept when enough is enough. He fully embraces his many vices and Scheider is perfect for the role – just intense enough without becoming something to be lampooned, and jittering all the way to his character’s inevitable conclusion. Finally, Peter Sellers feels like the bonus nominee here, not someone who really stood a chance against the other four. Having said that, it may be his best role, if not best performance, because while it lacks the obvious silliness of his more renowned work, this one feels more true to who he wanted to be as a performer. The character is ideal for him – a simple-minded, simple gardener who somehow becomes advisor in The White House. Honestly you can take any of these choices and not be concerned.

My Winner: Dustin Hoffman

My Nominations: Dustin Hoffman. Al Pacino. Roy Scheider. Peter Sellers. Martin Sheen. Klaus Kinski. Phil Daniels.

As much as I’d like to put Mel Gibson here for Mad Max, I think the performance grows more in the sequel. It seems odd, especially in retrospect, that Martin Sheen wasn’t nominated here for Apocalypse Now. Possibly it’s a case of him being overshadowed somewhat by other performances in the film – with both Brando and Duvall stealing their scenes. But Sheen’s is the performance which holds the entire process together – we see the war and the journey through his eyes and he becomes increasingly crazed as the insanity around him intensifies. Klaus Kinski, in a year with a few notable vampire performances, delivers one of the all time best performances as a fanged monster. Obviously he is more visually horrific than the more romantic take on the creatures, but that doesn’t make him any less convincing, intriguing, seductive, or sympathetic – a credit to what Kinski was able to convey. Finally, Phil Daniels gives what I think is one of the finest British big screen performances of the decade in Quadrophenia – it’s authentic as hell, powerful on a number of emotional levels, and it is arguably one of the best performances focusing on teen rebellion, angst, and alienation. No-one else is ever going to go for him, so I will.

My Winner: Phil Daniels

Let us know in the comments who you pick as Best Actor of 1979!

Best Actor – 1978

Official Nominations: Jon Voight. Warren Beatty. Gary Busey. Robert De Niro. Laurence Olivier.

In the late 70s, De Niro took over from Pacino in The Best Actor official category, here gaining his third nomination. It was Jon Voight though who picked up the win in a genuinely tough category. I think all five performances here are contenders, but I would have four front-runners including Voight as the severely injured soldier Coming Home. De Niro’s performance also sees him returning home from, going to, and being in Vietnam and I feel it’s the more iconic, more rounded of the two. Gary Busey hits the big time with his superb portrayal of Buddy Holly, one of the most underrated biography performances of all time, while Laurence Olivier gets a veteran nomination as a Nazi Hunter in The Boys From Brazil. Unlike most veteran nominations, this one is deserving on its own merits. Finally, Warren Beatty is the outsider and this feels more like a ‘we love you, Warren’ nomination than anything else. A good performance sure, but not on par with the others.

My Winner: Robert De Niro

My Nominations: Jon Voight. Gary Busey. Robert De Niro. Christopher Reeve. Donald Pleasence. Jan Michael Vincent. Gregory Peck. Brad Davis. Ryan O’Neal. John Belushi.

Three make it over from the official list, joining a mixture of possible snubs and personal favourites. Christopher Reeve burst onto the scene as the only Superman who will ever matter (sorry Dean Cain), a role so all-encompassing that he could never escape it. It’s a great lead performance surrounded by a stellar cast – his comedic talents giving Clark Kent that awkward, clumsy charm while easily transitioning into the all-powerful hero figure. Also kind of playing an awkward and heroic character is Donald Pleasence as Dr Loomis in Halloween, one of the great good guys of horror cinema. the sequels have a fair bit of scenery chewing, but here Pleasence looks like he’s relishing the performance and film, having fun as this slightly manic protector of a child who wsa pure evil. Is he truly a lead though? Tough, I’m adding him.

Jan Michael Vincent didn’t really stand a chance against De Niro and Voight, but his performance in Big Wednesday shares a lot of similarities and should have been a stepping off point to much bigger things. Unfortunately, things never quite panned out that way, perhaps some critical praise would have helped. Gregory Peck goes against type and plays one of the most despicable humans ever in The Boys From Brazil – proving that everyone’s favourite wholesome figure could be much more. Brad Davis could have become a household name if he had received more high profile praise for his star making turn in Midnight Express while John Belushi became an icon after Animal House. Finally, Ryan O’Neal stars as the titular Driver in Walter Hill’s action/chase classic. When people think of Ryan O’Neal they invariably go to Love Story or Paper Moon but for me it’s The Driver which features his best performance, much against type, as the cool and detached getaway driver whose apparently obvious desires are perhaps not so obvious upon reevaluation.

My Winner: Robert De Niro

Let us know your picks in the comments!

Best Actor – 1977

Official Nominations: Richard Dreyfuss. Woody Allen. Richard Burton. Marcello Mastroianni. John Travlota.

Richard Dreyfuss became the youngest Best Actor winner this year for The Goodbye Girl. In all honesty, it isn’t the greatest selection of performances. Obviously Woody Allen gets a nomination for Annie Hall but he’s essentially playing the same character he always does. If you’re going to nominate his acting for any film, I suppose it’s going to be this one. We follow this with two veteran nominations – Richard Burton in Equus – fine, but hardly his best performance, and Marcello Mastroianni – again it was bound to happen sooner or later, but again not his best performance. That means it’s between Travolta and Dreyfuss. I’m not a big fan of either movie – romantic comedies and musicals are basically my two least favourite genres so there’s a certain amount of bias I would need to overcome to pick one of those two. There’s no doubting the pedigree of these movies and performances, but they’re not something I’d go out of my way to watch again. Saturday Night Fever is certainly the more iconic of the two films and Travolta’s full-blooded performance made him a star, while Dreyfuss shows keen comic ability and makes a fairly generic comedy more entertaining.

My Winner: John Travolta

My Nominations: John Travolta. Richard Dreyfuss. Keith Carradine. Harvey Keitel. Rutger Hauer. Roy Scheider. Mark Hamill.

Only Travolta makes it over to my list. But what’s this, you say? Richard Dreyfuss is there too? Yes, that’s because of a little film called Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Carradine and Keitel get nods for their work on The Duelists while Rutger Hauer continues his sterling European work in the superb Soldier Of Orange. Roy Scheider keeps his 70s streak running with the tense and exciting remake Sorceror, while a young Mark Hamill introduces the world to Luke Skywalker, capturing perfectly the wide-eyed innocence and wonder of every kid who wants to be a hero. My bias is showing again.

My Winner: Mark Hamill

Who do you pick as the Best Actor of 1977? Let us know in the comments!