Overdue for Oscars: Annette Bening, Bradley Cooper, Robert Downey …

Almost every year, there is at least one performer who finally takes home that elusive Oscar. In 2022, Jessica Chastain won for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” after two prior nominations, and, in 2020, Joaquin Phoenix prevailed for “Joker” after three previous bids. Expect this year to be no different — we have a whole crew searching for their first Oscar wins after years of nominations, near-misses, or just plain being snubbed. Here are a so far unlucky seven contenders who could break that curse this year and win long overdue Oscars. (We’ve updated this post to include Ryan Gosling after his absence was pointed out by several readers.)

Annette Bening — “Nyad” (Netflix)
Dir: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
Co-Starring: Jodie Foster, Rhys Ifans
Release Date: October 20 in theaters, November 3 on Netflix
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

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“64-year-old marathon swimmer, Diana Nyad, attempts to become the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida.”

Bening has been nominated for four Academy Awards across her career. Her first bid came in 1991 for Best Supporting Actress for “The Grifters.” She then reaped three Best Actress nominations — in 2000 for “American Beauty,” in 2005 for “Being Julia,” and in 2011 for “The Kids Are All Right.” She won Golden Globes for “Being Julia” and “The Kids are All Right” and a SAG and BAFTA for “American Beauty,” so she came close to an Oscar win on two occasions. She will be hoping to earn her fourth Best Actress bid and fifth career nomination overall for her lead role in this biographical sports drama in which she plays the titular American long-distance swimmer.

Playing a real-life person is a great way to go — plenty of performers have earned Best Actress bids for playing real people. Ana de Armas was nominated last year for playing Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde,” while the year before that saw three actresses nominated for playing real women — Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in “Spencer,” Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos,” and, the winner, Chastain for playing Tammy Faye Bakker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” Bening could join that crowd. She’s in a decent position at the moment — she’s just outside our current predicted nominees for Best Actress, which consists of Emma Stone (“Poor Things”), Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”), and Margot Robbie (“Barbie”).

Bradley Cooper — “Maestro” (Netflix)
Dir: Bradley Cooper
Co-starring: Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman
Release Date: 2023 — November 22
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

“The complex love of Leonard and Felicia, from the time they met in 1946 at a party and continuing through two engagements, a 25 year marriage, and three children.”

Anyone with nine Oscar nominations can count themselves unlucky to have not won a single Academy Award. He’s been nominated for three Best Actor Oscars (for “Silver Linings Playbook” in 2013, “American Sniper” in 2015, and “A Star is Born” in 2019), a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “American Hustle” in 2014, and a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for “A Star is Born.” Plus, he’s had four Best Picture Nominees as a producer: for “American Sniper,” “A Star is Born,” “Joker” in 2020, and “Nightmare Alley” in 2022. But, still, he’s not had a single Oscar win. 9-0.

That needs to change at some point, and why not for his lead role as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” which he also directs? He’s playing a real-life figure, which always gets Oscar voters going. Austin Butler was nominated for playing the titular role in “Elvis.” The year before that, Will Smith won for playing Richard Williams in “King Richard,” while Javier Bardem was nominated for playing Desi Arnaz in “Being the Ricardos” and Andrew Garfield was nominated for playing Jonathan Larson in “Tick, Tick… Boom!”

Plus, it’s a transformative performance, which we also know voters like — Brendan Fraser won for “The Whale” last year while Christian Bale was nominated for “Vice” in 2019 and Gary Oldman won for playing Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour” the year before. At the moment, we think Cooper will be nominated for Best Actor alongside Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), and Leonardo DiCaprio (“Killers of the Flower Moon”).

Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo — “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)
Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
Co-starring: Emma Stone, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Margaret Qualley
Release Date: December 8
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

“The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.”

Two incredible actors with a plethora of Oscar bids to their name, mostly in supporting roles. Both of them will be up for Best Supporting Actor, we think, for their roles in “Poor Things.” Dafoe will play Dr. Baxter, who brings Bella back to life while Ruffalo will play Duncan Wedderburn, a slick lawyer who Bella runs away with. Ruffalo has had three nominations in this supporting category so far, for “The Kids Are in All Right” in 2011, “Foxcatcher” in 2015, and “Spotlight” in 2016. Three very different performances, but no wins. Dafoe has also had three nominations in this category — in 1987 for “Platoon,” in 2001 for “Shadow of the Vampire,” and in 2018 for “The Florida Project.” He’s also had a Best Actor nomination, too — for “At Eternity’s Gate” in 2019.

