Reader Ranking: Which one-time male nominee would you most like to see holding an Oscar?
Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 9:02AM by Team Experience
LIAM NEESON, HARVEY KEITEL, EDDIE MURPHY, and WILLIAM H MACY are just four of many actors we'd love to see stage an Oscar comeback.
Hello dearest readers. Inspired by Amy Madigan's amazing Oscar comeback we've spent the last month fantasizing about another such occurence. Because our audience is less into actors than actresses, we did a more abbreviated version of the mammoth actress poll / team ranking / reader ranking we recently posted in three parts. Today it's all in one. We polled all of you (readers and our writers together) and while there was much less participation (y'all just love your actresses, don'cha) we still thought the results were interesting. The same rules applied this time around. Namely 1) The actor had to still be alive and 2) over 50 years of age with 3) only one Oscar nomination to date that was 20 or more years ago. The final caveat was that they had to be Oscarless so Honoraries and awards in other categories would disqualify them. Interestingly enough despite the same criteria as the actress poll, there were far fewer men eligible (49 vs 75) indicating that there are less one-and-done Oscar nominations for male thespians. Or that they don't live as long; Both are true!
Maybe because there were fewer eligible contenders for this list, you didn't snub any of them. All 49 eligible men received at least one vote from a reader or team member here. Peter Firth (Equus), Randy Quaid (The Last Detail), and Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story) narrowly avoided complete snubs by landing on one ballot each. With the votes spread out over literally all eligible contenders, we're narrowing this to a top 15 (for actresses we did a top 26) as the nearest rivals for dominance (Elliott Gould, Alec Baldwin, and Alan Alda in that order) were quite a bit further back in terms of points / number of ballots.
YOUR TOP FIFTEEN
Ken Watanabe in THE LAST SAMURAI
15 KEN WATANABE
66 years old. 93 points. Placed on 26% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #4
Breakthrough: Dokuganryu Masamune (1987)
Only Oscar Nomination: The Last Samurai (2003)
Closest He's Come Since?: Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
Career Haul: 3 Japanese Academy Prizes
Up Next: Kobiki-cho no Adauchi, a Japanese samurai drama
The first thought with Watanabe is always his memorable work in The Last Samurai, but his work in Letters from Iwo Jima is rarely mentioned these days. Since his award-friendly years, showing up in major franchises like Godzilla, Transformers and Nolan films like Batman Begins and Inception has made him seem like more of a commercial actor. Still, in recent years he has shown up in awards players like Japan's epic kabuki drama Kokuho and the sci-film film The Creator. An elder statesman role might be an obvious archetype for him, but it would be wonderful to see an independent film allowing him to stretch his acting chops – maybe a reflective romance? He’s always a welcome face on our screens, and it would be nice to see him offered an awards-friendly acting challenge.
-Eurocheese
James Cromwell in BABE
14 JAMES CROMWELL
86 years old. 99 points. Placed on 29% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #5
Breakthrough and Only Oscar Nomination: Babe (1995)
Closest He's Come Since?: LA Confidential (1997)
Career Haul: 1 Emmy
Up Next: Crime drama Night Trader (2027)
First, I love that his lone Oscar nomination is for Farmer Hoggett, a feat of utter warmth and goodness in this most perfect of movies. It’s even more remarkable to see this well-gauged radiance in retrospect, now that I’ve become acquainted with his imperious, villainous, calculating side in L.A. Confidential and American Horror Story (and justly winning an Emmy for it). Hearing that brogue tearing into Jesse Armstrong’s dialogue on Succession? That’s a man who knows how to wield his gravitas like an instrument. Any genre, any role, any amount of screen time. Cast him in the right film to remind the culture how he’s been a force nature for fifty years and we’re cooking with gas, baby.
- Nick Taylor
Tim Roth in ROB ROY
13 TIM ROTH
64 years old. 115 points. Placed on 39.1% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #9
Breakthrough: The Hit (1984)
Only Oscar Nomination: Rob Roy (1995)
Closest He's Come Since? (N/A)
Career Haul: 1 BAFTA, 1 EFA, 1 People's Choice Award
Up Next: four films in post-production and another one filming. Busy!
