Is It Game Over for Paul Giamatti?

The Big Picture

Paul Giamatti is no longer the frontrunner for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. With major wins at the BAFTAs and at the SAG Awards, Cillian Murphy is #1 again.
The other Best Actor nominees at the Oscars include Jeffrey Wright, Bradley Cooper, and Colman Domingo.
Find out who wins Best Actor at the Oscars on March 10th.

Senior Producer Perri Nemiroff is keeping you up to date on the leading contenders for 2024's Oscar for Best Actress based on her knowledge of industry trends and whispers. Check in for updates because just when you think you've got the race figured out, the game changes.

Here's where things stand as of February 24th, 2024:

This is not the best time to lose steam in the Oscar race, but that seems to be exactly what’s happening to Paul Giamatti after emerging as a frontrunner for Best Actor in early January.

For a good period of time after Oppenheimer’s release, Cillian Murphy was #1 here. That didn’t immediately change when The Holdovers premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, nor when it got its public release in November. However, just as I predicted after first screening the film at TIFF, the impossibly sincere and warm nature of The Holdovers sparked a significant amount of positive buzz and word-of-mouth. As we neared the New Year, it was clear that Giamatti was on the rise. And then, sure enough, he took over as the category frontrunner in early January.

While I don't believe the Golden Globes are a strong precursor for the Oscars, there are select opportunities to use the Globes stage to influence the Oscar race, and Giamatti did that beautifully while accepting his award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. His speech was charming, heartfelt, and one of the night's biggest highlights. Then, further locking in his #1 status, he won Best Actor at the Critics Choice Awards.

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Giamatti is an unassuming industry icon, a past Oscar nominee for his supporting performance in Cinderella Man, and is well remembered for having suffered one the most outrageous snubs of all time when he didn't get a nomination for his performance in Sideways. It started to look like the Academy was going to fix that error, not just with a nomination for Giamatti, but with a Best Actor win. However, the results of the BAFTAs and now the results of the Screen Actors Guild Awards might have changed that.

Had Giamatti and Murphy split the SAG and BAFTA wins, I would have told you anything is possible on Oscar night. The race is as close as it can get. Either could win. However, having the BAFTA and the SAG Award in his back pocket tips the scale in Murphy’s direction big time.

Murphy delivers exquisite work in Oppenheimer, successfully achieving what I think is one of the greatest acting feats; he makes his character’s highly complex inner world external. His performance gives the viewer access to what should be a near-impossible mind to understand, the mind of a genius physicist who served as the architect behind one of the most breathtaking and deeply horrific inventions ever made. It’s a stunningly subtle and expertly calibrated performance that’s certainly worthy of Oscar gold.

Further boosting his chances is the fact that Oppenheimer domination at the Oscars is shaping up to be the real deal. The Christopher Nolan-directed hit came out strong in July 2023 and didn’t just maintain momentum, but rather, it’s picked up steam. It looks to win big in Best Actor and a number of other categories.

As for our other three Best Actor nominees, sadly, it feels highly unlikely any have a chance to win. Bradley Cooper, Jeffrey Wright, and Colman Domingo all deliver truly stunning work in their respective films, but Murphy and Giamatti have too big of a lead on the pack at this point for any of them to catch up.

Of the remaining trio, I’d give Cooper the best chance of winning. Maestro’s mixed reception and minimal viewership severely impacted its awards season chances, but the fact that Cooper also co-wrote, directed and produced the highly ambitious project should give him a boost. However, realistically, Cooper will likely remain a multi-Oscar nominee without any wins. This year brings Cooper to a total of 12 nominations.

When choosing between Wright and Domingo for the #4 spot, it comes down to two big things. First off, American Fiction is receiving far more widespread praise than Rustin. Cord Jefferson is enjoying loads of love for his screenplay and directorial work on the film, including an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and an Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Feature Film nod from the DGA. The American Fiction ensemble also earned a coveted Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination from the Screen Actors Guild and Sterling K. Brown snagging a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Oscars. Rustin, on the other hand, has seen its award season love limited to Domingo’s performance. In some cases, that could work in a nominee’s favor by funneling all the love for the movie toward one particular individual. The problem is, it appears far fewer have seen Rustin than the other nominated films. Rustin made minimal noise when it hit Netflix in November and not much has changed since.

While I’m beyond thrilled Domingo, Wright, and Cooper all went on to score nominations in this category, their 2024 Best Actor road likely ends here because this race has clearly come down to Murphy and Giamatti.

Most Likely to Win Best Actor: