Culling my best actress list to just 10 was tough but coming up with 10 actors who lit up the big screen this year by offering stand-out performances was even more difficult. The juiciest roles were actually supporting parts and it’ll be interesting to see which five actors ultimately wind up earning recognition from their peers and snagging Oscar nominations for their 2015 work. If I were a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences I’d choose this year as the perfect time to cast a vote for Leonardo DiCaprio. Not just because his work in The Revenant was outstanding, but also because there’s no actor among the leading contenders who clearly deserves the Best Actor award for films released in 2015 more than DiCaprio.
Eddie Redmayne’s been generating a lot of buzz for The Danish Girl, but he didn’t make my list because I felt the real heart and soul of that film was Alicia Vikander. Michael Fassbender’s on most people’s shortlist for acting honors for portraying Steve Jobs, however I felt he was actually more effective in both Macbeth and Slow West. And while Legend won’t be remembered as one of the better mob dramas, Tom Hardy’s work portraying gangster twins deserves to be recognized even if the film was a disappointment.
2015’s Top 10 Actors:
Christopher Abbott – James White
The Plot: A coming-of-age story about a young New Yorker (Abbott) struggling to take control of his reckless behavior in the face of momentous family challenges.
Bryan Cranston – Trumbo
The Plot: The successful career of 1940s screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Cranston) comes to a crushing end when he and other Hollywood figures are blacklisted for their political beliefs. Trumbo tells the story of his fight against the U.S. government and studio bosses in a war over words and freedom, which entangled everyone in Hollywood from Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and John Wayne to Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger.
Matt Damon – The Martian
The Plot: During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible, rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney’s safe return.
Paul Dano – Love & Mercy
The Plot: Love & Mercy presents an unconventional portrait of Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer, songwriter and leader of The Beach Boys. Set against the era defining catalog of Wilson’s music, the film intimately examines the personal voyage and ultimate salvation of the icon whose success came at extraordinary personal cost.
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant
The Plot: Inspired by true events, The Revenant is an immersive and visceral cinematic experience capturing one man’s epic adventure of survival and the extraordinary power of the human spirit. In an expedition of the uncharted American wilderness, legendary explorer Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is brutally attacked by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. In a quest to survive, Glass endures unimaginable grief as well as the betrayal of his confidant John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Guided by sheer will and the love of his family, Glass must navigate a vicious winter in a relentless pursuit to live and find redemption.
Michael Fassbender – Macbeth
The Plot: Macbeth is the story of a fearless warrior and inspiring leader brought low by ambition and desire. A thrilling interpretation of the dramatic realities of the times and a reimagining of what wartime must have been like for one of Shakespeare’s most famous and compelling characters, a story of all-consuming passion and ambition, set in war torn Scottish landscape.
Domhnall Gleeson – Ex Machina
The Plot: Caleb Smith (Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company’s brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test—charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan’s latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated––and more deceptive––than the two men could have imagined.
Tom Hardy – Legend
The Plot: From Academy Award® winner Brian Helgeland comes the true story of the rise and fall of London’s most notorious gangsters, Reggie and Ron Kray, both portrayed by Tom Hardy. Legend is a crime thriller taking us into the secret history of the 1960s and the extraordinary events that secured the infamy of the Kray twins.
Géza Röhrig – Son of Saul
The Plot: October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer (Rohrig) is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child’s body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial.
Jacob Tremblay – Room
The Plot: Both highly suspenseful and deeply emotional, Room is a unique and unexpectedly tender exploration of the boundless love between a mother and her child. After 5-year-old Jack (Tremblay) and his Ma (Brie Larson) escape from the enclosed surroundings that Jack has known his entire life, the boy makes a thrilling discovery: the outside world. As he experiences all the joy, excitement, and fear that this new adventure brings, he holds tight to the one thing that matters most of all–his special bond with his loving and devoted Ma.
