The verdict is in: Timothée Chalamet has lost the Oscar for Best Actor for the third time. Although the general public has speculated that this comes after the backlash he received from a comment over the unimportance of ballet and opera, the voting actually closed prior to the controversy. So, what happened? Although Chalamet was a favorite for the award, he still managed to lose to Michael B. Jordan for Jordan’s excellent performance in Sinners. Was it Chalamet’s controversial campaign? His hubris? Will he ever get an Oscar?
Of course, he will — just not for a while. The Academy loves a legacy award. (See Jamie Lee Curtis winning Best Supporting Actress over Stephanie Hsu for Everything Everywhere All at Once, a mistake in favor of honoring the industry veteran.) You could even look at Paul Thomas Anderson’s recent Best Director win for Once Battle After Another, his first win after decades of being a film giant, although whether it's actually a legacy award is debatable. For a charismatic and prolific actor like Chalamet, he’ll definitely win at some point, although it will likely be for a performance that is nowhere near as iconic and great as some of his previous ones.
The same thing happened with Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor whose career you can most closely compare to Chalamet’s. After years of an Oscar drought, DiCaprio finally won for his performance in The Revenant, a movie that has left no impact on our cultural consciousness unless referring to said win. When you look at his career, it’s insane how he won for this and not for his generational performances in The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed, Shutter Island and Catch Me If You Can. The Academy decided it was due time for him to win an Oscar, rewarding a good but not great performance instead of just awarding him earlier.
DiCaprio’s path to the Oscar seems to be what will happen to Chalamet. He lost for his role as a lovestruck teenager in Call Me By Your Name, the film that shot him to stardom and public praise. However, it makes sense for him to lose; he was young, and the Academy prefers rewarding men when they’re older. His portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown (which is my personal favorite Chalamet performance) also lost, although the competition was rough that year, as Academy darling Adrien Brody won again. It was assumed by many (including me!) that Chalamet would finally win for his performance as the insufferable Marty Mauser in Marty Supreme. And yet, to my shock, he lost again.
However, I shouldn’t have been too surprised. Throughout campaigning for Marty Supreme, it was clear Chalamet desperately wanted the Oscar, coming across as egotistical and brash. For an old-fashioned Academy that values subtlety, his style of campaign was never going to be rewarded. It managed to alienate a lot of female fans left over from his early career playing the deep lover boy, while also annoying many rational adults. That hunger over winning is something the Academy has seen before and refuses to reward until the actor is fully humbled. The same thing happened with DiCaprio, and he ended up winning years after it was due.
I’m already seeing predictions that Chalamet will finally win for his upcoming performance in Dune: Part Three, and while he is excellent as the messiah figure and emperor, Paul Atreides, he likely still won’t win. The Academy does not like rewarding Sci-fi films, something the Dune franchise has had against it since its first Academy Awards cycle. Further, Tom Cruise has an upcoming movie called Digger, which he will likely be nominated for, and having never won an Oscar, will be due for the legacy award the Academy adores.
I predict that Chalamet will win sometime within the next seven years, whether that be in two or in six. He will likely win for an avant-garde film akin to The Revenant, with an even less iconic performance. His role will be the most important thing for the film, and it will fail to garner any other meaningful Oscars, such as Best Director, Original Screenplay or any of the other acting categories. The night he wins will be electric, the crowd will instantly stand up and he’ll deliver a grateful and tear-filled speech. Although he has finally won, the movie itself will be forgotten entirely, with his other famous performances as Laurie in Little Women, Nic Sheff in Beautiful Boy and many more defining the canon of his career.
Chalamet will undoubtedly be known as one of the greatest actors of our generation, if not all time. He will win that Oscar one day, although it won’t be for a particularly memorable or career-defining performance.
Of course, I could be totally wrong. I am no member of the Academy (although hopefully one day), and I do not know the future role prospects for Chalamet. Maybe he will win for Dune: Part Three.
He likely won’t.
‘Internet Aggravations’ is a column discussing large-scale controversies related to the arts or general popular culture found online, especially on heated platforms such as TikTok and X.
Kate LaGatta is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a columnist for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at klagatta@cornellsun.com.
