Best Performances by the 2018 Oscar Best Actor Nominees

The 2018 Best Actor nominees are loaded once again.  We have a couple of newcomers with three heavyweights.  It’s an interesting mix, even though the winner is all but sealed up.  However, we aren’t here for predictions, we’re here for the performances and look at the nominees best performances.  Here are my picks for the best performances from the 2018 Oscar Best Actor nominees.

TIMOTHEE CHALAMET (Nominated for Call Me by Your Name)

BEST PERFORMANCE – CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Luca Guadagnino, 2017)

Chalamet had quite the 2017, starring in Lady Bird, Hostiles, and Call Me by Your Name.  Though being a working for years now, it was this year that put the 23 year old on the map, particularly his performance in Call Me by Your Name.  In such a beautiful film, Chalamet gives a beautiful performance, as a 17 year old who begins to fall for an attractive man he meets over the summer.  This is a performance that requires a certain tenderness and maturity and Chalamet brings both and adds his own gravitas and charisma.  I expect to hear Chalamet’s name for years to come.

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS (Nominated for Phantom Thread)

BEST PERFORMANCE – THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

One of the three tough choices on this list, picking Daniel Day-Lewis’s best performance was far and away the hardest.  Day-Lewis may be the greatest actor I have ever seen on film, and with performances in Gangs of New York and Lincoln, he set a standard for acting.  But his performance as Daniel Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is simply one of the single greatest performances I have ever see on screen.  This is the definition of larger-than-life.  Day-Lewis is monster, both in his character and his performance, showing us a man so riddled by greed that not even family matters.  It’s a masterpiece performance in a masterpiece film.

DANIEL KALUUYA (Nominated for Get Out)

BEST PERFORMANCE – GET OUT (Jordan Peele, 2017)

Similar to Chalamet, Kaluuya had been a working actor for years, but really broke out in 2017.  Kaluuya’s performance in Get Out is a performance that doesn’t have loud, bombastic speeches or anything like that.  This is a subtle performance, but arguably the key reason why Get Out is as good as it is.  Kaluuya has the job of taking the audience on the journey throughout the film.  What he sees is what we see and what he learns, we learn and his reactions and emotions are what move the movie forward.  This audience surrogate has failed in movies before, but Kaluuya nails it.  This is one of my favorite nominations of the 2017 and I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaluuya got another nomination down the line.

GARY OLDMAN (Nominated for Darkest Hour)

BEST PERFORMANCE – TRUE ROMANCE (Tony Scott, 1993)

Like Day-Lewis, picking Oldman’s best performance was a doozy.  Oldman is a chameleon and a prolific one at that.  So when deciding which performance was best, I went with the one that surprised me the most and that is Oldman’s performance as Drexl Spivey in Tony Scott’s True Romance.  Oldman is unrecognizable here, with the scars, the grill, the dreadlocks, and the outstanding accent.  He recites Tarantino’s brilliant dialog as good as anybody ever has.  It’s a fun, intense, incredible performance.

DENZEL WASHINGTON (Nominated for Roman J. Israel, Esq.)

BEST PERFORMANCE – MALCOLM X (Spike Lee, 1992)

Denzel Washington is a Hollywood legend and one of the best ever to grace the screen.  With countless legendary performances under his belt, there are a number of performances that could be considered his best.  But for me, this was an easy choice, as his performance in Malcolm X is simply one of the greatest I have ever seen.  Washington becomes the legendary Civil Rights leader.  He nails the look, the voice, the speech pattern, the confidence, and the intensity.  In Spike Lee’s sprawling epic, Washington is in every scene and throws the 200+ minute run time on his back and carries it.  In one of the biggest Oscar robberies of all-time, Washington was nominated, but didn’t win for this role, but this is a performance that will live on in cinema forever.

What are your favorite performances from the 2018 Best Actor Oscar nominees?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook by searching Kevflix.