Roth was a critical darling from the jump, a hit in a couple of British television films before scoring his first BAFTA nomination for his feature debut The Hit (1984). His star kept rising with must see films like The Cook The Thief The Wife and Her Lover. In the early 90s he was on fire. I personally will never forget the way he managed to smuggle in weirdly intimate pathos or comic tenderness into "Mr. Orange" (Reservoir Dogs) and "Honeybunny" (Pulp Fiction) two roles that while well-written could have easily presented as less three dimensional and more derivatively 'cool'-only, in less inspired hands. He chased that seismic Tarantino break-out double with a sensationally memorable turn as the fop villain "Archibald Cunningham" in Rob Roy landing a well deserved Oscar nomination and a BAFTA win. If Roth had retired right then, at the young age of 33, I bet film fans would still be screaming that he was "robbed of an Oscar!" rather than the relative silence around his gifts now. His subsequent career isn't without the occasional highlight but he never again had a stretch of projects that kept hitting like those early ones did in quick succession.
-Nathaniel R
Brad Dourif in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
12 BRAD DOURIF
76 years old. 119 points. Placed on 30.4% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #1
Breakthrough and Only Oscar Nomination: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Pop Culture Claim to Fame: The Voice of "Chucky"
Career Haul: 1 BAFTA, 1 Golden Globe -- both for Cuckoo's Nest
Up Next: Unknown
Talk about starting with a bang. No sooner had Brad Dourif made his film debut after some years on the New York stage than he was an Oscar nominee, BAFTA and Golden Globe winner. In Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the 25-year-old thespian played Billy Bibbit, whose fragile demeanor and tragic fate made him one of the Best Picture winner’s most memorable elements. Surely, Louis Fletcher would’ve struggled harder to cinch her Oscar if not for Nurse Ratched’s final confrontation with her most vulnerable ward. What followed was a career marked by many another unstable young man, like the disillusioned anti-preacher in Huston’s Wise Blood or the exploding vessel of all of America’s atomic-age technological hopes in Hooper’s Spontaneous Combustion.
And yet, Dourif might have left the biggest impression away from straight drama. Genre cinema is his castle, and he is the king of horror as the voice of Chucky, the killer doll in the Child’s Play franchise. Still in horror, he delivered a veritable Oscar-worthy performance in The Exorcist III, suffered a nasty fate in Alien: Resurrection, and found profound pathos in Rob Zombie’s Halloween diptych. Fantasy proved a welcome home through the Lord of the Rings series, while sci-fi misadventures have included the Baroque grotesquerie of Lynch’s Dune. He always understands the assignment and over-delivers, evolving from a dependable face of youthful brokenness into one of the best character actors working his way through modern-day Hollywood. It’s impossible to overstate what a remarkable performer Dourif is, to the point that the Academy should feel so honored to hand him one of its little golden men and have his name permanently etched into Oscar history.
-Cláudio Alves
Albert Brooks in BROADCAST NEWS
11 ALBERT BROOKS
78 years old. 122 points. Placed on 30.4% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #3
Breakthrough: Stand-up comedy in the mid 70s
Only Oscar Nomination: Broadcast News (1987)
Closest He's Come Since: Drive (2011)
Career Haul: 3 NSFC and 2 NYFCC
Up Next: Unknown
Could Albert Brooks have come in second place in 1987 when he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Broadcast News? It was a beloved film that year, and his performance is a beaut...gloriously comic but laced with sadness and ache. He was right at home with that sophisticated-sitcom acting style that James L. Brooks wanted from his performers, and his duet with Holly Hunter remains soulful and complex. Not to mention his hilarious flop-sweat on-air meltdown, or breezy drunk tirade watching William Hurt soar ("That's a lot of alliteration from anxious anchormen placed in powerful posts!"). Two of the films he directed, Lost in America and Defending Your Life are minor classics. It's unlikely at age 78 that he'll get that role to bring him back, but if it can happen for Judd Hirsch, why not the divine Mr. Brooks?
