Best Actor: Ranking Every Nominee of the 98th Academy Awards
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Welcome to another year of the Academy Awards Project here on Films Fatale! We rank all of the nominees in each category every day.
We have reached the Best Actor nominees, and, my, what a fine group of actors we have this year (although my heart breaks for Jesse Plemons in Bugonia and Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams). I will say that ranking these five names was quite difficult for me, given how at least three of these performances are career-bests (or close to them), and the other two are great days in the office by veteran thespian megastars. I am chuffed with all five candidates but have to narrow things down to who I thought was ultimately the best and who will likely win. I know this list may hurt when you see who is ranked where: it was a rough task for me as well. Let us celebrate these great roles by focusing on the positives of all of them (I barely have any criticisms, if any, for all of these names). Here are your nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role, ranked from worst to best.
5. One Battle After Another-Leonardo DiCaprio
How dare I place Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another last! I know. I didn't think that would be the case, and yet here we are. I actually think DiCaprio is magnificent as Pat Calhoun (or Bob Ferguson). He plays a paranoid single father who has fried his brains after years of heavy drug use hilariously well. He is also incredibly magnetic when chaos ensues, and you are drawn to his frustrations and panic throughout all of the hysteria. I feel like a lot of One Battle After Another is a communal effort divided between many heavy hitting performances including DiCaprio's, and I also think that such a role is expected and typical by his standards at this point; I found him stellar but not any better or worse than he usually is. That isn't to say that I don't think he deserves a nomination for such an entertaining and textured performance (the emotional through line underneath all of the manic madness is what drives this role home for me). Like I always say when making these lists, I just had to place someone last.
4. Sinners-Michael B. Jordan
After years of neglect, Michael B. Jordan is finally an Oscar nominee! It just took him playing two different people to get to this point. Jordan plays twins Smoke and Stack in Sinners, and I know it seems obvious that he would obviously have to play them with different objectives but to see how they actually feel like unique people is quite something. Smoke is jaded and by-the-book, down to the way he walks without much personality; then, there is Stack, who captures the attention of any room that he walks into. It is always easy to tell which brother Jordan is playing at any given time (and this goes beyond the costumes they don). It frustrates me to place Jordan fourth on this list, but, again, this is quite the stacked year; I've been wanting Jordan to have an Oscar (or at least a nomination) since Fruitvale Station, and am happy that he is finally recognized for such a unique performance (or, rather, a pair of them, so to speak).
3. Blue Moon-Ethan Hawke
The biggest surprise — and a pleasant one at that — is Ethan Hawke as the late songwriter Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon. You can point at the obvious here: that Hawke has completely transformed into Hart. Now, the camera trickery and CGI effects to make the tall-ish Hawke look like Hart's small stature doesn’t always work, but it is Hawke's committed performance — that goes beyond a pale imitation or impersonation — that makes you believe what you see. This might be one of the most disguised performances Hawke has ever done. Secondly, consider the fact that Blue Moon is just a film about talking over the course of one evening, and how much heavy lifting Hawke has to do in order for the film to not be boring or meandering. He is impossible to ignore the entire film, and his magnetism leads the way for one-hundred minutes. I was hoping that Hawke would have squeezed his way into this group of nominees, and screamed out of joy when his name was called during that early morning announcement where every nominee was listed. He remains the dark horse of this category this year: do not count him out if he has already made it this far.
2. Marty Supreme-Timothée Chalamet
I am not one of those people who have been put off by the constant presence of Timothée Chalamet. I think he is a sublime actor who, frankly, should have already won an Oscar for Call Me By Your Name. He equals his best performance with its antithesis; if Chalamet was introspective and vulnerable in Call Me By Your Name, he is an outward, brash, boastful antihero in Marty Supreme. Chalamet is a firecracker as Marty Mauser: a good-for-nothing person who wants to sell the idea that he is a god (oh, he also happens to be fantastic at table tennis; Chalamet's commitment to this sport makes Marty's talent feel highly believable). Chalamet toes the line between arrogant and irritating so well, making Marty still feel like a real person who is biting off more than he can chew to try and live a better life (despite being oblivious to the many other lives he is ruining with his efforts). Chalamet is entertaining, hilarious, (intentionally) frustrating, and enigmatic in Marty Supreme; he saves his emotional release for the final shot of a man who is feeling thirty things at once (including jubilation, uncertainty, accomplishment, and fear).
1. The Secret Agent-Wagner Moura
While it wasn't easy to rank this year's nominees for Best Actor, I also couldn't fathom anyone else being in the top spot than the most haunting performance of the five: Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent. I would argue that the other four performances are more blatantly strong, but Moura's work as Armando (or Marcelo) is secretly the most difficult of the year. When you first watch The Secret Agent and think that Armando is some spy on the run, Moura makes his trepidation and caution feel like he is capable of something we don't even want to know about. Then The Secret Agent reveals its biggest card: that this is just an innocent, everyday man on the run because of a government who is out to get him. Suddenly, we see ourselves in Armando and worry that we could also be put in a position where we have to make these kinds of decisions while out on the run (and the horrors poor Armando has seen in that same breath; you feel every ounce of regret and pain in his sorrowful eyes). When you watch The Secret Agent a second time, you get the true story that was there the whole time; Moura is able to play both sides of the same coin seamlessly. Toss in the cherry on top — Moura playing the adult version of Armando's son, Fernando (who does not feel like the same person at all) — and you have a performance that I have no choice but to crown one of the very best of 2025 (or, flat out, in recent memory).
Who I Want To Win: Bah! Do not do this to me! I would be happy with any of these five actors winning, but I will say Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent for pulling off the impossible, Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme for being exhilarating and alluring, and Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon for going even further than he usually does (and he is always terrific to boot).
Who I Think Will Win: This one might not be as cut-and-dry as you'd think. I think the frontrunner is Timothee Chalamet for Marty Supreme, but I would not dismiss Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent; both stars won their respective Golden Globes this past ceremony. Both films are Best Picture contenders, and the Academy usually likes to give each Best Picture nominee at least one trophy. I feel like The Secret Agent will get its win for Best International Feature Film (perhaps), and Chalamet will win Marty Supreme's sole win here. With that in mind, I am sticking with Chalamet, but I don't think this is as certain as people are insisting (could Ethan Hawke pull off a dark horse upset for Blue Moon, even? He has been due an Oscar for decades, and the Academy can occasionally be unpredictable with these kinds of pushes).
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.