By Garry Maddox
Garry Maddox rates the contenders to win the top actor gong at the Oscars.
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game.
Steve Carell – Foxcatcher
For a star who has made his name in comedy, Carell shows an unexpected talent for dark drama as oddball philanthropist and wrestling enthusiast John du Pont.
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
In an intelligent, contained performance, Cumberbatch plays the brilliant but tortured Alan Turing, the British mathematician and World War II codebreaker.
Bradley Cooper – American Sniper
Nominated for a third consecutive year, Cooper brings an intense charisma to playing Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle – bulking up with an extra 18 kgs – at war in Iraq and at home in the US.
Michael Keaton – Birdman
In a darkly comic comeback role without a scrap of vanity, Keaton dazzles as a washed-up actor trying to revive his career with a Broadway play.
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything
With a quite brilliant physical transformation, Redmayne plays physicist Stephen Hawking from his student days to later life after being crippled with motor neurone disease.
Likely winner: Michael Keaton for Birdman
The Oscars are in Los Angeles on February 22.