Best Actor 2022

[Big Magilla]

Best remembered to me means best recalled not remembered most fondly. I suppose for this exercise it means best remembered by those responsible for putting films out before the public - schoolteachers, programmers, and so on so that they will be available to future generations. Some films are, of course, passed on down through the generations. But film buffs, at the very least, will want to watch an Oscar winning performance at least once and most won't care who directed it. Not many of us can recall offhand who directed Goodbye Mr. Chips, Cyrano de Bergerac, or The King and I, yet we all know who won Best Actor Oscars for them.

Future film watchers will know who Brendan Fraser was from George of the Jungle and the Mummy franchise if nothing else. Colin Farrell, maybe not so much, but both will be remembered. Darren Aronofsky will have been long forgotten. Matthew McConaughey will probably be better remembered for Magic Mike than Dallas Buyers Club but his Oscar winning performance will have been seen at least once by Oscar completists though Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, who he beat, will likely be seen and remembered by more people.

[dws1982]

"Best remembered" is not going to be Brendan Fraser, at least if best remembered means "remembered most fondly", who even on March 12 was seen as having won on much more of a PR narrative than on performance. I think it it may be remembered, but not for the reasons Fraser might hope. I agree with Sabin that the decline of Aronofsky, who as late as the time of Black Swan seemed like he might be the big breakthrough of that generation of filmmakers, may hurt his perception; I'm not sure where it went wrong, but I would suspect that Noah, which was bad enough that people didn't really even want to defend it from the religious zealots, had something to do with it, but also something to do with the fact that there is an entire wikipedia page called "Darren Aronofsky's unrealized projects". Yes he did just make a movie that won two Oscars and came dangerously close to a Best Picture nomination, but Aronofsky was never seriously mentioned for a Director nomination, and the movie could've been directed by anyone. If the makeup hadn't won, it might have worked out better for Fraser, but it's going to be hard to untie him and his performance from that makeup job, which everyone who hates the movie really hated and thought was part of what made it gross, and Fraser as an actor has never been very highly regarded and unless the next years turn that around, I think that in ten years this will be looked at even less favorably than Matthew McConaughey's win, which it is really hard to find people to defend now, and that he will probably sustain his comeback even less well than McConaughey did.

Who knows where Butler will go; unlike Mescal who will probably have this looked at as an impressive first of at least a few nominations, it feels like Butler's peak, and those types of early peak nominations generally aren't beloved over time. Keeping the voice all these years also really puts the burden of proof on Butler to show that he can do something else. Bill Nighy waiting all these years for his nomination and getting it for such a small, quiet part in such a small movie equates to something that people will probably will remember in a similar vein as say, Bruce Dern's nomination for Nebraska, and that movie had a higher Oscar profile than Living. Farrell waited as long as Nighy for his nomination, relatively speaking, at least considering when they broke into the public consciousness--and I think he will be well-remembered because this nomination came after years of work, after years of finding his way as an actor and as a star, and it was for a performance that successfully merged what we like about him as a star and as an actor. So many actors wait for their first nominations and it ends up being for something disappointing, but this will age well, so I will vote for him as the one who will be best remembered on any kind of a timeline. My vote in a vacuum would be Nighy, so I'll vote for him as my winner, but I were an actual voter, knowing the alternative, I would've voted for Butler, who I think would've been an acceptable winner, as opposed to Fraser who I think is close to the worst in this category's history.

[Big Magilla]

In my estimation, no actor gave a better performance in 2022 than Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin, and hopefully the film and his performance will be seen for many years to come. However, I think that if the Academy Awards still exist in fifty years, and they almost certainly will, then Brendan Fraser's Oscar winning performance will be sought out. Whether audiences appreciate the vehicle that won him his Oscar might be a different story, but I don't think they will overlook it.

I don't think Austin Butler's performance is not going to be remembered any better than Kurt Russell's TV portrayal of Elvis.

Paul Mescal's film was such a little thing that not many people today have seen it and the actor will likely be remembered for other things over time.

Bill Nighy is superb character actor who is at his best in Living, but the fiml is not going to be remembered as well as its predecessor, 1952's Ikiru.

So, Farrell for 2022, but Fraser's performance over time.

[Sabin]

Voted for Colin Farrell twice. I still need to see Living, so I'll amend my vote of preference once I do. I also think Colin Farrell makes a lot of sense as the performance remembered most fondly in fifty years. It's a critical favorite of a film set in the past so there's little worry of it aging poorly. But I could see an argument to be made for Paul Mescal or Brendan Fraser, the former based on the sheer number of opportunities ahead of him and the latter based on what lies ahead for Darren Aronofsky. For the latter, I'll say that when Darren Aronofsky first started his career I think there was a lot of anticipation that he would be a bigger deal than he currently is. For many (like myself), I didn't know what to expect after Requiem for a Dream but I thought I was watching someone who might go on to make something revolutionary. What we've done since is a rotation of weirdo epics and character studies. He still takes his time in between projects but he doesn't show any sign of stopping. Since Requiem, he's only made six films. I think Fraser's best chance would involve Darren Aronofsky becoming more than a cinephile footnote which he currently is. I sense his cult is significantly waning.

[Big Magilla]

Time for Best Actor - Best Actress and Best Picture are up next.

Once again, please vote twice, first for the performance that you think was the year's best and then for the performance that you think will be best remembered in 50 years or so.