-Eric Blume
John C. Reilly in CHICAGO
10 JOHN C REILLY
60 years old. 159 points. Placed on 42% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #7
Breakthrough: Boogie Nights (1997)
Only Oscar Nomination: Chicago (2002)
Closest He's Come Since: Stan & Ollie (2018)
Career Haul: 1 Critics Choice, 1 SAG Actor - both cast awards
Up Next: Two thrillers -Sponsor with Jason Segel and part of the all star cast of How to Rob a Bank (2026)
Who doesn't love a sad sack? Now to state the obvious, absolutely nothing about John C. Reilly, the person, reads sad sack; but there's no denying he excels as that character type on screen. As the cuckolded husband of Roxie Hart, aka "Mr. Cellophane Man," in Chicago, he evoked a sad-clown pathos that was poignant enough to take viewers' eyes momentarily off the razzle-dazzle and to net him his sole Oscar nomination. It also became something of a template for his career: although he started off playing his share of heavies (Casualties of War, The River Wild, Gangs of New York), he became something of a go-to actor for good-hearted schmoes and/or clueless husbands (The Good Girl, The Hours, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Carnage, etc.). In a more overtly comic vein, mainstream movie audiences likely remember him best as the second banana to Will Ferrell in the loopy NASCAR send-up Talladega Nights and the man-child comedy Step Brothers, or as the voice of the villain-turned-hero of the animated uberhit Wreck-It Ralph.
Even a cursory glance at his filmography shows greater versatility and range than he generally gets credit for - whether it's his string of distinctive characters in Paul Thomas Anderson's early-period films (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia) or his stranded WWII pilot-gone-native in Kong: Skull Island. And let's not forget the man can sing, as shown not just in Chicago but in Walk Hard, the parody to end all parodies of the musical biopic genre. True, his credited film appearances have dwindled in recent years; the last time he was in the Oscars conversation was probably 2018, when he made a lovely Hardy to Steve Coogan's Laurel in Stan & Ollie and played the straight man/steadier brother to Joaquin Phoenix's loose cannon in The Sisters Brothers. This year, his quiet Western drama A Prayer for the Dying (co-starring Johnny Flynn) played at Venice, but it's not clear if or when it will get a theatrical release. He's in the upcoming heist action comedy How to Rob a Bank, though I think it's safe to say that won't be an awards contender. Still I have faith that with his chops and his reputation, he will eventually get another part worthy of the Academy's attention. Maybe he needs to work with Paul Thomas Anderson again? I, for one, would love to see him take on a brilliant and ruthless character, just to see what an actor so well known for amiable lunkheads could do with it. I have a feeling he could surprise us.
-Lynn Lee
Eddie Murphy in DREAMGIRLS
09 EDDIE MUPRHY
64 years old. 190 points. Placed on 43.5% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #6
Breakthrough: Saturday Night Live (season 4, 1980)
Only Oscar Nomination: Dreamgirls (2006)
Closest He's Come Since: Dolemite Is My Name (2019)
Career Haul: 3 NAACP Image Awards, 2 Golden Globes, 1 Emmy, 1 Grammy, 1 AFI, 1 Annie, 1 Critics Choice Award, 1 NSFC, 3 People's Choice Awards
Up Next: A remake of The Pink Panther as Inspector Closeau
When it comes to rewarding known clowns, award voters like to wait until their favorite funny people get serious. AMPAS is no different, as can be attested by such performers as Robin Williams, Jamie Foxx, Steve Carell, Jonah Hill, Sacha Baron Coen and many, many others. Eddie Murphy, too, since none of the various blockbuster comedies he starred in across the 1980s and 90s got him close to Oscar gold. Only Dreamgirls did the trick and, by that point, I’d say he was fairly overdue for that kind of recognition. Sure, Murphy’s bad reputation precedes him, and even the stand-up comedy that gave the man legendary status is sometimes hard to swallow in all its sexism, homophobia and whatnot. However, can anyone deny his chops as a performer?
