DiCaprio's 'Snubs': Should he have won?

The internet fan base of the world's most popular actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, have been pouring in throngs after throngs of memes and comments surrounding the supposed many occasions where he's been 'snubbed' for the Oscar win, lambasting the Academy. Well...I suppose there's always favourites to everyone's liking (i.e. I wanted Gary Oldman to win over Jean Dujardin in 2011 purely because of my love for Oldman as an actor, although they both gave equally good performances), but I question sometimes how many of the other actual nominees/winners people have seen before making snap judgements. So just for the convenience of many, let's look at Leo's long career of nominations/contentions and see if he deserved to win each year, or not (IMHO of course).

1993: Nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscar for What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

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In his breakthrough role and first awards-nominated turn, DiCaprio gave perhaps the best depiction of developmental disability I've ever seen. Arnie Grape's mental condition is just brought to life so vividly and realistically by DiCaprio that the first time I watched the film, I hardly recognized him. Not only that, but he also doesn't let the tics and mannerisms overshadow the personality of the character, and makes Arnie just a very sweet, endearing and movingly shows the poignancy of his simple love, and the difficulties he presents to others. In one of the strongest Supporting Actor fields of the 1990s, I loved the performances of Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List, Pete Postlewhaithe in In the Name of the Father and John Malkovich in In the Line of Fire, and don't mind Tommy Lee Jones' win for The Fugitive as some seem to, but make no question about it: out of the contenders that year, DiCaprio is my choice.

Verdict: DiCaprio should've won the Oscar in 1993.

1997: In Contention for Best Actor for Titanic.

Leo wasn't nominated in 1997 for his leading turn in one of the biggest blockbuster hits of all-time, but I can definitely see him as having finished 6th in the voting results due to the immense amount of love for Titanic. Anyway, I may be in the minority here, but I've always thought that while Kate Winslet perhaps hits the higher emotional heights in her performance, DiCaprio is definitely far more consistent with his performance as he never overacts, is steadfastly charming throughout, and definitely adds quite a bit to the rather paper-thin, clichéd role of Jack. I would've put him into the lineup over Dustin Hoffman in Wag the Dog, but as for the win? Nah. The actual winner that year, Jack Nicholson for As Good as it Gets was a bit of an uninspired choice, but I thought of the actual nominees that Robert Duvall for The Apostle stood out to me as by far, the best choice for a winner, and Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting and Peter Fonda for Ulee's Gold would've also been beter choices.

Verdict: DiCaprio should've been nominated, but was not snubbed for the win in 1997.

2002: In Contention for Best Actor for Catch Me If You Can and Gangs of New York

Two words: Adrien Brody. THE most wrongly chastised winner in Oscar history.

So yeah. Basically, no one else comes close in my opinion, to bettering Brody's spellbinding leading turn in Roman Polanski's haunting WWII survivor's tale. Not even Nicolas Cage's hilarious/moving turn as twins in Adaptation, Tony Leung-Chiu Wai in Infernal Affairs etc.

Anyway, I was talking about DiCaprio wasn't I? Oh, shit. Catch Me If You Can. My favourite DiCaprio performance. In almost any other year I would say he would be a worthy winner, and he'd still be an incredibly worthy nominee this year. However...Brody. Brody. Brody. I'm sorry Leo.

As for Gangs of New York I'll conveniently ignore just how darn overshadowed by Daniel Day-Lewis' grandstanding performance he is. It's one of his poorest performances because of just how uninvested and awkward he seems in the role.

Verdict: DiCaprio should've been nominated, but was not snubbed for the win in 2002 for Catch Me If You Can.

2004: Nominated for Best Actor for The Aviator

As far as divisive performances go, I think this ranks quite highly on my list of Oscar-nominated performances. As perhaps one of history's most enigmatic individuals, Howard Hughes, DiCaprio gets one of the plummest, most Oscar baity roles of his career and boy does he know it. He fuels all his charm into the public persona of Hughes, and all manner of ACTING to depict Hughe's obsessive compulsive disorder, but is it a great performance? Well I think it's a good performance for sure, if quite OTT, but not quite deserving of a win. Jamie Foxx's winning turn in Ray was pretty darn good in my opinion and amongst the actual nominees, I think I'd have chosen Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland and Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda above him. Hell, DiCaprio wouldn't even make it into the ideal top 5 leading male performances of the year in my opinion (which would be: Bruno Ganz for Downfall, Cheadle, Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kevin Bacon in The Woodsman and Tom Cruise in Collateral).

