Best Actor

Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actor award was awarded for acting in a film, on May 16, 1929 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) at the Academy Awards to Emil Jannings for his role of Grand Duke Sergius Alexander in The Last Command and August Schilling in The Way of All Flesh. In theatre, it was first awarded on April 6, 1947 by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at the Tony Awards to José Ferrer for his role of Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano de Bergerac and to Fredric March for his role of Clinton Jones in Years Ago. In television, it was first awarded on January 23, 1951 by Academy of Television Arts & Sciences at the Primetime Emmy Awards to Alan Young for his role of himself in The Alan Young Show. In a film festival, presented as the Volpi Cup, it was first awarded between August 1–20, 1934 by the Venice Film Festival to Wallace Beery for his role of Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (/dᵻˈkæpri.oʊ/; born November 11, 1974) is an American actor and film producer. He has been nominated for numerous awards, and has won three Golden Globe Awards. DiCaprio began his career by appearing in television commercials, after which he had recurring roles in TV series such as the soap opera Santa Barbara and the sitcom Growing Pains in the early 1990s. He began his film career by starring as Josh in Critters 3 before starring in the film adaptation of the memoir This Boy's Life (1993) alongside Robert De Niro. DiCaprio was praised for his supporting role in the drama What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), and gained public recognition with leading roles in the drama The Basketball Diaries (1995) and the romantic drama Romeo + Juliet (1996), before achieving international fame with James Cameron's epic romance Titanic (1997), which became the highest-grossing film to that point.

Since the 2000s, DiCaprio has received critical acclaim for his work in a wide range of film genres. His subsequent films include The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), the biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can (2002) and the epic historical drama Gangs of New York (2002) which also marked his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. DiCaprio was also acclaimed for his performances in the political war thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the neo-noir crime drama The Departed (2006), the espionage thriller Body of Lies (2008), the drama Revolutionary Road (2008), the psychological thriller Shutter Island (2010), the science fiction thriller Inception (2010), the biographical film J. Edgar (2011), the western Django Unchained (2012), and the period drama The Great Gatsby (2013).

Eddie Redmayne

Edward John David Redmayne, OBE (/ˈrɛdmeɪn/; born 6 January 1982) known as Eddie Redmayne, is an English actor, model and singer. He started his professional career in both theatre and television roles in the early 2000s and then made his film debut, Like Minds, in 2006. He has since appeared in films such as The Good Shepherd (2006), Savage Grace (2007), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), My Week with Marilyn (2011), Les Misérables (2012), The Theory of Everything (2014), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and The Danish Girl (2015).

Redmayne received acclaim for his performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, the BAFTA Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2015, he received further critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, in The Danish Girl. For his performance, he received nominations for his second Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. He has continued to perform in theatre, most notably in the play Red (2010), on Broadway, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play.

Sean Penn

Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor, filmmaker, and political activist. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama Mystic River (2003) and the biopic Milk (2008).

Penn began his acting career in television with a brief appearance in a 1974 episode of Little House on the Prairie, directed by his father Leo Penn. Following his film debut in 1981's drama Taps and a diverse range of film roles in the 1980s, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Penn garnered critical attention for his roles in the crime dramas At Close Range (1986), State of Grace (1990) and later Carlito's Way (1993). He became known as a prominent leading actor with the 1995 drama Dead Man Walking, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination and the Best Actor Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Penn received another two Oscar nominations for Woody Allen's comedy-drama Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and the drama I Am Sam (2001), before winning his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 for Mystic River and a second one in 2008 for Milk. He has also won a Best Actor Award of the Cannes Film Festival for the Nick Cassavetes-directed She's So Lovely (1997), and two Best Actor Awards at the Venice Film Festival for the indie film Hurlyburly (1998) and the drama 21 Grams (2003).

Jamie Foxx

Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer, and comedian. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, for his work in the 2004 biographical film Ray. The same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the action film Collateral.

Other prominent acting roles include the title role in the film Django Unchained (2012), the supervillain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and William Stacks in the 2014 version of Annie. Foxx also starred in the 1990-1994 sketch comedy show In Living Color and his own television show from 1996 to 2001, the sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, in which he played Jamie King Jr.

Foxx is also a Grammy Award-winning musician, producing four albums which have charted highly on the US Billboard 200: Unpredictable (2005), which topped the chart, Intuition (2008), Best Night of My Life (2010), and Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses (2015).