Alternate Best Actor 2022: Results

10. Song Kang-ho in Broker - Song brings a  naturalistic and charming chemistry even if the film tasks him to go into some less than natural directions for this character late in the film. 

Best Scene: Seeing his daughter. 

9. Robert Pattinson in The Batman - Pattinson gives a great depiction of Batman that gives a greater insight within the development of the character and the different shades of his identity. 

Best Scene: "Bruce WAAAYNE"

8. Christopher Abbott in On the Count of Three - Abbott gives a captivating depiction of a man on an extreme mental edge that manages to be intense, heartwrenching but also at times rather funny. 

Best Scene: Seeing the high school bully. 

7. Mehdi Bajestani in Holy Spider - Bajestani gives an extremely disturbing portrayal of a man whose depravity goes far beyond just psychopathy. 

Best Scene: "Not Crazy"

6. Mark Rylance in The Outfit - Rylance amplifies his film every step of the way, giving a consistently captivating portrayal of a man who essentially weaponizes modesty. 

Best Scene: "I'm the mole"

5. Alexander Skarsgård in the Northman - Skarsgård delivers a powerful performance that goes beyond just his tremendous physical presence and also gives a potent portrayal of the emotional weight of his journey. 

Best Scene: The Queen's truth. 

4. Felix Kammerer in All Quiet on the Western Front - Kammerer gives a heartbreaking portrayal of the effects of war, both in terms of the bonds between soldiers and of the terrible mental degradation from the losses and horrors suffered throughout his experience. 

Best Scene: In the crater. 

3. Timothée Chalamet in Bones and All - Chalamet delivers for me his best performance, that offers an honest off-beat charisma, a fantastic chemistry with his co-star, and a powerful emotional vulnerability, all in his depiction of a cannibal. 

Best Scene: What really happened with his dad. 

2. Ralph Fiennes in The Menu - Fiennes gives an amazing performance that manages to be extremely intense, but also incredibly hilarious as his hate and regret filled killer chef. 

Best Scene: A cheeseburger. 

1. Park Hae-il in Decision to Leave - Park gives an entirely captivating and absolutely haunting portrayal of obsession. 

Best Scene: The snowy mountain.

Overall:

1. Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Park Hae-il in Decision to Leave
3. Bill Nighy in Living
4. Ralph Fiennes in The Menu
5. Timothée Chalamet in Bones and All
6. Felix Kammerer in All Quiet on the Western Front
7. Paul Mescal in Aftersun
8. Alexander Skarsgård in the Northman
9. Mark Rylance in The Outfit
10. Mehdi Bajestani in Holy Spider - 5
11. Ram Charan in RRR
12. N.T. Rama Rao Jr in RRR
13. Christopher Abbott in On the Count of Three
14. Robert Pattinson in The Batman
15. Mark Rylance in The Phantom of the Open
16. Song Kang-ho in Broker
17. Adeel Akhtar in Ali & Ava
18. Jonathan Majors in Devotion
19. Denis Ménochet in As Bestas
20. Daniel Giménez Cacho in Bardo
21. Daryl McCormack in Good Luck To You, Leo Grande
22. Eden Dambrine in Close
23. Gang Dong-won in Broker
24. Jeremy Pope in The Inspection
25. Daniel Kaluuya in Nope
26. Austin Butler in Elvis
27. Gabriel Labelle in The Fabelmans
28. Ricardo Darin in Argentina, 1985
29. Brendan Fraser in The Whale
30. Diego Calva in Babylon 
31. Ben Foster in The Survivor
32. John Boyega in Breaking - 4.5
33. Daniel Craig in The Glass Onion
34. Michael Ward in Empire of Light
35. Adam Driver in White Noise
36. Antonio Banderas in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
37. Jack Lowden in Benediction
38. Jerrod Carmichael in On the Count of Three
39. Colin Farrell in After Yang 
40. Brad Pitt in Babylon
41. Idris Elba in Three Thousand Years of Longing
42. Nicolas Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
43. Adam Sandler in Hustle
44. Harris Dickinson in Triangle of Sadness
45. Rory Kinnear in Men
46. Donald Elise Watkins in Emergency
47. Peter Lanzani in Argentina, 1985
48. Ali Junejo in Joyland
49. Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick
50. Will Smith in Emancipation
51. Viggo Mortensen in Crimes of the Future
52. RJ Cyler in Emergency 
53. Peter Capaldi in Benediction
54. Sterling K. Brown in Hong For Jesus. Save Your Soul
55. Kenneth Branagh in Death on the Nile - 4
56. Colin Farrell in Thirteen Lives
57. Viggo Mortensen in Thirteen Lives
58. Jon Hamm in Confess Fletch
59. Dali Benssalah in Athena
60. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Ambulance
61. Glen Powell in Devotion
62. Benedict Cumberbatch in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
    
