After much deliberation, I have settled on a shortlist of five capable performers, one of whom will be crowned the winner.
Here they are, in alphabetical order, for now:
Bradley Cooper, Leonardo Di Caprio, Ryan Gosling, Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt.
Commiserations to Christian Bale, Mark Ruffalo, Mahershala Ali, Denzel Washington, Michael Fassbender and Jake Gyllenhaal, who missed the cut for one reason or another.
As was the case with determining my actress of the decade, I have a rudimentary framework in place:
I will list down what I consider the five best performances of the five actors this decade, taking into consideration my thoughts as well as critical reception and awards.
These are the metrics I will be focusing on:
Consistency, versatility, relevance and awards pedigree.
Without further ado, let’s get this show on the road.
Here are the five best performances of the respective actors, along with the number of Oscar nominations they received during the decade.
Let’s begin eliminations.
5. Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper is the first to depart. While he had a stellar first half of the decade, particularly in terms of awards pedigree, he tapered off as the decade wore on.
And although he came back with a vengeance with A Star is Born, his greatest asset is his awards pedigree, not the cumulative strength of his performances.
4. Brad Pitt
I would have liked for him to be higher, because his performances in Ad Astra and Moneyball are two of my absolute favourites from the last decade.
But I had to dock points for versatility and consistency, relevant to the other actors. But I imagine Pitt is satisfied with his Oscar win and can handle the pain of placing fourth on my list.
3. Joaquin Phoenix
We are into our podium. And it’s getting challenging.
There’s a case to be made that Phoenix delivered the finest performance among all five of these gentlemen – what he accomplished in The Master in concerto with Phillip Seymour Hoffman was transcendent.
And yet, for reasons beyond his control, he falls short on awards pedigree and relevance. Before Joker, Phoenix wasn’t half as relevant as he is now. And that was barely a year ago.
And then, there were two.
Between them, Leonardo Di Caprio and Ryan Gosling have put together a string of memorable, nuanced and enchanting performances.
Di Caprio scores tremendously well in terms of awards pedigree and consistency.
Gosling, primarily because of his work in The Nice Guys, is near peerless in terms of versatility. And the different pitches to his stoicism while essaying more ‘serious’ roles is remarkable.
I am torn between my head and my heart, but ultimately, it would be unfair for this gentleman to not go home the winner, all things considered:
It’s Leonardo. It has to be Leonardo.
This was the decade where he won his Oscar, and for a performance wasn’t even in his personal podium.
He showed further proof of his versatile ability with Django Unchained and delivered a leading man performance par excellence in The Wolf of Wall Street.
He led one of the blockbusters of the decade with Inception, and capped the decade off with perhaps his most exquisite performance with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Between 2010 to 2019, Leonardo Di Caprio was peerless in terms of consistency, relevance, versatility and awards pedigree.
He may not be my favourite, but I believe he was the best actor of the past decade.
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