(Updated 3/5/10, 12:50p – Added Wes’ info) As we get closer and closer to the Oscars, more of the top categories will be revealed. Here are some facts about the Best Actor category, along with our predictions and favorite and least favorite winners in the Best Actor category.

Trivia: Five Facts

• The category was among the first ever given out with 82 statuettes being awarded.
• Actors may receive no more than one nomination in the category each year. However, for 1929/30 (3rd Oscars), actors were allowed to be nominated for work on one or more films. Three actors that year did so: George Arliss in The Green Goddess and Disreali, Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond and The Love Parade, and Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond and Condemned. Arliss won the award, but for reasons never fully explained he was awarded only for his work in Disraeli, not in both films.
• There has only been one tie in the Best Actor category. It happened at the 5th Academy Awards for the 1931/32 awards year. Wallace Beery in The Champ tied with Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. According to Academy rules at the time, although Beery had one less vote than March, since he was within three votes, they would share the award.
• Two actors share the distinction of receiving the most nominations in the Lead Actor category: Spencer Tracy and Laurence Oliver. Behind them are Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, and Peter O’Toole with 8 each (and O’Toole holding the record of all acting nominations with no wins). At 7 nominations each are Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon and Dustin Hoffman. Rounding out the list of most nominated is Richard Burton with 6 (also failing to win a single award). No actor has won more than two awards for Best Actor. The list of twos are: Brando, Gary Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Hanks, Hoffman, Fredric March, Nicholson, Sean Penn and Spencer Tracy.
• Only two actors won their awards in consecutive years: Spencer Tracy in 1936 & 1937 (for Captains Courageous and Boys Town respectively) and Tom Hanks in 1993 & 1994 (Philadelphia and Forrest Gump).

Predictions

• Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
• George Clooney – Up in the Air (Wesley, Tripp, Wes)
• Colin Firth – A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman – Invictus
• Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker (Peter)

KEY: (Winner Prediction) (Alternate Winner)

The Commentary

Wesley Lovell – This is a career tribute to Bridges. The only way he loses is to George Clooney’s charisma and since I haven’t heard much about him campaigning, I think Bridges is a fairly safe bet. But now there are rumors that Renner’s picking up steam and Firth’s win at the BAFTA puts him back into the running.
Peter J. Patrick – Jeff Bridges has been a movie star for close to forty years. The Crazy Heart may not be his best film or contain his best performance, but he is believed due by just about everyone in the business. If there is an upset, Jeremy Renner could ride the wave of immense popularity for The Hurt Locker.
Tripp Burton – I almost didn’t put an alternate because Jeff Bridges is about as safe a choice as you can make here: an Oscar-bait role for a great actor considered long overdue for an actor.

Our Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. Marlon Brando – On the Waterfront (He has given better performances, A Streetcar Named Desire, for example, but this is one of his finest and the best to win this award of all the ones I’ve seen.)
2. Ray Milland – The Lost Weekend (It’s challenging to pull off an alcoholic with this amount of painstaking and heartrending detail.)
3. George C. Scott – Patton (It’s an iconic performance.)
4. Nicolas Cage – Leaving Las Vegas (Cage has never been better than in Leaving Las Vegas. Although much of his work over the last few years has been horrendous, we can look back at this bright spot in his career and see the actor we want him to be.)
5. Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood (Daniel Plainview is an iconic figure. He’s not a villain by the common definition, he’s a complex character of vigorous depth and conviction.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. Robert Donat – Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Donat’s beloved schoolmaster remains the standard for growing old gracefully.)
2. James Cagney – Yankee Doodle Dandy (the male musical comedy performance standard by which all others are rightfully judged.)
3. Gregory Peck – To Kill a Mockingbird (his forthright small town lawyer and loving father were tailor made for the actor.)
4. Fredric March – The Best Years of Our Lives (his homecoming soldier and stalwart small town banker set the standard for post-World War II integrity.)
5. Sidney Poitier – Lilies of the Field (a sly, charming performance that rightfully broke the color barrier among lead performance Oscar winners.)

Tripp Burton

1. Burt Lancaster – Elmer Gantry (A dynamic, electrifying performance that stands the test of time)
2. Peter Finch – Network (Another all out performance, this time perfectly balancing the over-the-top rants with a realistic soul)
3. Adrien Brody – The Pianist (A wonderful recent win (one of the few), a performance that reminds us you don’t have to say a lot to carry a film)
4. Gregory Peck – To Kill a Mockingbird (A great strong, quiet hero)
5. Marlon Brando – On the Waterfront (He redefined film acting, and this is one of the reasons why)

Wes Huizar

1. Gregory Peck – To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Humphrey Bogart – The African Queen
3. Robert De Niro – Raging Bull
4. Marlon Brando – On the Waterfront
5. Adrien Brody – The Pianist

Our Least Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. Charlton Heston – Ben-Hur (He was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time. His film was a huge success. He won based on a combination of these two factors, not because he gave any measure of a good performance.)
2. Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote (His impersonation of Capote is loutish, uncharismatic and simplistic. Perhaps if Toby Jones’ performance in Infamous come out at the same time, a paled comparison might have been made and we would have been spared his win. But, sadly, Jones remains underappreciated.)
3. Roberto Benigni – Life Is Beautiful (Benigni was little more than a clown in this film. There’s no measure of depth or humanity in his character. We sympathize with him because of the situation, not because of the performance.)
4. Russell Crowe – Gladiator (Not quite the star that Heston was, but this is almost the same performance as he gave, so I shouldn’t be surprised it won.)
5. Adrien Brody – The Pianist (The Holocaust is a much loved subject with the Academy. It’s a terrible and tragic part of history, but not every performance connected with a film about survival warrants an Oscar. Brody’s effective in the film, but nowhere near as good as any of the four other actors he was nominated against.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. Jack Lemmon – Save the Tiger (Lemmon is all tics and contorted facial expressions in an excruciatingly bad movie. )
2. Warner Baxter – In Old Arizona (won for his marvelous speaking voice and little else in this so-so western.)
3. Nicolas Cage – Leaving Las Vegas (least impressive of the many actors who won for playing drunk.)
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote (okay but overrated portrayal of Truman Capote clearly done better by Toby Jones in the concurrently filmed Infamous which was released the following year.)
5. Geoffrey Rush – Shine (too much acting.)

Tripp Burton

1. Jamie Foxx – Ray (A glorified imitation, and a Saturday Night Live-level imitation at that)
2. Geoffrey Rush – Shine (Not only is he painfully over the top, but why does no one notice that he is barely in the film?)
3. Roberto Benigni – Life Is Beautiful (I don’t hate the performance, but it is certainly amateurish)
4. David Niven – Separate Tables (He doesn’t really do much, and what he does do is overshadowed by his castmates)
5. Marlon Brando – The Godfather (I will get a lot of grief for this, but I have always found his performance a caricature with tissue paper ridiculously stuffed in his cheeks)

Wes Huizar

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote
2. Robert Donat – Goodbye, Mr. Chips
3. Jamie Foxx – Ray
4. Lee Marvin – Cat Ballou
5. John Wayne – True Grit