63. Christian Bale in The Pale Blue Eye
64. Gregory Mann in Pinocchio
65. Jake Gyllenhaal in Ambulance 
66. Sami Slimane in Athena
67. Elliott Crosset Hove in Godland
68. Zach Efron in The Greatest Beer Run Ever
69. Christoph Waltz in Dead for a Dollar
70. Ryan Gosling in The Gray Man 
71. Joe Alwyn in Stars At Noon - 3.5
72. Daniel Radcliffe in Weird
73. Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder
74. Karl Urban in The Sea Beast 
75. Luke Evans in Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
76. Chris Evans in Lightyear 
77. Jake Gyllenhaal in Strange World - 3
    
78. Banks Repeta in Armageddon Time
79. Sam Rockwell in See How They Run
80. Brad Pitt in Bullet Train 
81. Hugh Jackman in The Son - 2.5
82. Eddie Redmayne in Fantastic Beats: The Secrets of Dumbledore 
83. Sam Worthington in Avatar: The Way of Water
84. Daniel Zolghadri in Funny Pages
85. Will Ferrell in Spirited - 2
86. John David Washington in Amsterdam
87. Christian Bale in Amsterdam
88. Ryan Reynolds in Spirited
89. Chris Pratt in Jurassic World: Dominion
90. Mason Thames in The Black Phone 
91. Dwayne Johnson in Black Adam
92. Peter Billingsley in A Christmas Story Christmas - 1.5
93. Cooper Raiff in Cha Cha Real Smooth - 1

Next (eventually): 1961 Lead

Alternate Best Actor 2022: Mehdi Bajestani in Holy Spider

Mehdi Bajestani did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Saeed Hanei in Holy Spider. 

Holy Spider depicts a reporter trying to track a serial killer who targets prostitutes in Iran. 

Mehdi Bajestani plays the role of the serial killer, whom we know is the serial killer fairly quickly within the narrative, and the film is less about catching the killer than looking at the society around this killer. Bajestani's performance is bluntly very disturbing, and disturbing in a way that is unique within portrayals of a serial killer, no small feat in itself given how oft portrayed of a type of character it is. Bajestani's performance is disturbing in particular because it is so many things in it that make it such a chilling portrait of such a man. On the most immediate surface are the moments of the actual killings. The actual killings are extremely unnerving as Bajestani's performance accentuates two things that make Hanei such a nefarious figure. One aspect is the ease of the transition to the killings. Bajestani never portrays these moments as something that Hanei needs to work up rather the nature of the man is to kill and to kill is not something that is difficult for him. The actual killing that comes off as so quick, but also is truly so sickening is the sense of satisfaction that he presents in everyone. Bajestani doesn't portray it as an urge the man needs to control, rather it is the urge that propels him forward to do so at all times. It is something that gives him great satisfaction and we see this in his intense manner in every moment. It is very much a sexually vicious and horrible act and his face expresses this evil as the innate nature of the man simply doing what it does. 

The performance actually has some things in common with films like The Vanishing, because we also see the serial killer in his home life with his wife and son, as the loving family man. Bajestani is as convincing as the loving family man as the killer, but I think the interesting thing about his work is he doesn't put on a false face in either depiction. In both, he is the same man, and in a very disturbing sense, the man is as comfortable in both lives and therefore doesn't really even hide anything beyond avoiding being caught as a criminal. Bajestani honestly brings a great deal of warmth in the moments that Hanei is interacting with his son. He doesn't subvert either at any point he shows that the man does love his son at every one of his points. He even loves his wife as again Bajestani presents it with real sincerity. The man simply is living as a seemingly normal man successfully there is no strain to this there is nothing suggesting that he isn't comfortable in this life. This may seem like something is missing in Bajestani's performance but this choice to actually make the man as convincing in both lives is essential in crafting the true motivations of this man, which is in part psychopathy, but it isn't only psychopathy that fuels the man. As we see Bajestani doesn't portray the two sides of the man as the real and the fake, or the evil and the good, he rather shows the man at home, and the man living out essentially his hobby. 

