1997 Best Actor Oscar Winners

...while Jack was just heavy.

My pick was Duvall.

for the performance in question or the actors themselves

Performances.

i haven't seen the middle three! that's surprised me. not sullying vote results with my ignorance in that case.

Duvall.

Duvall, although Fonda's performance is good too.

Fonda

Saw the Hoffman, Nickolson + Damon flicks, remember the other two but never actually got around to see them. Voted Damon, but tbh none of those three were particularly compelling performances imo.

ludicrously missing:

Daniel Day-Lewis – The Boxer
Djimon Hounsou – Amistad
Kevin Kline - In & Out

In & Out is painful.

Tom Selleck and Bob Newhart are very amusing though.

I'm with you on The Boxer, where he and Emily Watson are very sexy.

For all that Amistad tapers into a biopic, Hounsou is fantastic in it.

I liked Hopkins too.

well, he was just hopkins really.

i was more pleasantly surprised by mcconaghey i think

In & Out is funnier than Spartacus.

Hoffmann

the rest of these movies suck

Wag the Dog is a lame attempt as satire, diluted (Mametized) from source materail

Agree with Morbz here. Wag the Dog was pretty smug and self-satisfied and had very little to recommend that kind of attitude.

We're not grading the movies, Shakes, just the performances.

The best movie on this list though is The Apostle.

the rest all of these movies suck

Duvall's good but The Apostle makes Southern evangelical Xianism dull

I agree that they're all kinda bad - but watching Hoffman do his Robert Evans impression was at least mildly entertaining, which is more than I can say for the rest of this shitpile

Duvall's good but The Apostle makes Southern evangelical Xianism dull

so totally wrong. The last ten minutes are among the most thrilling I've ever seen. I don't have any problem defending The Apostle as almost a great movie, and certainly one of the best movies about religion.

A lot of boring in this list.

If it's any consolation, the best actress noms are more appalling than usual. Bonham Carter shoulda won.

All the best movies about religion I can think of are Italian.

yeah Kundun's great innit

what about Wise Blood?

What about Ben Hur?

Or Stranger Among Us?

Battleship Earth?

I think you mean Battlefield Earth.

Simon of the Desert

Ordet

Love is a Battlefield, Earth is a Battleship. Or something.

xposts

Yentl

Viridiana

The Passion of the Mel

I'll defend The Nun's Story.

Witness

The Devil's Advocate

Europa 51
The Flowers of St Francis
The Gospel According to St Matthew

This deserves its own thread.

The Gospel According to St Matthew

ja this one's great

... also Italian.

Oh wait, Morbs was making a counterpoint.

Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?

Nuns on the Run

Household Saints

passion of joan of arc

Peter Fonda might very well have gotten my vote shortly after this for his supporting role in The Limey -- but not nominated, right

stamp wasn't nominated for limey either right? voted fonda but none of these strike me as extraordinary performances or films - why 97?

Just hopping randomly.

Stamp's only nomination is supp actor for Billy Budd.

my favorite performances in The Limey were Lesley Ann Warren and Luis Guzman's.

everybody is good in the Limey

glancing around at other races - 74's funny if only for the actual winner (shades of can't slow down winning at the grammys), 34 is interesting also (never seen the affairs of cellini but everything else totally oscarworthy in my book).

That's a good analogy! Art Carney and Can't Slow Down = perfectly respectable, unexciting winners (although Harry and Tonto is looser and weirder than CSW).

"everybody is good in the Limey"

Yeah it's good stuff.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I finally win a poll.

but wow -- what fuckin lurkers took Damon to second place??

joint third last, more like

have only seen three of the options, voted for one of Damon's best roles over movies that wouldn't make Nicholson or Hoffman's top ten

Saw all of these but Wag the Dog. Pleased to have voted for the winner.