Four out of the five nominees for Best Actor at the Oscars this year play characters based on real people. Some are easy to recognize, while some are from obscure anecdotes in history. 

The first nominee is the winner of the category from last year back to defend his title, something only two Best Actors (Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks) have done previously. Eddie Redmayne won last year for playing Stephen Hawking in Theory of Everything. This year, he played Einer Wegner/Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl. In between, he played Balem Abrasax in Jupiter Ascending, for which he was nominated for a Razzie as Worst Supporting Actor. Strangely, I happen to think his performance in Jupiter Ascending was better than his performance in Danish Girl. In both movies, he is overacting in bad movies, but his overacting in Jupiter Ascending helps the audience understand the character and makes the film slightly better. He kind of channels Al Pacino as he starts sentences by whispering and ends them by shouting. It’s clear that this man is not playing with a full deck. (As a small aside, I also think that about many of Pacino’s characters, especially the guy in Scent of a Woman. If you shout that you want to take a flamethrower to a school in that school, you really should be sent to jail or an insane asylum. End of rant.) In The Danish Girl, I don’t know if he is channeling anyone, but seems to whisper all of his dialogue. He is not helped by the screenplay or the director, who has no idea what to do with the material. The scene where Redmayne stands in front of the mirror tucking his junk between his legs might have been poignant if it had not been done in Silence of the Lambs. Redmayne does not convince as a man wanting to be a woman or a woman trapped in a man’s body, but as an actor floundering in a role.

Michael Fassbender plays the character that is most easily recognized as Steve Jobs in the film of the same name. He is able to speak Aaron Sorkin’s words without sounding ridiculous. However, I always felt that I was watching him performing. While the Sorkin screenplay tries to make Jobs relatable and likeable (which he never did for Mark Zuckerberg in his screenplay in The Social Network, but did for him in his acceptance speeches), he never truly succeeds. Fassbender is not able to overcome the script problems and does the best Steve Jobs impersonation he can, but one that is soulless and bloodless.

I truly think that director Alejandro Inarritu began each morning of shooting The Revenant with asking himself, “What can I get Leo to do today?” It is a testament to DiCaprio’s professionalism that he willingly did everything that was asked of him. Well, it might not be so much professionalism as a shared insanity. DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, whose experience sounds like it was calling out to be made into a movie. He was mauled by a bear, left for dead by his companions, and eventually crawled to civilization to get medical help. In playing him, DiCaprio gets to play all sorts of bizarre experiences, including opening up his dead horse, removing its internal organs, and crawling inside. However, the question remains: is physical endurance and suffering for your art really acting? You can probably tell that my answer will be no. It is a good performance and DiCaprio has been so good for so long that I’ll be happy for him when he wins, which is what appears is going to happen.

Another actor that has been so good for so long is Bryan Cranston. He plays Dalton Trumbo and gives a brilliant impersonation, just watch documentary footage on Trumbo and compare it to Cranston. However, Cranston is not just content to sit back and play an American Hero, he also creates an interesting character in itself. He is both funny and heart-breaking. He also lifts the material and makes it better with his performance.

After seeing The Martian, I read the book it is based on. Whenever I read a book that is the basis for a movie, I always imagine that actor as I read, as I’m sure everyone does. However, it is rare that a performance matches up so well with the book as Damon does in matching to Mark Watney. It also helps that instead of a voiceover, they have him record video diaries, like on a reality TV show. Those scenes, as well as all the other scenes, help Damon create a wonderful character. In fact, whenever they cut away from him, I was wishing they would get back to him immediately. It is a terrific performance. It is one of the best of the year and one that is more than deserving of an Oscar.

I would keep Damon and Cranston as nominees and can think of a few other performances. The first created some controversy when it was left off, Will Smith in Concussion. He gives a great performance as the man who found what concussions really do to the human brain. I don’t think the Academy is racist for ignoring Smith. He has been nominated twice before and getting upset for not receiving a third nomination strikes me as silly. There are many great and deserving actors that have not received one, much less more than one, nomination. I would give my fourth nomination to Jesse Eisenberg for End of the Tour. He walks the line between petulant jerk and nice guy. He also has great chemistry with Jason Seigel. One thought: how many of the nominees this year are Jewish? I’m guessing Room director Lenny Abrahamson is Jewish, but I don’t know about any of the acting nominees. Does the Academy need to add more Jews to its members? (If you can’t tell, I’m kidding). My fifth nominee has probably not been discussed much this awards season because he is in a silly comedy. It is Robert De Niro in The Intern. De Niro used to rattle off one great performance after another, but his recent non-David O. Russell movies (somehow, Russell brings out the best in De Niro) have been on cruise control. Here, he creates an interesting character and makes a decent comedy better than it deserves to be. That is what a great actor can do: take bad material and make it better or take good material and make it great.