Jeff Bridges - THE CONTENDER
"You're the future of the Democratic party, Jack, and you always will be." When people complain that nominations come too easily to second-generation Hollywood actors - Kate Hudson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mira Sorvino, Angelina Jolie and so on - Jeff Bridges' Oscar record ought to be noted. What's astonishing is the performances he wasn't nominated for: The Big Lebowski, The Fisher King, Tucker: The Man And His Dream, Hearts Of The West, American Heart, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Cutter's Way. It's dispiriting that the Academy has so seldom honoured one of the best actors in American movies.

The best performance in this picture is Gary Oldman's as a powerful Republican congressmen, but Bridges is good - his President Evans is charming, avuncular and ruthless, a political animal to his fingertips. And Bridges overcomes Rod Lurie's dialogue, which itself is worth a nomination .

Fun fact: Bridges and best-actress nominee Ellen Burstyn both got their first nominations in 1971, for The Last Picture Show, and both were nominated in the same categories as this year in 1974, Burstyn winning for Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More and Bridges nominated for Thunderbolt And Lightfoot. Bridges has had one nomination since, for Starman.

Willem Dafoe - SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE
"The script girl? I'll eat her later." Latex, an accent and a creepy concept - Dafoe gives one of the archest performances in years, which is saying something given that John Malkovich is in the same picture. It's a bit of a stunt, and one that actually plays against Dafoe's natural deadpan weirdness, which is not unlike Christopher Walken's. He faces the usual odds against good actors in small films - the competition is strong and comes from pictures that were seen by far more people than Shadow Of A Vampire.

It's an interesting year in this category. Cumulatively, the three senior nominees, Dafoe, Bridges and Albert Finney, have gone 46 years between nominations.

Benicio Del Toro - TRAFFIC (Screen Actors Guild winner)
"I feel like a traitor." Well, the Screen Actors Guild decided to completely confuse matters on this one, naming Del Toro best actor in a leading role, thereby ending what was shaping up to be a remarkable run. For six consecutive years the SAG awards had predicted the best-actor Oscar.

Let's consider this performance's Oscar-readiness. First, it's in a foreign language, sort of, and the Academy loves an accent. Del Toro's cradle language is Spanish and he was born in Puerto Rico, but he was raised in Pennsylvania, not exactly a hotbed of hispanic culture, and the Mexican accent is quite a stretch. Second, he's one of the few nominees playing a genuinely mysterious character. His Mexican cop has an ambiguous relationship to almost every scene he finds himself in. Third, it's a lead performance nominated for a supporting-actor award. The film begins and ends with Del Toro, and he carries much more of its narrative weight than any other character.Finally, and I'm not sure how meaningful this is, at the "walk-up" before the SAG awards Del Toro's was the performance most cited by other actors as their favourite performance of the year.

Albert Finney - ERIN BROCKOVICH
(SAG winner for best supporting actor)
"Do they teach beauty queens how to apologize?" Am I the only one permanently amused by the sound of Albert Finney trying to wrap his larynx around an American accent? The same accent, by the way, that he uses in all his American films.

It's tempting to handicap Finney in the beloved veteran/legendary actor category, but he doesn't quite fit into the legendary niche. His Hollywood filmography isn't impressive enough, and he doesn't show up for American awards shows. This shouldn't matter, but it probably does. That said, he's excellent in Erin Brockovich, and well cast. You need someone in his weight class to go toe-to-toe with an actor of Roberts's magnitude.

Fun fact: Finney and Jeff Bridges were last nominated against each other in this category in 1984, when Finney was tapped for Under The Volcano and Bridges for Starman. They lost to F. Murray Abraham.

Joaquin Phoenix - GLADIATOR
"He'll bring them death, and they will love him for it." Right actor, wrong performance. In his break-out year, Joaquin Phoenix's best performance was as a political fixer who wasn't as sharp as he thought he was in The Yards. Then there was the priest tortured by dreams of Kate Winslet and bedevilled by Michael Caine in Quills. And then there's this piece of eye-rolling villainy as Commodus, the effete, wannabe-incestuous Roman Emperor who makes life difficult for poor Russell Crowe.

Credit Phoenix for the same integrity Crowe displays in Gladiator. The part of Commodus could so easily fall into camp that it's a miracle an actor as odd as Phoenix was cast in the role, let alone that he managed to tiptoe along the line separating serious from spoof for the entire film. If Del Toro weren't named in this category, Phoenix would have a genuine chance.