Both of these performances look to be very colorful roles for the actors to show off their chops, similar to other scenery-chewing roles in the Supporting Actor category such as last year’s winner, Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), 2022 nominee J.K. Simmons (“Being the Ricardos”), and 2021 nominee Sacha Baron Cohen (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”). And don’t worry about both actors competing against one another in the same category — this happens often in this category.

Last year, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan were both nominated for “The Banshees of Inisherin” while, the year before that, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee were both nominated for “The Power of the Dog.” In fact, Dafoe and Ruffalo could be Lanthimos’ male equivalent of Stone and Rachel Weisz, who both landed Supporting Actress bids for his past film “The Favourite.” Currently, we predict that both of them will be nominated this year, alongside Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”), Robert De Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), and Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”).

Robert Downey Jr. — “Oppenheimer” (Universal)
Dir: Christopher Nolan
Co-starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

“The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.”

Downey Jr. is a Hollywood legend thanks to his role as Tony Stark AKA Iron Man in the MCU. But people often forget just how good an actor this guy is, although he has also churned out Oscar-worthy performances as Tony in the MCU, anyway (his performance in “Captain America: Civil War” is exquisite). Downey Jr. has two Oscar nominations to his name so far — one for Best Actor in 1993 for “Chaplin” and one for Best Supporting Actor for “Tropic Thunder” in 2009. He’ll be looking for a third nomination this year, in the supporting category, for his role as Lewis Strauss, the naval officer and businessman who served two terms on the US Atomic Energy Commission and was a major figure in the development of nuclear power in the States.

Downey Jr. could join a number of performers to earn nominations for appearing as a real-life person in a key supporting role, such as Daniel Kaluuya (who won) and LaKeith Stanfield in 2021 for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Baron Cohen in the same year for “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” and Al Pacino and Joe Pesci the year before in “The Irishman.” Downey Jr. is in pole position in our odds chart for this category.

Paul Giamatti — “The Holdovers”
Dir: Alexander Payne
Co-starring: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Dominic Sessa
Release Date: October 27, 2023
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

“The disliked Deerfield Academy teacher, Paul Hunham, is put in charge of supervising the students who are unable to return home to Christmas due to having no family. However, he is forced to deal with one particularly rebellious student, Angus.”

Giamatti was utterly robbed of an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in 2005 for his exquisite turn in “Sideways.” He was nominated for a Golden Globe, a SAG, and a Critics Choice Award for that performance but missed out on an Oscar bid. Since then, the Oscars have always owed him, this writer firmly believes. He’s only had one Oscar bid, in fact, across his stellar career. That was for Best Supporting Actor in 2006 for “Cinderella Man,” for which he won a SAG and Critics Choice Award, so he must have come close to the Oscar win. Giamatti reunited with his “Sideways” director, Payne, again here to take on the lead role of Paul. If his performance is half as good as his one in “Sideways,” he’ll be in the mix for sure. In fact, we currently predict that he will be nominated for Best Actor alongside the other aforementioned names in our predicted lineup for this category.

Ryan Gosling — “Barbie”
Dir: Greta Gerwig
Co-starring: Margot Robbie, America Ferrera, Simu Liu, Rhea Perlman
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

“Barbie suffers a crisis that leads her to question her world and her existence.”

Gosling first secured an Oscar nomination when he landed a Best Actor bid in 2007 for “Half Nelson.” 10 years later, he earned another Best Actor bid for “La La Land.” Gosling stars alongside Robbie in Gerwig’s stylized comedy and runs away with the show, nailing every comedic beat with aplomb. The film’s best moments all involve Gosling and the “I’m Just Ken” musical number is nothing short of exquisite. Gosling brings his trademark wit, humor, and lightness of touch to this role and produces his best performance yet. We predict that he will reap his third Oscar nomination here, this time for Best Supporting Actor.

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