Right from the start, he was a force to be reckoned with, magnetizing the screen with the kind of movie star charisma that became less and less common on big screens as the 20th century drew to a close. Whether in wild improvisation or razor-sharp comedic set pieces, he commands the camera’s attention in modern classics of the genre like Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop, Boomerang and the high-wire absurdities of The Nutty Professor 1996 remake. He even got serious, well-earned award consideration for his vocal work in the Shrek movies, and then came the Oscar nomination that should have been an Oscar win for his feverish rendition of James ‘Thunder’ Early in the Dreamgirls movie musical. Recently, he was also in the conversation for Dolemite Is My Name, where his penchant for clownery mixed superbly with dramatic chops for a performance that, in my eyes, far outclassed some of those year’s actual Academy Award nominees, winner included. C’mon, Hollywood, give him the showcase he deserves and throw an Oscar Eddie Murphy’s way.
-Cláudio Alves
Clive Owen in CLOSER
08 CLIVE OWEN
61 years old. 208 points. Placed on 47.8% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: N/A fairly even spread
Breakthrough: Croupier (1998)
Only Oscar Nomination: Closer (2004)
Closest He's Come Since: Children of Men (2006)
Career Haul: 1 BAFTA, 1 Critics Choice, 1 SAG Actor, 1 Golden Globe, 1 NBR, 1 NYFCC,
Up Next: The thriller Kristallnacht and the TV Miniseries The Murder of JonBenet Ramsey (he plays her father)
I don't know what the world expected out of Clive Owen, but it got a whole lot very early. Following a rocketship of a start, including his lone nomination in 2004's Closer, Owen was supposed to be the Hollywood mainstay. He still works regularly in plenty of interesting projects, but what's it going to take to get him back into the good graces of the critical masses? Maybe something from Broadway, much like his Closer role zeroed in on his sleazy likeability. Hollywood has these ebbs and flows with actors. Owen could be one role away from being right back in the mix. Plus, he still looks good and is only 61.
-Ben Miller
Bill Murray in LOST IN TRANSLATION
07 BILL MURRAY
75 years old. 215 points. Placed on 49.3% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #2
Breakthrough: Saturday Night Live (1977) season 2
Only Oscar Nomination: Lost in Translation (2003)
Closest He's Come Since: Get Low (2009)
Career Haul: 2 Emmys, 2 Spirit Awards, 2 LAFCA, 2 NSFC, 2 NYFCC, 1 BAFTA, 1 Golden Globe
Up Next: Diamond, a crime drama from Andy Garcia (who directs and stars)
If we knew what we know now, with Sean Penn coming off his third Oscar win, it would be ridiculous to deny Bill Murray a win on his first nomination for Lost in Translation (unless you lean Johnny Depp). Already a box office smash for multiple comedies, Murray had also established himself as a reliable Wes Anderson presence – and would it surprise anyone if a role in one of those films (even if they have lost some steam with Oscar) translated to another nomination or even a win? It was puzzling when his brilliant repairing with Sofia Coppola in On the Rocks seemed to be met with a collective shrug, but Murray is always a noticeable addition to any film, consistently stealing scenes with his dry humor. Perhaps his comedic touch is part of the reason he has remained underrated, especially since he began in broad comedies. Even his famously grumpy demeanor doesn’t take away from his status as a national treasure, and his unique voice in modern cinema needs to be treasured while we still have it.
-Eurocheese
Don Cheadle in HOTEL RWANDA
06 DON CHEADLE
61 years old. 216 points. Placed on 50.7% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #2
Breakthrough: Devil In a Blue Dress (1995)
Only Oscar Nomination: Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Closest He's Come Since: Crash (2005)
Career Haul: 3 NAACP Image Awards, 2 Grammys, 2 SAG and Critics Choice Cast Awards, 2 Golden Globes, 2 Gotham Awards, 1 Spirit Award, 1 LAFCA, 1 NSFC
Up Next: Oceans 14 ?
I just think it’d be so easy to get Don Cheadle nominated again with the right role. He should have multiple nominations already! Either with his fiercely controlled turn in Devil in a Blue Dress, the formation of a Cheadle-specific star vehicle we never got following his 1995 breakout or his Hotel Rwanda afterglow. And why the fuck has this not materialized? The on-screen charisma and off-screen charm, the near endless litany of Emmy nominations throughout the 2010’s, the awards already taking up space on his shelves. People love Don Cheadle! There’s maybe not a world where he gets nominated for No Sudden Move, but it would’ve been great if he did! Have PTA or Kasi Lemmons write their next film around a re-teaming of Cheadle and Regina Hall and they’ll both walk away with Oscars.