Verdict: DiCaprio was not snubbed for a nomination/win in 2004.

2006: Nominated for Best Actor for Blood Diamond, In Contention for The Departed

I've elaborated on my thoughts on DiCaprio on The Departed before. Despite not being a massive fan of the film I thought he gave an excellent portrayal of a mole within a gang organization slowly at wit's end. If he'd been nominated, I would have placed him second out of the actual nominees...after Forest Whittaker's winning turn in The Last King of Scotland.

Sorry Leo. You were great, but Whittaker was greater. Anyway, as it stood, Leo was nominated for Blood Diamond instead, which he gave a strong leading man turn in but, in my opinion, nothing really Oscar-worthy. He's slightly overshadowed by his co-star Djimon Hounsou and while handling the South African accent well enough as well as giving a good, realistic performance, I would've picked Whittaker, and Peter O'Toole in Venus over him.

Verdict: DiCaprio should've been nominated for The Departed instead of Blood Diamond, but was not snubbed for the win in 2006.

2008: In Contention for Revolutionary Road

This is a solid domestic period drama but compared to something like, say, this year's Carol it really does not stand out as anything particularly Oscar-worthy, and that extends to DiCaprio's performance. He gives a good, understated performance as the 'sane man' of the film who is disgruntled with his suburban existence, far better than say Kevin Spacey in American Beauty as he actually tries to create a character instead of a caricature. Having said that his performance is far from being one of the best performances of the year as, of the actual nominees you have the likes of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and Richard Jenkins in The Visitor to contend with, the good performance of Sean Penn in Milk and that's without even bringing into the equation the snubbed In Bruges duo of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

Verdict: DiCaprio was not snubbed of a nomination/win in 2008.

2010: In Contention for Shutter Island and Inception

I've made clear my dislike for Shutter Island before and DiCaprio's performance before and I won't get into it again. Different strokes for different folks after all, though I can see why some love the film and the central performance. He gives a very effective leading turn in Inception and carries the intrigue of Christopher Nolan's masterpiece thriller very well, even if I do think the emotional weight of the film is more reliant upon the performances of Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy.

2011: In Contention for J. Edgar

Haven't actually seen this performance yet but can't comment, but all I have to say that this is the year of Gary Oldman's spellbinding turn as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (which you can read about more here http://actorvsactor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/head-to-head-tinker-tailor-soldier-spy_24.html) and Jean Dujardin for The Artist.

2012: In Contention for Django Unchained

DiCaprio gave one heck of a villainous turn in Django and was rightfully nominated for a Golden Globe for it, but I think it's testament to the strength of the year for supporting players that I don't really consider his lack of a nomination to be a snub. In the same film Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz made even more of an impact, there were many other snubs in the same year like Ben Whishaw for Cloud Atlas, Javier Bardem for Skyfall, Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell for Seven Psychopaths and of the actual nominees, Waltz and Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Master were always going to be the two obvious choices to win., and rightly so.

Verdict: DiCaprio should've been nominated, but not won, in 2012.

2013: Nominated for The Wolf of Wall Street

Did Leonardo DiCaprio deserve to be nominated for an Oscar for his brilliant, show-stopping, incredibly entertaining performance as the vile Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street?

Absolutely fucking yes.

To win? Now that's tricky. Matthew McConaughey was brilliant in Wolf of Wall Street and while I would've been very happy with DiCaprio winning, personally, I can't really say he definitely should have won. Anyway, my main preoccupation with this year is the lack of nomination for Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewlyn Davis.

Verdict: DiCaprio could've, and would've been deserving of a win in 2013...but it was a very strong year overall. (Bruce Dern, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Christian Bale all also gave fantastic performances).

Anyway, onto 2015. I'll give my full thoughts after the actual results + seeing The Danish Girl, but re-watching The Revenant last night gave me some food for thought. Technically speaking I think I would be very happy for DiCaprio to win in a two-fold way, he gave a great performance, and of the nominees I only prefer Damon (my runner-up for the year behind Ian McKellen in Mr Holmes), who has an Oscar already anyway. His portrayal of Hugh Glass definitely strengthened for me on re-watch, although I still think the character is rather thinly written.

Verdict: Okay. I hope Leonardo DiCaprio becomes the Best Actor winner of 2015. Although I do prefer Matt Damon, and would love if he won, DiCaprio would be a very worthy winner.