5 Movie Performances That Belong in the Oscars Conversation

Hollywood loves a good comeback story.

After a dual strike summer that sent production to a screeching halt in 2023, it was unclear what Hollywood would have in store for fall and winter. We all swallowed Barbenheimer whole, but after six months of bitter negotiations, all good faith built during the summer could’ve easily crumpled to the ground like an atomic bomb being dropped on a Barbie dream house.

That’s when picket signs went down and some of the year’s best films went up.

With everyone presumably done watching Suits, time freed up. What better way to fill it than to drop an almost four-hour Martin Scorsese film into a block once inhabited almost exclusively by Mike Ross and Harvey Specter?

A plethora of films quickly arrived, made well and without AI. Impressive performances and artistry that proved Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti together could do no wrong —and that writer/director/aspiring auteur Emerald Fennell knows how to make us squirm in a movie seat better than most. From Nic Cage giving dream performances in the darkly funny Dream Scenario to Natalie Portman showing how far an actor will go to nail a role in May December, there’s been a ton of top-notch film performances to consider in the last two months.

Here are five that captivated me from the looks of early awards season.

Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)

Paul Giamatti is in an acting class all by himself. However, the one-time Oscar-nominated Giamatti didn’t get an Oscar nod for his struggling author/wine snob character in Alexander Payne’s Sideways in 2005. He got it for Cinderella Man in 2006. Now he’s back with Payne playing an equally curmudgeonly professor at an East Coast prep school who’s forced to stay there over the winter break in 1970 with a group of bratty “holdovers.” Not that he’s thrilled about it, something he’s willing to share with just about anyone who will listen.

That includes troubled student Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa), who has to stay behind when all the other students take off for a ski trip. How Giamatti’s character (Paul Hunham) evolves in his relationship with Angus is a joy to watch and a crash course in fine acting. As Hunham tells Angus once they start to share a bond: “I find the world a bitter and complicated place. And it seems to feel the same way about me.”

Giamatti has already locked down wins at the Golden Globes win and the Critic’s Choice Awards, so it seems like we’ll soon be able to toast him for the Oscar – just not with Merlot (sorry, Sideways reference).

Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)

Since we’re talking The Holdovers, there’s another performance that’s cleaning up this awards season: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who also won at the Golden Globes and Critic’s Choice Awards (amongst others) with her co-star Giamatti. Randolph plays the prep school’s head chef, Mary Lamb, a mom who’s grieving the recent loss of her son in Vietnam. In playing Mary, Randolph gives an acting class in less is more, accomplishing more with an under-the-breath grunt than most do with actual words. Left at the school with Paul and Angus over winter break, her character does her best to encourage Hunham to positively influence Angus in a heartfelt performance that’s wildly adept, touching and gutsy.

A Philadelphia native who graduated from the Yale School of Drama, the 37-year-old Randolph is already well-schooled in the art of acting. Come Oscars time, she might just get her first degree from the Academy for Best Supporting Actress.

© 2023 Focus Features LLC

Colman Domingo (Rustin)

As a man fighting the forces of racism and homophobia in America to architect the 1963 March on Washington, the event where Dr. Martin Luther King birthed his “I Have a Dream” speech, Colman Domingo’s performance as queer civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin is a true marvel. Watching him embody the historical figure, filmgoers get an up-close look at how our country’s most impactful peaceful protest came together and the toll of what being marginalized in America looks like. There are many lines in the film that Rustin recites with great poetic power, but the one that stands out most is: “I can’t surrender my differences. The world won’t let me.”

Should he get a nomination for Best Actor, it might be tough to defeat Giamatti given the latter’s early season award wins, but Domingo’s Rustin is an epic portrayal and worth a watch.

Charles Melton (May December)

For supporting actor, the fresh-faced Charles Melton (formerly of the CW’s Riverdale) has a better-than-average shot at an Oscar nom. Not to mention in a category that will likely see him come up against talent like Robert DeNiro (Killers of the Flower Moon), Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer) and Ryan Gosling (Barbie), who may or may not be Ken-nough.

In May December, Melton plays Joe, a 32-year-old man-child embroiled in a murky romance that started in middle school at 13 with Gracie (Julianne Moore), a woman who was 36. Now, married to her with three kids, we ponder how his growth may have been stunted at the hands of a woman who served time because of the ordeal and possibly hijacked his childhood.

Melton’s performance is extremely subtle, almost like observing someone being held captive. Watching Joe juggle hidden trauma and being a father of three (who are closer to him in age than most would like), is one compelling reason to watch this film. The other is all the great scenes where Portman and Moore go toe-to-toe. Whether Melton wins a nomination or not, he’s a clear breakout this season for his character’s caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation, a metaphor that the film is happy to beat you over the head with.

Barry Keoghan (Saltburn)

When Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), an introverted Oxford student befriends an aristocratic student named Felix (Jacob Elordi), he orchestrates an invite to stay with his family for the summer at their castle estate called Saltburn. It’s a life that Oliver quickly becomes enamored with; one that’s too rich for anyone’s good. Soon, alcohol and envy are flowing in equal parts inside a world created by Oscar-winning writer Emerald Fennell, whose brilliant Promising Young Woman screenplay (2020) turned her into a promising young filmmaker.

Lots about this film cannot be said here, but Keoghan’s understated performance as a man with a royal crush on the lifestyle of the rich and famous is a darkly comedic cautionary tale that might just kick Keoghan’s name into the Oscar conversation once again. The Irish-born Keoghan was nominated for best supporting actor last year for The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). Getting a nomination two years in a row might be asking a lot from the Academy, but the Saltburn performance is Keoghan’s more enduring role for the ages. Time to run it back with Barry.

Photo courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios

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Gregg Rosenzweig has been a writer, creative director and managing editor for various entertainment clients, ad agencies and digital media companies over the past 20 years. He is also a partner in the talent management/production company, The Rosenzweig Group.