-Nick Taylor
YOUR TOP FIVE
Liam Neeson in SCHINDLER'S LIST
05 LIAM NEESON
73 years old. 222 points. Placed on 52.2% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #1
Breakthrough: Excalibur (1981)
Only Oscar Nomination: Schindler's List (1993)
Closest He's Come Since: Kinsey (2004)
Career Haul: 1 BIFA, 1 LAFCA, 1 Volpi Cup
Up Next: 6 movies in production currently
Neeson has made so much Hollywood crap in the last twenty years that it's sometimes easy to forget what a formidable actor he is. You have to really go back to remember the tenderness and vulnerability of his fine work opposite Cher in 1987's Suspect and especially opposite Diane Keaton in 1988's The Good Mother at the start of his career. Neeson brought this gentle giant energy to the movies, where his hulking frame juxtaposed with his soft humanity resulted in a fresh new masculine vibe not prevalent during that decade. In those early years, few actors cornered the sexuality he brought to the screen: he and Jessica Lange looked at each other as if they wanted to eat the other alive in Rob Roy; and he and Ralph Fiennes looked at each other as if they were deciding who was going to be the top throughout Schindler's List. Neeson's sexuality seemed both scary and threatening, but also loving and soft. He's been criminally underused for three decades. But if a major director gave him a major role, he could kill it. He's also one of the most lovely humans in show business with a perfect reputation. I'd love to see Neeson get ignited about acting again like he was in his first chapter.
-Eric Blume
Harvey Keitel in BUGSY
04 HARVEY KEITEL
86 years old. 237 points. Placed on 53.6% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #2
Breakthrough: Mean Streets (1973)
Only Oscar Nomination: Bugsy (1991)
Closest He's Come Since: Smoke (1995)
Career Haul: 1 Gotham, 1 Spirit, 1 AFI, 1 Silver Bear, 1 David Di Donotella award, 1 NSFC
Up Next: The romantic fantasy Fate (2027?) and after that Timothy Linh Bui action film Live Fast, Die Laughing
Oscar nominations and wins are so often about career timing, something that's external to the work itself and beyond the artists control. Consider that Keitel's incredible gifts as a performer helped build the legend of Martin Scorsese but the Academy wasn't truly committed to honoring Scorsese films back then. Scorsese pictures only really became default contenders as the auteur was entered 'legacy' mode and at that point Keitel had already receded within his filmography. Keitel has rarely stopped working since his debut in Scorsese's Who's That Knocking At My Door (1967) but his tastes in projects has obviously never aligned with any fantasy of winning an Oscar with nary a whiff of 'career calculation'. His early films were often bold and discomfitting (Taxi Driver, Mean Streets) and he regularly appeared in genre pictures (of which awards voters rarely take notice). In what we might consider Keitel's highest profile Star-Actor years (the 1990s) for every hit like Sister Act or Pulp Fiction or Get Shorty there's something grimy or bold or weird and auteur-driven pictures like a Bad Lieutenant, Dangerous Game, or a Holy Smoke! In fact, even if you only look at the major Oscar players from his filmography (Taxi Driver, Bugsy, Thelma & Louise, The Piano, Pulp Fiction, The Grand Budapest Hotel) it's pretty hard to claim that any of them were made for less than artistic reasons. He's still doing the same mix of B genre pictures, occassional lead indie roles, and ambitious art films (The Painted Bird, Youth) that he's favored since the beginning though sadly the films haven't been crossing over into the public (or Oscar) conciousness for some time. And at 86 he's still working. Where is his Honorary Oscar?
It remains frustrating to this day that Harvey Keitel's sole nomination comes from the gangster biopic Bugsy which wasn't even his best performance of 1991! That honor belongs to his sympathetic and observant detective in the instant classic Thelma & Louise.
