Oscars 2023: Actor power rankings
Awards season greetings! What you have here is the Gold Standard’s first batch of acting power rankings where, yes, this week, it’s a man’s man’s man’s world. (We’ll get to the women next week.) These are the performances that people are talking about, counting down toward the ones that are my absolute favorites — and may well be yours. But don’t get hung up on the order of the rankings. Just make sure you watch the movies.
15. Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”: If you’ve been following film festival coverage this fall, you know that the movies have been long — and the standing ovations for Fraser have been really long. The applause may be as much about the veteran actor’s comeback as the work, a touching performance as a morbidly obese man trying to make peace with his daughter that’s housed in a thin, calculating drama. But the combination of prosthetics and a feel-good revival story make Fraser a formidable contender for a movie that will be a tough sell for voters and audiences.
14. Ben Whishaw, “Women Talking”: Whishaw has played Hamlet and Q, Paddington and Keats and, in Sarah Polley’s upcoming “Women Talking,” he’s the sole male member of an exceptional ensemble, playing a kind teacher whose primary job is to listen. No surprise: Whishaw turns the role into a deeply moving portrait of empathy.
13. Paul Dano, “The Fabelmans”: Judd Hirsch’s powerhouse explanation of “The Fabelemans’” theme — “Family, art, life — it will tear you in two!” — earns a big round of applause, and David Lynch’s late cameo perfectly ties things up. But Dano is the film’s unsung actor, grounding the movie, portraying the family’s gentle patriarch, a character that could have been bland with a less interesting actor. The movie doesn’t work without him.
12. Adam Sandler, “Hustle”: Picking up a tribute honor at the Gotham Awards last month, Sandler joked that his acting career was “formed by two guiding principles: People in prison need movies too, and TBS needs content.” There’s a kernel of truth in that, sure, but Sandler has also proved more than capable of strong dramatic work in such movies as “Uncut Gems,” “Punch-Drunk Love” and his latest effort, “Hustle,” which features him giving a sincere, soulful performance as a basketball scout revitalized after discovering a potential superstar player. Normally reluctant to promote his work, Sandler has been everywhere of late — great news for a season that takes itself way too seriously.
11. Brendan Gleeson, “The Banshees of Inisherin”: It’s hard to separate Gleeson from his “Banshees” co-star, Colin Farrell ... unless you’re Colm, the character Gleeson plays in “Banshees,” in which case a severing feels like a matter of life and death, something Gleeson sells with a glare and determination that jumps off the screen.
10. Brian Tyree Henry, “Causeway”: Henry is one of those actors who elevates everything he’s in, and his work opposite Jennifer Lawrence in this moving Apple TV+ drama is no exception. Playing an auto repair shop owner trying his best to deal with a tragic past, Henry strongly communicates the character’s pain and humanity without words. What’s left unsaid lingers.
9. Park Hae-il, “Decision to Leave”: Tang Wei is so good as the Hitchcockian heroine in Park Chan-wook’s sublime detective story that it’s easy to underestimate the guy actually playing the detective. Park puts a sly spin on the genre’s tropes, a lovelorn dupe one moment and a single-minded investigator determined to find the truth the next.
8. Daniel Craig, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”: Delight is underrated, and no actor looks like they’re having more fun than Craig reprising his role as Benoit Blanc, the world’s greatest detective. Peter Falk won four Emmys playing Columbo. Is it too much to ask for voters to throw Craig a simple nomination?
7. Barry Keoghan, “The Banshees of Inisherin”: Maybe you think three “Banshees” actors on this list is overkill. (It’s not.) But maybe, if you’ve seen the movie, you think I’m ranking Keoghan too low ... and you may well be right. Turning what could have been merely a simpleton into a lost soul, Keoghan’s work here is vivid and heartbreaking.
6. Jeremy Pope, “The Inspection”: Pope has been nominated for an Emmy and a Tony, and he deserves an Oscar nod too for his powerful performance as a gay Black man who enlists in the Marines to escape homelessness. Pope brings the combination of strength and vulnerability required by the role and his complex scenes with Gabrielle Union, playing his character’s mother, lift the film into something truly special.
5. Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”: Yes, we’ve reached the end of the “Banshees” men, landing on Farrell’s tightrope turn as the good-hearted Pádraic, a man who doesn’t take rejection lightly. Initially, Pádraic’s obstinance is played for dark comedy but then gives way to a tragic melancholy that Farrell — one of his generation’s best actors — conveys with anger, confusion and deep sadness.
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4. Paul Mescal, “Aftersun”: It was just a couple of years ago that Mescal came into our lives, playing a high school student transitioning into college and having an intense, emotional relationship with Daisy Edgar-Jones in “Normal People.” And now he’s playing a father of an 11-year-old girl in “Aftersun”? It takes a moment to adjust, but the movie — and Mescal and Frankie Corio, the gifted newcomer playing his daughter — is so assured and beautiful that you don’t give it a thought. The charisma you expect from Mescal is there, but over the course of the film we learn it’s all a bluff. Once you’ve seen it, you won’t stop thinking about this movie.
3. Bill Nighy, “Living”: If you know Nighy only from his rock star turn in “Love Actually” ... well, I pity you ... but I also envy the discovery you’ll find watching him in this remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru,” in which he plays a lonely bureaucrat determined to “live a little” after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Nighy delivers a master class in understatement, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be curled up crying by the end.
2. Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”: Like his co-star Michelle Yeoh, Quan played several versions of his character, Waymond Wang, in this glorious movie, bopping from dorky husband to a martial arts master to a suave romantic straight out of a Wong Kar-Wai film. Quan is brilliant in each and every iteration, returning the former child actor to the spotlight after stepping away from acting for 20 years. Mark it: He’s winning that supporting actor Oscar.
1. Austin Butler, “Elvis”: Quite simply: The King.
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