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A Closer Look at Best Actor in a Leading Role

© Jason O'Brien

Well, it's time again to take on one category of the Academy Awards, and look at the trends, who's won, etc. A few weeks back, we looked at the big award Best Picture. Now it's time to look at one of the other major awards, Best Actor in a Leading Role.

The Best Actor Oscar has been around as long as the awards have been. The first Best Actor award went to Emil Jannings, actually winning it for performances in two films. After that first award in 1927/28, Best Actor went to one singular performance in one film.

Only two actors have managed the rare feat to win the Best Actor Oscar two years in a row. Spencer Tracy did it in 1937 and 1938, with Captains Courageous and Boys Town, respectively. And then of course Tom Hanks won back-to-back Best Actor Oscars in 1993 and 1994, for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump.

Best Actor winners are typically chosen from dramatic films, and more recently, they are given for actors who have completely thrown themselves into roles and no longer have any semblance of themselves ... they become the character. And often, these performances stand out almost above the films they were in, as truly landmark performances by some incredible actors.

Think of these standout performances ... all Best Actor gold.

• Dustin Hoffman as the memorable autistic savant Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man.
• Anthony Hopkins's truly chilling portrait of evil personified in serial killer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.
• Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, truly memorable in The Godfather.
• George C. Scott as Patton.
• Gregory Peck fighting a tough and important case in To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy, fighting against the system, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
• Robert De Niro's towering and haunting portrayal of real life boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull.
• Henry Fonda's touching last performance of 80-year-old Norman Thayer in On Golden Pond.
• Fredric March's memorable portrait of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and such a different portrayal in The Best Years of our Lives.
• Jose Ferrer's portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac.
• Who can forget Gary Cooper in High Noon?
• Alec Guinness's downfall into madness in The Bridge on the River Kwai.
• Tom Hanks giving such varied performances from a gay man dying of AIDS to a simpleton who doesn't realize the changes he engenders in the world.

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