-Nathaniel R
David Strathairn in GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
03 DAVID STRATHAIRN
77 years old. 238 points. Placed on 55% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #4
Breakthrough: The Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980)
Only Oscar Nomination: Good Night and Good Luck (2005)
Closest He's Come Since: N/A
Career Haul: 1 Emmy, 1 Spirit Award, 1 Volpi Cup
Up Next: Supporting roles in the civil rights era thriller By Any Means (2026), the comedy Babies (2026), and the 19th century set formerly enslaved biopic The Bard (2027?)
Strathairn has always lived on the borders of movies: he's a character actor who comes in, does his job expertly, and lets everyone around him shine, especially his leading ladies. Think about it, is there *any* other American actor who has starred opposite so many of the cinema's greatest actresses? Check out this list: Meryl Streep, Debra Winger, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Sigourney Weaver, Julianne Moore, Glenn Close. Those are just the biggies. It was particularly thrilling that this journeyman got his only Oscar nomination not in the supporting category, but for his leading role in 2005's Good Night and Good Luck. Director George Clooney knows a great actor when he sees one, and he uses Strathairn's everyman qualities to brilliant effect in that aces picture. And the wonderful director John Sayles used Strathairn across several films in several different ways (his work in the gorgeous Passion Fish was particularly lovely). Sayles needs a great swan song project too...maybe they'll find each other one last time and make something great? Here's hoping.
-Eric Blume
Laurence Fishburne in WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT
02 LAURENCE FISHBURNE
64 years old. 242 points. Placed on 59.4% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #2
Breakthrough: Boyz N the Hood (1991)
Only Oscar Nomination: What's Love Got to Do With It (1993)
Major Pop Culture Claim to Fame: The Matrix franchise
Closest He's Come Since: N/A
Career Haul: 7 NAACP Image Awards, 4 Emmys, 1 Cable Ace award, 1 PGA
Up Next: 5 projects in the works plus one that's already filming The Exorcist (2027) with Scarlett Johansson
How in the world does Laurence Fishburne only have one nomination? He's Furious Styles. He was Othello. He's freaking Morbius! The guy keeps working and gets some pretty good roles. Every time you see Fishburne, you're glad he's there. Maybe when you receive your nomination for playing Ike Turner, no other part can compare. TV has also been very kind to him, with 16 Emmy nominations and six wins. He keeps getting the roles of the wise sage or the old supporting man. Maybe he can have his own Skarsgård-level featured role and get back into the mix. He certainly deserves it.
-Ben Miller
William H. Macy in FARGO
01 WILLIAM H MACY
76 years old. 285 points. Placed on 63.8% of your ballots. Most frequent rank on those ballots: #1
Breakthrough: Oleanna the play and its film version (1992-1994)
Only Oscar Nomination: Fargo (1996)
Closest He's Come Since: Pleasantville (1998) or Seabiscuit (2003)
Career Haul: 4 SAG Actor Awards, 2 Emmys, 1 Spirit, 1 NBR, 1 Jury Prize Sundance
Up Next: 7 projects in production including a co-lead in the romantic late-life drama Exit Right (2027?) with Susan Sarandon.
It’s somewhat strange to think that William H. Macy’s sole Oscar nomination comes from what ranks among his most sedate performances, especially compared to the rest of the wonderfully wacky ensemble of Fargo. He’s the kind of actor who blends effortlessly into a stacked cast (Magnolia), elevates small parts (last year’s Best Picture nominee Train Dreams and recent SXSW premiere Brian), and carries with conviction the most absurd and detestable of roles, like the one that earned him six Emmy nominations as Frank Gallagher in Shameless. What he likely needs is something in between bit part and inarguable lead, perhaps like the role that probably got him closest to another Oscar nomination in Seabiscuit. No one does emphatic line delivery like he does, and he’s a master of blending sincerity with just enough frantic energy that you’re never entirely sure what to make of the people he plays.
-Abe Friedtanzer
What do you think of the final results, dear reader, and which actor are you rooting hardest for in terms of golden comebacks?
