Jeff Bridges, who has four nominations under his belt, is this year's front-runner for Best Lead Actor for his powerful performance in "Crazy Heart"

Continuing our analyses of the top categories for the upcoming Academy Awards, here is an in-depth look at the nominees up for Best Actor in a Leading Role by our own Marisa Carpico. Tell us what you think!

Also see Best Supporting Actress

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Jeff Bridges already won the Screen Actor’s Guild Award and the Golden Globe for his role in Crazy Heart, so he’s expected to win the Oscar as well.  However, he faces some strong competition from Jeremy Renner, who won an award from the National Board of Review, for his role in The Hurt Locker.  If Bridges and Renner don’t win, the next most likely candidate is George Clooney for his charismatic performance in Up in the Air.  Surprisingly, Colin Firth’s powerful performance in A Single Man gives him an advantage over Oscar-veteran Morgan Freeman, whose portrayal as Nelson Mandela is impressive, but his nomination wasn’t exactly a considered a sure thing so he is the least likely to win.

JEFF BRIDGES - Crazy Heart

Strengths: Realism and Past Career

Bridges received the Golden Globe and SAG Awards for his performance in Crazy Heart so he’s favored to win his first Oscar on March 7th, though he has four previous nominations.  Academy voters will likely recognize him for his career as well as this single performance, which certainly deserves the acknowledgment.  Bridges’s character, country singer Bad Blake, is a man inches from self-destruction until a woman, played by Best Supporting Actress Nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal, helps turn his life around.  Bridges makes Blake both damaged and charming and though he’s a grizzled alcoholic, he is still likable.  One of Bridges’s best scenes comes at the beginning of the film when a drunken Blake, performing in a lowly bowling alley, leaves during a song to vomit.  Though the scene shows his level of degeneration, there is still hope.  He returns just in time to finish the song and he is sure to remember to dedicate it to a man and his wife.  He even has time to make eyes at the groupie he will bed later that night.  Bridges fully develops the character and the well-rounded performance makes Blake seem real.

Weaknesses: Believability and Competition

Despite the way Bridges embodies his character, there is one flaw: his relationship with Gyllenhaal’s character Jean.  Though the pair have great chemistry together, it sometimes seems a little puzzling that Jean, a confident and seemingly successful woman, would be attracted to a fading though nice country singer.  This flaw may be more the fault of the script or Gyllenhaal, but it could reflect badly upon Bridges.  Moreover, his fellow nominees offer a legitimate threat especially Jeremy Renner whose role in The Hurt Locker has garnered him a few awards.

Odds: Likely

JEREMY RENNER - The Hurt Locker

Strengths: Intensity and Instability

Renner has received a few awards, including one from the National Board of Review, for his performance as explosives expert William James in The Hurt Locker, so he has a good chance to win the Oscar.  Renner plays James as a man of intense bravado whose unpredictability endangers not only himself, but his fellow soldiers.  James is, similar to the bombs he defuses, constantly on the edge of violence and rather than reduce the character to some war-crazed young man, Renner justifies his instability.  After years of exposure to violence, James has come to revel in the danger around him and his personality reflects it.  Perhaps Renner’s most impressive scene comes when, on James’s first mission, he walks straight up to a potential bomb rather than take any of the normal precautionary measures.  The scene is a perfect introduction to the character and Renner uses it to show exactly how dangerous James can be.  Despite the character’s toughness, he also manages to make James sympathetic through his believable connections with the men in his unit and a local child.  Yes, James is dangerous, but he is also a very flawed human and that is precisely the brilliance of Renner’s performance.

Weaknesses: Empathy and Prominence

Though Renner manages to make James sympathetic, he has trouble making him empathetic.  It’s difficult to form a connection with James and he is more an object for wary admiration than identification.  Another factor is Renner’s prominence as an actor.  Though he’s been working for at least the last fifteen years, his body of work is relatively unknown and the Academy often awards more experienced or well-known actors.

Odds: Has a chance

GEORGE CLOONEY - Up in the Air

Strengths: Charm and Banter

Clooney has certainly played a fast-talking charmer before, but his performance as Ryan Bingham, a man who fires people for a living, is one of his best.  He simply excels in every scene and it is perhaps because his strong performance centers the film that his costars are also so impressive.  Bingham walks the line between cad and charmer and it is because Clooney is able to make him both hatable and forgivable that the character seems so realistic.  He may be a man of extremes devoted to seclusion, but he is also deeply emotional.  One of Clooney’s greatest scenes comes when Bingham pretends to be a person being fired in an attempt to show Anna Kendrick’s character the reality of the job.  Though Bingham’s antagonism is obvious, Clooney also makes his desperation clear.  Bingham is not acting out of spite, but in a desperate attempt to save his way of life.  It is through Clooney’s layered performance that Bingham’s confidence and insecurity become clear.

Weaknesses: Difficulty and Power

Though Clooney’s performance is admirable, it may not be strong enough to win him the Oscar.  His competitors gave some powerful performances and his role may not be challenging enough to distinguish him.  While the other actors often played characters very different from themselves, Bingham’s likability could be attributed to the fact that Clooney plays him.  Furthermore, the role is not as strongly dramatic as some of the other performances and the Academy sometimes overlooks predominantly comedic performances for more emotionally powerful performances.

Odds: Has a chance

COLIN FIRTH - A Single Man

Strengths: Emotion and Complexity

As George, a closeted gay man living in 1960’s Los Angeles, Firth offers one of the most affecting performances of the category.  Though the role is ripe for overpowering emotions—George decides to kill himself because he is unable to cope with losing his long-time partner— Firth offers a surprisingly understated performance that is no less powerful.  He makes George’s pain subtly clear in every scene, but he does not let sadness define the character.  Instead he renders him charming and dignified by showing George’s irrepressible love for life and beauty.  During a scene in which George turns down a handsome male prostitute, Firth shows both the character’s admiration of the man’s beauty and his knowledge that the two of them could never be.  Firth’s clever mixing of those emotions gives the scene a tragic quality that is reflective of the whole film and gives it a weight it might otherwise have lacked.

Weaknesses: Subtlety and Momentum

Firth’s portrayal of George is remarkable because of its subtlety, but this quality also hurts his chances of winning.  Though he does some complex and tough acting in the film, his performance may be too understated.  Voters may have a hard time appreciating it fully next to such overt performances like George Clooney’s or Jeremy Renner’s.  Moreover, Firth doesn’t have the same momentum as some of his fellow nominees.  Since he hasn’t won against them in any major awards ceremonies it would be difficult to beat them at the Oscars.

Odds: Unlikely

MORGAN FREEMAN - Invictus

Strengths: Authority and Consistency

Freeman is often picked for roles because of the strength with which he imbues his characters and his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in Invictus is no different.  Mandela is a man of great dignity and Freeman brings that to the role.  Throughout his career, Freeman has always been able to give his characters a trustworthiness and wisdom and that ability plays especially well in his portrayal of Mandela.  One of his best scenes in the film comes during a meeting in which he urges the assembled black citizens to restore the rugby team.  Freeman commands attention in the scene and the authority with which he speaks, here and throughout the film, justifies his nomination.

Weaknesses: Accent and Competition

Despite a great performance, one weak spot is his South African accent.  Some critics have suggested it is less than convincing and with such strong competition, Freeman is probably the least likely to win.  Since his nomination is considered the wild card pick of the group, he would have a tough time pulling a surprise win.  Moreover, though he tied with George Clooney for the National Board of Review’s award, he hasn’t received nearly as much recognition for his role as his competitors have for theirs.

Odds: Unlikely

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