Best I Saw in 2008: Actor

Since I saw so few new movies in 2008, my awards are going to encompass everything I saw, including new releases, revival house viewings, and rentals.

Henry Fonda, Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). Fonda doesn't look like Lincoln, and he doesn't make much effort to act like Lincoln might have acted, or speak like anyone other than Henry Fonda. His performance isn't imitation, but evocation—he turns on pieces of his own personality that summon the near-mythical Lincoln of American popular history. One of the finest male performances in American cinema.

Runners-up:

Jack Benny, To Be or Not to Be (1942). If Cagney hadn't deserved it a tiny bit more for Yankee Doodle Dandy, I'd give Benny the 1942 Best Actor Oscar.

Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (2008). Nick and Nathaniel convinced me that he's a lead; Ledger still pops up in my nightmares sometimes.

Paul Newman, Hud (1963). What did I call it in the last post? "Pheromone-dripping-sex-panther of a star turn." Yep.

Donald Sutherland, Ordinary People (1980). The best performance, the anchor of the entire film, wasn't even nominated.

It hurt to leave out: Clark Gable, Gone with the Wind (1939); John Garfield, Force of Evil (1948); Cary Grant, Holiday (1938); Rene LeFevre, The Crime of Monsieur Lange (France, 1936); James Mason, Odd Man Out (1947); Sean Penn, Milk (2008); William Powell, One Way Passage (1932); and Will Rogers, Judge Priest (1934).