Oscar Forecast: Best Actor

Last year the Best Actor race was remarkably skimpy, the kind of year when a young actor from a little-seen indie like Ryan Gosling could sneak in. That scenario seems unlikely this year, because at this point the race is a free-for-all, dominated by a bunch of ex-winners.

I see four men as currently leading the pack, all of whom have won before. Daniel Day-Lewis is earning raves for those who have seen him in P.T. Anderson's This Time There Will Be Blood, a film about the early days of the oil business. If Anderson's films aren't universally loved by the Academy, he has shepherded actors from his films to nominations. George Clooney certainly will be in the mix for his title role as the conflicted lawyer in Michael Clayton, and Denzel Washington, as a Harlem drug kingpin, seems a good bet for American Gangster. I'm not quite as sure anymore about Tommy Lee Jones as the father of a murdered soldier in In the Valley of Elah. The film has underwhelmed, and it's not a flashy role, but he certainly stands a good chance.

If those four are in there are numerous guys fighting for the fifth spot. If it goes to a relative newcomer it might be James McAvoy as falsely accused man in Atonement, especially if the film lives up to expectations as a major nomination grabber. Or it could be Emile Hirsch as the young man looking to live in nature in Sean Penn's Into the Wild.

But there are no shortage of candidates: Benicio Del Toro in Things We Lost in the Fire, Mathieu Amalric in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Academy voters seem to be impressed by those playing people with disabilities); Phillip Seymour Hoffman in either The Savages or Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (or a supporting nod for Charlie Wilson's War). Speaking of that film, after seeing the trailer, I doubt Tom Hanks gets a nod, the role seems a bit too jokey. Also seeming less likely is Joaquin Phoenix for Reservation Road, since that film seems to have left early viewers unimpressed. Of course, there's always Gosling again for Lars and the Real Girl ,or Johnny Depp, who will sing for his supper in Sweeney Todd. And if the voters want to get really obvious they can nominate Jack Nicholson's treacly turn in the comic weepie The Bucket List, but then there may be a terrific hew and cry.

This leaves some deserving people out in the cold, like Viggo Mortensen from Eastern Promises and Sam Riley, who is playing Ian Curtis to high praise in Control. I doubt there's too many fans of Joy Division in the ranks of the Academy, but you never know.