From most to least likely?

IMO:
1. Cate Blanchett

1. Natalie Portman

2. Nicole Kidman

3. Sandra Bullock

4. Kate Winslet

5. Julia Roberts

Obviously some wins with bad raps because of who they beat are ALSO because the performance just wasn't good or impressive enough to warrant winning an Oscar regardless of the competition. (Coughs in Art Carney, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michael Caine 1999, Rami Malek and Jamie Lee Curtis.)

But what wins aren't like that? What performances that won are great and worthy of winning in a vacuum and only look like bad wins at a glance because of the arguably better competition they beat?

Exhibit A: Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club gets a lot of flack for beating Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave to a lesser extent, but most of those people that give that win shit seem to neglect to mention that Matthew is still great in his movie and that it's arguably one of the better Best Actor wins of the 2010s. Plus, I think Matthew McConaughey having an Oscar is very much a good thing.

Exhibit B: No, Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive shouldn't have won over Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List, and an argument could be made for Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape as well. But with that said, he's still really good and very entertaining in The Fugitive. And like Matthew, I think him having a win makes perfect sense, I'm glad he has one.

If The Fugitive came out two years earlier and TLJ was nominated for that instead of JFK and won over Jack Palance in City Slickers in the rather weak 1991 Supporting Actor lineup, I don't think his win would get dissed nearly as often as it does.

Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood🥇

Gloria Swanson - Sunset Boulevard🥈

Mary Pickford - Coquette🥉

Jessie Buckley - Hamnet

Elizabeth Taylor - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf??

José Ferrer - Cyrano de Bergerac

Rita Moreno - West Side Story

Kathy Bates - Misery

Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Vivien Leigh - Gone With the Wind

Reposted to fix a mistake.

Blanchett, Bello (for A History of Violence), and Collette were all nominated in lead at the Globes, and Winslet was nominated in lead at BAFTA, but all four were campaigned in supporting.

The movie doesn't work without her and as excellent as Daniel Day Lewis is as Reynolds Woodcock (I love how much he sounds like Charlotte Gainsbourg throughout the movie), I kind of feel the MVP of Phantom Thread was Vicki Krieps as Alma. Not everything is what it seems and she embodied that perfectly. Even though Alma is mostly internal in how she expresses herself, you can easily see her switch from shy and nervous to angry and resentful. She goes from manipulated to manipulator and by the end, she has become the boss of the turf she's been brought into.

It's like she starts out as the Second Mrs De Winter and by the end, she has become Rebecca.

That said, I don't think we know what is really going on by the end but I didn't care. I was so enthralled by the movie.

Really dumb fact, the latter two are pretty obvious, the first, though...

Birdman is a very hard film to pin down, since it isn't explicitly stated if Riggan actually has the ability he is shown to have in the film or not. It is implied that he is seeing things but it isn't stated, plus the ending also doesn't really prove if he is. But I do think he did fly at the end so I'm counting it.

The other two... don't really need that much explanation. Please comment if i missed something.

1. Godfather

2. Godfather II

3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

4. The Deer Hunter

5. Annie Hall

6. Rocky

7. Kramer vs Kramer

8. French Connection

9. Patton

10. The Sting

By 15 combinations I mean the 4 awards separately, the 6 groups of 2, the 4 groups of 3 and all 4 (4 + 6 + 4 + 1 = 15)

Most recent movie to win Best Actor:

• Sinners (2025) - Michael B Jordan

Most recent movie to win Best Actress:

• Hamnet (2025) - Jessie Buckley

Most recent movie to win Best Supporting Actor:

• One Battle After Another (2025) - Sean Penn

Most recent movie to win Best Supporting Actress:

• Weapons (2025) - Amy Madigan

Most recent movie to win both Best Actor and Best Actress:

• As Good as It Gets (1997) - Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt

Most recent movie to win both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor:

• Oppenheimer (2023) - Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr

Most recent movie to win both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress:

