The performance Oscars are some of the most fun categories to follow in any year, but the 2026 Academy Awards have gifted us an especially exciting lineup for Best Actor. The five nominees represent some of the best films of the year. All but one would be a first-time winner. All are actually unquestionably leads. And all of their performances are so good that I can’t even be too mad Jesse Plemons isn’t among them.
Following the nominations announcement, a common reaction from all corners of the internet was that this is truly an all-time great Best Actor race. Picking a winner will be hard enough; attempting to rank them would seem like madness. And yet, that’s just what I’m going to do. As with the 2026 Best Picture nominees, I’ve seen all five of these performances, and here’s how I would rank them from “worst” (really, least-best) to best.
5
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
It might seem crazy to put a performance of twins in last place, but it’s a tough year, and this isn’t th award for Most Actor. Michael B. Jordan does some great work in Sinners, and Smoke and Stack are expertly delineated. The ultimate compliment I can give any dual role is that I never really doubted these were two distinct characters. He’s able to communicate so much about their dynamic through small gestures and glances between them that aren’t really happening, but still exist after being spliced together.
But I also never really forgot they were being played by Michael B. Jordan, either. In that way, even with the wattage of his fellow nominees in this category, his is the most “movie star” performance of the five. That’s exactly what Sinners needs from him. As Ryan Coogler’s film makes that transition from period drama to supernatural horror, Jordan is there to anchor it and deliver on the action required of the final act. But purely as a case for Best Actor, it would’ve been better for him had Sinners remained as it began, where he was really given the opportunity to be at his best.
4
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
There’s no film nominated here that leans as much on its star’s performance as Blue Moon does on Ethan Hawke. His character is the whirlwind everyone else is caught in, or, depending on your perspective, the car wreck they can’t look away from. Hawke is tasked with inhabiting both these elements of songwriter Lorenz Hart, all while the film practically refuses to let him stop speaking.
Part of the magic is that it’s very easy to imagine lesser versions of this performance that flop between the extremes from moment to moment. Hawke, though, is somehow always both. His endless speech is simultaneously a mask Hart hides behind and the painfully revealing tell that keeps giving him away, and Hawke makes a meal out of the smallest of modulations. He might have had more of an edge in this ranking if his film were at the same caliber as what he delivers in it, but as it stands, he’s behind by the thinnest of margins.
3
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Feels strange to say this after placing him third, but this is one of our foremost movie stars giving one of his career-best performances. Leonardo DiCaprio has the challenge of leading One Battle After Another while being, for the most part, tonally at odds with it. PTA’s Best Picture nominee is a mostly serious, political action thriller with a satirical edge – its laughs often turn to ash in your mouth. DiCaprio’s Bob is an almost slapstick presence, as if Jeff Bridges’ Dude from The Big Lebowski was dropped in the middle of a real revolution.
And it works. More than that, OBAA sometimes adopts Bob’s tone when he’s driving a scene, and becomes all the richer for it. DiCaprio has such an unshakable grip on the kind of person Bob is that this world he has no business being in sometimes warps around him anyway. The emotional purity of his love for his daughter cuts through all the politics of his allies, and all the hate of his enemies, to ground the film’s ideas in something recognizably, believably human. They simply wouldn’t be as meaningful without DiCaprio bumbling through the movie.
2
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent is a wonderful, nuanced film, but it wouldn’t be half as effective without Wagner Moura’s performance at the center. He supplies the magic for what is ultimately a bait-and-switch at our expense.
When Marcelo comes driving into town under mysterious circumstances, with a face like he’s hiding secrets, we believe figuring him out will be our task as viewers. And we do learn many truths about him across the film’s runtime. But he is not really an enigma; Moura does not hide his character from us in the slightest. His warmth and intelligence and conviction are things that we intuitively understand, and through his performance, Moura draws us in rather than trying to shut us out.
In the end, The Secret Agent is about how a man like that becomes a mystery – how, in times of oppression and sanctioned lawlessness, the legacy of good people like him is often the cost. And this, too, hinges on Moura, whose final moments on screen heartbreakingly undo all the work he’s done up to that point. It’s truly lovely work that, in any other year, would be at the top of this ranking.
1
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
It’s tempting to be lured in by the way this performance continued off-screen, but what Timothée Chalamet actually delivers in Marty Supreme is the true spectacle. Marty is a force of charisma so potent that people willingly reshape their lives for him, over and over again, despite it always being to their detriment. His arrogance is not only blinding, but, somehow, endearing. And Chalamet so fully realizes this destructive magnetism that it even works on us, the audience.
We enjoy watching him win. We want him to, even in spite of ourselves, in both table tennis and in life. And as much as director Josh Safdie employs the trappings of a sports movie to help achieve this feeling, it’s mostly down to his leading man’s ability to actually be who Marty believes himself to be. His staggering narcissism isn’t baseless. He’s got the goods. But his tragic flaw is that he’ll never, ever be capable of getting out of his own way.
Chalamet’s Marty Mauser is the kind of movie character that can only come from a bona fide star at the peak of his powers, being gifted the right material at the right time. He is my pick for Best Actor. If this performance comes to occupy the place in his career (and in movie history) that I expect it to, he will be considered a worthy winner, even among this legendarily great group of nominees.