2024 Oscars Best Actor nominees: 1 past contender versus 4 rookies

The 2024 Oscar nominees for Best Actor are Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”). Murphy (16/5) is favored to win by our odds, followed in order by Giamatti (18/5), Cooper (9/2), Wright (9/2), and Domingo (9/2).

Whereas last year’s lead male lineup was the first in almost nine decades to consist entirely of Oscars newcomers, this one includes three rookies and two general veterans. Standing alone in having already competed for this specific award is Cooper, who was previously recognized for “Silver Linings Playbook” (2013), “American Sniper” (2015), and “A Star Is Born” (2019). Since he personally helmed both “A Star Is Born” and “Maestro,” he is now the fourth person to direct himself to multiple acting nominations, following Laurence Olivier (“Henry V,” 1947; “Hamlet,” 1949; “Richard III,” 1957), Warren Beatty (“Heaven Can Wait,” 1979; “Reds,” 1982), and Clint Eastwood (“Unforgiven,” 1993; “Million Dollar Baby,” 2005).

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Cooper is concurrently nominated for co-writing the original screenplay for “Maestro” with past winner Josh Singer (“Spotlight,” 2016) and is directly involved in the Best Picture race as one of the film’s producers. This brings his lifetime Oscar nominations total to an even dozen across five categories, the two of which that don’t apply in this case being Best Supporting Actor (“American Hustle,” 2014) and Best Adapted Screenplay (“A Star Is Born”).

The only other returning nominee among the present Best Actor hopefuls is Giamatti, whose sole preceding mention came for his supporting turn in “Cinderella Man” (2006). He now joins Cooper on the extensive list of male performers with both lead and supporting Oscar nominations, which also grew to include featured “Barbie” actor Ryan Gosling this year. Until now, the most recent club entrant was Daniel Kaluuya, who took the 2021 supporting prize for “Judas and the Black Messiah” after contending as a lead in “Get Out” (2018). The last one to follow the supporting-to-lead trajectory was Adam Driver (“BlacKkKlansman,” 2019; “Marriage Story,” 2020).

Following 2023 rivals Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) and Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”), Murphy is this category’s third Irish-born nominee in two years and could become the first native of his country to ever clinch a lead acting Oscar. As of now, the only Irish-born performers who have won the academy’s favor are supporting champs and fellow Dubliners Barry Fitzgerald (“Going My Way,” 1945) and Brenda Fricker (“My Left Foot,” 1990).

Domingo sets a new precedent as the first Black, out member of the LGBTQ+ community to ever receive a lead notice. Together, he and Wright raise their category’s all-time number of Black nominees to 17 and are the fifth pair of Black men to compete directly against each other here, after Will Smith and Denzel Washington (“Ali” and “Training Day,” 2002; “King Richard” and “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” 2022), Don Cheadle and Jamie Foxx (“Hotel Rwanda” and “Ray,” 2005), Smith and Forest Whitaker (“The Pursuit of Happyness” and “The Last King of Scotland,” 2007), and Kaluuya and Washington (“Get Out” and “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” 2018).

The most recent victors in this category are Brendan Fraser (“The Whale,” 2023), Smith (“King Richard”), Anthony Hopkins (“The Father,” 2021), and Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker,” 2020). This year’s winner will be revealed during the 96th Academy Awards ceremony, airing March 10 on ABC.

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