Reader Comments (24)
Not to immediately bring this back to actresses, but the family resemblance between Brad Dourif and his daughter, Fiona, from The Pitt is staggering in the selected photo. Could there be a fabulously acted father/daughter movie in their future?
Back to the actors, Liam Neeson has made more than his fair share of dud thrillers, so it IS a bit difficult to imagine him back in the race. At the same time, can we talk about how good he was in The Naked Gun? Just about as far from awards-bait as a movie can possibly be, it was a delight to see him so engaged and committed and having so much fun. I wouldn't say that it showed off his acting chops that much, but it was a stealth reminder that when he's not making Taken movies (or movies that feel like Taken movies but are even more generic), he has unfailing charisma and can really own the big screen.
I think he and Eddie Murphy share a similar challenge to finding their way back to the awards--they're both immensely talented actors who have a habit of making truly terrible movies. Neeson has Absolution and Retribution. Murphy has Pluto Nash and the Pickup. For either to make it, I think they not only need to find the right vehicle, but they need to make a few less terrible movies in the immediate run-up to a campaign.
Unrelated--he probably only had 5 minutes of screentime, but I would have been more than happy for Macy to have been nommed for Train Dreams. He wasn't as robbed as Joel Edgerton, but...truly an incredible performance, almost in miniature.
You can say that Liam Neeson has made a lot of Hollywood Crap, but I'd argue that he's made a lot of Hollywood money. For rate of profitability over these last few years, I think he'd almost top the list, and I feel that Hollywood owes him something gold and shiny for all that work.
I would have said the same thing for Eddie Murphy as well, but that was quite a few years back.
And I hate to say it, but probably the 60something guys in this Top Ten have the best shot of scoring a good role in a good film eventually. If I had to bet money, I'd probably say Clive Owen and Tim Roth would be the most likely to score something in the future.
In 1974, I was surprised that Harvey Keitel was overlooked in the conversation for Best Supporting Actor for his terrifying performance as abusive boyfriend Ben Eberhardt in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. During my first and each subsequent viewing of the film, the violent sequence where Ben breaks into the hotel and threatens two women stirred audiences. I still vividly remember how I could feel the energy in the packed theater physically change. Watching Alice today, I am still astounded by Keitel. This should have been his first nomination.
Watanabe very doubtful,he was poorly for a few years wasn't he.
Cromwell could have a Plummer like comeback
Roth I didn't think he deserved the first nomination,Brian Cox is the best thing in Rob Roy,he as terrifying in the recent Resurrection with Rebecca Hall,so maybe.
Dourif retired now.
Brooks should have won for drive.
Reilly he's someone who is always consistently good so he's a possibility
Murphy just a matter of timing,he's got the George Clinton biopic coming up in the next couple of years.
Owen once he was everywhere now it seems I haven't caught him in much a long time a bit like Eric Bana.
Murray he got fired from a film or the film was abandoned due to some rumours so not sure if he's well liked.
Cheadle please let it happen,so good for so long.
Neeson if he stars in any Oscar nominated film in a meaty role they'll forget the dreck he's made and have him on the stage,well liked man,he's the sole brad winner for his sons so I get the making pulpy action nonsense.
Keitel the time has passed I think,should have won in 91 but for his sublime Thelma and Louise turm
Strathairn seems a possibility not cropped in much lately that would garner much buzz.
Fishburne entered Morgan Freeman territory a while ago and hasn't broken free of it.
Mack should have been nominated for his true supporting turn in Train Dreams,I was very surprised he popped up nowhere,he's truly original in that film.
Was Edward Norton and Michael Keaton not eligible they both should have won in 2014 on the same night.
Love the top 4.
Justice for Alan Alda who should have been nominated (and win) for Marriage Story.
I'd wager Strathairn was close to getting an Oscar nom for NOMADLAND.
I will take this opportunity to rave about Straitharn's work in Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights. Fabulous performance.
Strathairn was fantastic in A Little Prayer last year. He probably would have made my Best Actor ballot even though it was such a stacked performance year in that category.
It would be so nice to see a return for Macy. It remains disappointing to me, 30 years after the fact, that he didn't win for Fargo.
