Oscars Best Actor predictions: Paul Mescal (‘Aftersun’) moves into top 5, flying past Tom Cruise (‘Top Gun’)
There was a dramatic change in our Oscar predictions for Best Actor between January 11 and January 14. In that time, Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”) moved from sixth place to fifth place in our odds, which are based on the combined predictions of thousands of Gold Derby users. Scroll down to see our graph illustrating how this race has recently changed.
So what happened? Well, the shift in our odds started on January 11, the day the SAG Award nominations were announced. Mescal wasn’t nominated by the guild, but neither was Tom Cruise (“Top Gun: Maverick”), who up until that point was ranked fifth in our Oscar odds. Instead, SAG nominated Adam Sandler (“Hustle”) along with Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”), Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Austin Butler (“Elvis”), and Bill Nighy (“Living”).
We’ve long been predicting Fraser, Farrell, Butler, and Nighy for Oscar nominations. It’s that fifth spot that has been a giant question mark. Perhaps surprisingly, though, Sandler isn’t the one who benefited from his SAG nomination — at least not yet. He hasn’t been recognized by any major awards groups besides the Screen Actors Guild, so our users may be hesitant to presume his surprise citation there will translate to the academy.
Mescal, however, has been nominated by the Critics Choice Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, and myriad critics’ organizations. He’s also on the longlist at the BAFTAs, where he’s favored to receive a nom. Cruise was also nominated by the Critics Choice Awards and made the BAFTAs longlist, but it’s unusual for an action blockbuster performance to be considered by the Oscars. That hasn’t hurt Golden Globe and Critics Choice winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), though, so maybe Cruise really does still have the advantage for that fifth Oscar slot. But for the time being, Mescal has flown by him.
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