Best Actor

Jeff Bridges	Crazy Heart	*LAFC, *CC, *GG, *SAG	4,0
George Clooney	Up in the Air	*NYFC, *NBR, CC, GG, SAG	2,1
Matt Damon	The Informant!	GG	1,0 [acting only]
Daniel Day-Lewis	Nine	GG	4,2
Robert Downey Jr.	Sherlock Holmes	*GG	2,0
Colin Firth	A Single Man	CC, GG, SAG	0,0
Morgan Freeman	Invictus	*NBR, CC, GG, SAG	4,1
Joseph Gordon-Levitt	500 Days of Summer	GG	0,0
Tobey Maguire	Brothers	GG	0,0
Viggo Mortensen	The Road	CC	1,0
Jeremy Renner	The Hurt Locker	*NSFC, CC, SAG	0,0
Michael Stuhlbarg	A Serious Man	GG	0,0

Tender Mercies, the 1983 film about an alcoholic country singer trying to put his life back together, finally won beloved character actor Robert Duvall the Oscar on his fourth attempt. Now re-write that sentence with Crazy Heart, 2009, Jeff Bridges, and “fifth” (Duvall just happens to have a small role in Crazy Heart, too.) Bridges has scored with his peers (the SAG), the critics, and whoever those Golden Globe people are, so I think the race is already over. His closest competitor is George Clooney, as a different kind of addict (a serial traveler) in need of redemption. An Oscar campaign doesn’t come more pedigreed than Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela directed by Clint Eastwood; that nomination is a done deal too. Colin Firth, as a professor in mourning, has picked up nods from all the major award circles, so voters will happily send their favorite Mr. Darcy (of both Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s Diary) to his first nomination.

Only the fifth spot is the least bit vulnerable, though almost every other award group has chosen Jeremy Renner, the bomb detonator of The Hurt Locker. If the Academy wants to shake things up, they could reach out to comeback king Robert Downey Jr. (bringing his debonair comedy to Sherlock Holmes), a shape-shifting Matt Damon (gaining weight DeNiro-style to play a schlubby whistle-blower), Oscar virgin Tobey Maguire (with career-best notices), or the Serious (and quietly unraveling) Michael Stuhlbarg.