Keitel's Oscar history is so befuddling to me. He's been great in so many acclaimed movies and he works a lot.
Thank you, Cal Roth. Those are my sentiments exactly. How such an excellent performance could go so unnoticed has always baffled me.
TFE writers’ contempt for Sean Penn is really bizarre; Bill Murray and Johnny Depp are handily even bigger assholes than he is, FWIW. And even if you took away one of his three wins that everyone is SO pissy about, he’d still be missing one for Dead Man Walking. :)
DK, I don't think the TFE staff has a lot of contempt for Sean Penn. In my review of One Battle After Another last fall, I talked at length about how brilliant his performance is in the film. It's other-level. In fact, I remember being shocked from Oct-Nov when Penn *wasn't* winning everything in sight and instead awards bodies were voting for Del Toro (who is lovely in it, but he's not doing what Penn is doing).
I think Sean Penn is one of the all-time greats. Three Oscars feels right for him!
I’ll chime in with another vote for WH Macy in Train Dreams!
DK -- like Eric, I also think Sean Penn is a tremendous actor. I dont think *anyone* needs three Oscars (so i'm of the opinion that if someone has won two already if someone else is just as good or nearly as good the third possible winning race, it's kind of crazy to vote for them)... but at least two of his wins areamazing performances (MILK, OBAA) and he's got an all timer that lost as you mentioned (Dead Man Walking) s othree is fine.
Still if someone has three wins one of them is almost always somewhere between an "ugh!" and "solid but a win seems like a stretch" and definitely should have gone to someone else and since Sean has one of those (Mystic River) against two performances that I think will always be better remembered (Depp & Murray) that that may have led to some resistance to his One Battle run.
Mr Ripley - Norton was not eligible because he already has FOUR Oscar nominations (this was about actors with only one Oscar bid) and Keaton was not eligible since his single nomination was only 12 years ago.
I think if we ran about a poll about ANY living oscar nominees who have yet to win the results would have been wildlly different with multiple nominated but never winning people like Glenn Close, Amy Adams, La Pfeiffer, Weaver, and Ralph Fiennes dominating.
One of the things I think is interesting about the polls is how well people did who *just* gave an incredible performance (Jean-Baptiste in HARD TRUTHS & Macy in TRAIN DREAMS) and it reminds me that, just as with the Oscars, momentum counts... would results have been the same if those performances weren't such recent memories? I'm guessing not, despite both of them being such strong actors.
In 2003, John C. Reilly starred in three out of the five movies nominated for Best Picture. They are Chicago (2002), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Hours (2002). Maybe you guys should run a piece about this. Just imagine the statistics during the Studio-system years!
@Nat
People weirdly sleep on Dead Man Walking, almost like it was Sarandon’s make-up Oscar and not one of the all-time great two-handers. If I taught acting that’d certainly be on the syllabus.
I never really got the Murray praise because I think the sparseness of Coppola’s script allowed people to project a LOT onto both him and Johansson (who’s been much better many times). By that logic almost everyone in a Sofia Coppola film (looking wistful and full of ennui) would be Oscar-worthy, every time.
Sean Penn was great in Dead Men Walking but I'm 100% team Nicolas Cage. You know what Penn's best performance is?
SWEET AND LOWDOWN
cal roth -- Sweet and Lowdown is my favorite Penn's performance too. Samantha Morton is equally brilliant in it, and I'm waiting for an Oscar comeback for her.
This ranking beautifully captures the Academy's chronic undervaluation of character actors who've defined American cinema for decades. William H. Macy's top placement feels earned—his Fargo nomination represents one Oscar moment for a performer who's delivered countless indelible turns from Magnolia to Shameless. Harvey Keitel at #4 is the most glaring oversight: sole nomination for Bugsy when Taxi Driver, Bad Lieutenant, The Piano, and Thelma & Louise all deserved recognition. Liam Neeson's post-Schindler's List descent into action franchises obscures the "gentle giant" tenderness he brought to early work. Eddie Murphy's trajectory from SNL powerhouse to Dreamgirls nominee mirrors the Academy's bias for clowns-gone-serious, yet Dolemite proved he still commands dramatic depth.
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