The 92nd Academy Awards: Best Actor

As in the other acting categories, Best Actor has a solid front runner and little suspense. The only question here is whether the Academy wants to bestow an award on an actor for playing a character that another actor has already won for.

That would be the Joker, the Batman villain that earned Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar eleven years ago for The Dark Knight. Joaquin Phoenix is also playing the character this year, for Joker. But the films are very different, as The Dark Knight was a traditional comic book movie and Joker is something else entirely.

Phoenix, with his fourth nomination going back twenty years, is due, and the performance is flamboyant, to say the least. Some say it's overacting, but I think he has captured something real about mental illness and its impossible to take your eyes off him. He will win.

As with the other categories, it's tough to come up with an alternative. As the year wore on, it was thought by some that Adam Driver, as the husband in Marriage Story, had a shot, but that has dimmed through the precursors (Phoenix has won the Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA, and Driver zilch). Driver gives an emotionally naked performance, and if it weren't for Phoenix he'd win (he also has a very fine musical number). This is Driver's second nomination in as many years, and it's not hard to envision him winning soon.

Antonio Banderas has a well-earned nomination for his role as an aged film director in Pain And Glory. What's great about this nomination is that Banderas underplays--there's no obvious Oscar clip. For Banderas, who has made many films with Pedro Almodovar, this may serve as career recognition.

That may also be said of Jonathan Pryce, who earns his first nomination at age 72 as Pope Francis in The Two Popes. Pryce has made many memorable films over the years, from Brazil to Glengarry Glen Ross to Evita, as well as performing on stage in Miss Saigon. It doesn't seem likely he will win here, as this is Phoenix's year.

Finally, Leonardo DiCaprio is terrific as washed up actor Rick Dalton in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, but he won just a few years ago. I think this is some of his finest work--the scene in the trailer, or his scene with the young girl in an episode of "Lancer" (she tells him that it's the best acting she's ever seen) but given the competition and his recent win it's not time for his second win yet.

Will Win: Phoenix
Might Win: Driver
Should Win: Phoenix
Should Have Been Nominated: Christian Bale, Ford v Ferrari