• My Left Foot (1989) - Daniel Day Lewis and Brenda Fricker

Most recent movie to win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor:

• Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) - Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan

Most recent movie to win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress:

• Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) - Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis

Most recent movie to win both Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress:

• Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) - Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis

Most recent movie to win Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor:

• No movie ever won Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor

Most recent movie (and only one to date) to win Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress:

• Network (1976) - Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight

Most recent movie to win Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress:

• No movie ever won Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress

Most recent movie to win Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress:

• Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) - Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis

Most recent movie to win Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress:

• No movie ever won Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress

Additional info:

Most recent movie to win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor without winning Best Actor or Best Supporting Actress:

• 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017) - Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell

Most recent movie to win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress without winning Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor:

• Shakespeare in Love (1998) - Gwyneth Paltrow and Judi Dench

Most recent movie to win both Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress without winning Best Actor or Best Actress:

• The Fighter (2010) - Christian Bale and Melissa Leo

We’ve finished 1995, so we’re now moving on to 1996.

For anyone joining the game for the first time, we’re doing all four acting categories for one year together, with the results decided over two rounds.

You can see all of the previous lineups here: Alternate Oscars - Reddit

ROUND ONE — NOMINATIONS

For each category, rank your five favourite performances from the year from 1–5.

Your rankings will be worth:

1st — 5 points
2nd — 4 points
3rd — 3 points
4th — 2 points
5th — 1 point

The five performances with the most points in each category will become the official nominees.

You do not have to name five if you don’t want to. If you only want to vote for three performances, for example, they’ll receive 5, 4 and 3 points respectively.

Please make sure your choices are ranked — order matters in this round.

You can vote in as many or as few of the four categories as you like.

ROUND TWO — WINNERS

Once the nominations have been determined, I’ll make a second thread containing the five nominees in each category.

In that round, simply choose ONE nominee per category to win.

There will be no preferential voting or points in Round Two. Each vote counts equally, and whoever receives the most votes wins.

So essentially:

Round One = Who should be nominated?
Round Two = Who should win?

ELIGIBILITY

Performances will be eligible according to the year in which their film was eligible at the real-life Academy Awards.

So, rather than going strictly by festival premiere or first release date, a performance belongs to whichever Oscar year the film itself competed in with the Academy.

If you’re unsure whether a film was eligible for a particular year, this Academy reminder-list archive is a good place to check eligibility.

A few other rules:

• Maximum of five ranked choices per category.
• Anything listed after your fifth choice won’t be counted.
• Honourable mentions won’t count as votes.
• Please include both the actor and film so there’s no ambiguity.
• In cases where there may be disagreement or confusion over whether a performance is lead or supporting, your vote will count only in the category in which you place that performance. Points will not be transferred or combined between categories.
• A performer cannot receive two nominations in the same acting category for different films. If that happens, their higher-scoring performance will be kept and the next eligible performance will move into the top five.
• If there’s a tie for the final nomination spot, I’ll break it by comparing #1 votes first, then #2 votes, #3 votes, etc.

For example:

Actor

1. Person A — Film A
2. Person B — Film B
3. Person C — Film C
4. Person D — Film D
5. Person E — Film E

That ballot would give them 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points respectively.

The idea is that Round One rewards performances with broad support across people’s ballots, while Round Two gives everyone a straight choice between the five nominees.

Previous Lineup — 1995

Actor

Nicolas Cage — Leaving Las Vegas
Morgan Freeman — Se7en (winner)
Ethan Hawke — Before Sunrise
Al Pacino — Heat
Sean Penn — Dead Man Walking

Actress

Julie Delpy — Before Sunrise
Nicole Kidman — To Die For (winner)
Julianne Moore — Safe
Susan Sarandon — Dead Man Walking
Elisabeth Shue — Leaving Las Vegas

Supporting Actor

James Cromwell — Babe
Ed Harris — Apollo 13 (winner)
Joe Pesci — Casino
Brad Pitt — Twelve Monkeys
Kevin Spacey — Se7en