We see this in the scenes before the killing itself which Bajestani portrays in a particularly insidious way because it is two-fold, one is the man going about his evil in a way, but the other is the man indulging even before he gets to the killing. We see the scenes of him with the prostitutes before the killing begins and Bajestani is again sincere in the enjoyment of the debauchery even before the killing. He shows that the man loves the act of playing with the prostitutes, not even as prey, but wholly with their services at first. Bajestani very much emphasizes the enjoyment of the man getting out of the fantasies he does enjoy as a pure hypocrite as we will later learn. And with that Bajestani reveals it as part of the disgusting process of the man indulging in this kind of behavior before going about the killing as this merged act. It isn't one other the other, but a combination that brings the man such horrible pleasure as he goes indulging in his appetite for sex and violence in equal measure. The key to this is one scene where one of the prostitute kind of equally enjoys the "game" at first and kind of plays with the whole twisted sensibility a bit. Bajestani is amazing in this scene because of just how scared he shows Hanei becomes in the moment. His manner becomes impotent and almost terrified as the woman gets the upper hand on him and questions him in a way. Bajestani shows the real sick pathetic nature of the man as the moment his fantasy is broken in the slightest he's completely lost. 

Hanei eventually gets caught when the reporter goes undercover and finds him. And the scene of Hanei getting arrested is where we enter the next phase of his performance which is equally disturbing just in a completely different way. This is when Hanei is approached by cops Bajestani basically plays with a kind of slightly ashamed but almost joyful manner of the man just as though he's going to need to explain something silly away. There is no sense of the man being concerned about being caught even rather there is almost a strange kind of pride in him as he's going to be called upon for his crimes. This only worsens as he stands trial for his crimes, despite the joy of his sexual depravity, he positions himself as a moral crusader against "low" women. Here is where we see such true insidious work by Bajestani because he presents Hanei as wholly believing his argument and selling every word of it with the utmost conviction. He is is a man who does believe himself in this delusion that he was doing the right thing all along. Bajestani's whole manner is as a moral crusader firebrand in the courtroom scenes. He brandishes his crimes as accomplishments without a hint of shame or anything other than a disparaging manner to his victims and a despicable attempt to portray himself as morally righteous. We see specific moments where he speaks this fact with his son around and his manner towards his son as basically "Look at what dad did", and Bajestani is outstanding in presenting this moral corruption with such ease. 

The only point in which there is any hesitation whatsoever on the side of Hanei is when his lawyers want to save him from the death penalty by presenting him as insane. Bajestani oddly shows the only pure humanity in the character in the little bit of concern he expresses in seeing how his son will see him if he is seen as insane. Of course, that bit of humanity is wrapped around the diseased idea that he is any kind of moral man and therefore needs to present himself as such to his son. Bajestani is fantastic because he is able to make this derangement so very natural in its state and shows the man basically getting gratification for his crimes based on believing it is what is right. Bajestani's whole performance is this twisted "on the stand testimony" moment of grandiose grandstanding, but for his hideous cause as refuses to be seen as crazy. Even after being sentenced to death Bajestani's performance still exudes a man so confident in his state of being that is particularly horrible to see as he so smugly takes in an "offer" from some men that instead of being executed he will be taken away to freedom. Bajestani through the whole process of Hanei's execution consistently shows this man still soaking up seemingly this sense of righteousness as though he will get away with his crimes, and makes these moments particularly frustrating because of how genuine they feel. In turn, it is hard not to feel some catharsis when it is revealed the whole "escape" was nothing but a ruse to get him to the execution chamber without raising a fuss. Bajestani's performance is great at the moment because you finally see the illusion shattered and since his imprisonment a real sense of fear of actually receiving justice for his crimes. Bajestani presents this as the man finally realizing that his society won't protect his hatred of women up to this point. Bajestani showing the fundamental fall of the man becoming a pathetic mess as he can no longer hold onto his delusions. This is a great performance by Mehdi Bajestani as he doesn't give one disturbing portrait of depravity but multiple. He is the psychopath, he is the disgusting sexual sadist, but perhaps worst of all, he is utterly convincing as a man who views his moral depravity as a righteous cause.   

Alternate Best Actor 2022

And the Nominees Were Not:

Felix Kammerer in All Quiet on the Western Front

Ralph Fiennes in The Menu

Park Hae-il in Decision To Leave

Alexander Skarsgård in The Northman

Timothée Chalamet in Bones and All

Predict those five, these five or Both. 

Mehdi Bajestani in Holy Spider

Mark Rylance in The Outfit

Song Kang-ho in Broker

Christopher Abbott in On the Count of Three

Robert Pattinson in The Batman