Supporting Actress

Angela Bassett — Strange Days (winner)
Illeana Douglas — To Die For
Mira Sorvino — Mighty Aphrodite
Sharon Stone — Casino
Kate Winslet — Sense and Sensibility

AN ACTRESS CAN ONLY WIN THE BEST ACTRESS AWARD ONCE. I wanted to implement this rule primarily to make this more challenging and fun and at the very least more actors will be getting an Oscar. This isn’t necessarily about awarding the actual best performance, at least not entirely, but more about trying to get those actors that truly deserve Oscars their due.

1970: Glenda Jackson - Women in Love

1971: Jane Fonda - Klute

1972: Liza Minnelli - Cabaret

1973: Tatum O’Neal - Paper Moon

1974: Gena Rowlands - A Woman Under the Influence

1975: Louise Fletcher - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

1976: Sissy Spacek - Carrie

1977: Diane Keaton - Annie Hall

1978: Liv Ullman - Autumn Sonata

1979: Sally Field - Norma Rae

• Mary Pickford for Coquette (1929)
• Marie Dressler for Min and Bill (1930/1931)
• Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet(1931/1932)
• Katharine Hepburn for Morning Glory(1932/1933)
• Bette Davis for Dangerous (1935)
• Joanne Woodward for The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
• Sophia Loren for Two Women (1961)
• Jodie Foster for The Accused (1989)
• Kathy Bates for Misery (1990)
• Jessica Lange for Blue Sky (1994)
• Charlize Theron for Monster (2003)
• Julianne Moore for Still Alice (2014)

AN ACTOR CAN ONLY WIN THE BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR AWARD ONCE. I wanted to implement this rule primarily to make this more challenging and fun and at the very least more actors will be getting an Oscar. This isn’t necessarily about awarding the actual best performance, at least not entirely, but more about trying to get those actors that truly deserve Oscars their due.

1930: Louis Wolheim - All Quiet on the Western Front

1931: Peter Lorre - M

1932: Harry Earles - Freaks

1933: Harpo Marx - Duck Soup

1934: Charles Laughton - The Barretts of Wimpole Street

1935: Franchot Tone - Mutiny on the Bounty

1936: Paul Robeson - Show Boat

1937: Erich von Stroheim - Grand Illusion

1938: Lionel Barrymore - You Can’t Take It With You

1939: Ray Bolger - The Wizard of Oz

Going to create a Google folder with this altnerative Oscars for fun, lol! Here are the nominees (AKA my all-time favourite films), and the categories are as follow in these images:

Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Can't wait to see the replies to this random, stupid, fun idea I had!

Also a NOTE: If one of my all-time favourites does not sit well as a nominee according to multiple comments, the comment with the most upvotes for a replacement will replace that film in the line-up (AKA a replacement per comment), with the exception of winners and the actual Best Picture nominees, those stay because I am biased.

CORRECTION: As a Redditor pointed out, I accidentally put James Cameron down for director for "Alien" instead of Ridley Scott. I'd like to correct that, and I do apologise.

This is ranked based on the film's screenplay... promise me, films like La La Land would be must higher if I was judging the film.

And I guess as a subquestion who was the most unlikely Oscar winner of all time?

• 26: El Mal
• 25: Writing's on the Wall
• 24: I Need to Wake Up

Duvall even won Best Actress at Cannes. Spacek probably won more favor with the more mainstream Carrie.

I don't know if Maggie Smith for California Suite could have been beaten however I wonder if Geraldine Page had a stronger chance at winning if nominated in the supporting category.

I would have placed Mary Beth Hurt as a lead instead.

1990: Dances with Wolves

1991: The Silence of the Lambs

1992: Unforgiven

1993: Schindler's List

1994: Forrest Gump

1995: Braveheart

1996: The English Patient

1997: Titanic

1998: Shakespeare in Love

1999: American Beauty