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Suggestion: How Evil Is Too Evil for an Oscar? (Suggestions?)
Late in 2025, Variety magazine published an article arguing that Sean Penn, an early favorite for the 2026 Best Supporting Actor Oscar, would have a big obstacle to overcome: "Oscar voters love villains" but not "truly evil ones" unless they have a lot of charm, something that Penn's character in One Battle After Another (2025) was written to lack. The article exemplifies Christoph Waltz's Oscar winning Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) as "witty and even playful." I was reminded of the creepy but charismatic Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Heath Ledger's fun version of Joker. Below are villains who were widely acclaimed by critics and loved by audiences. The Academy, however, was not completely won over. Some of these performances were nominated but none won the coveted statuette. Of these deserving actors, whose character do you think was, no matter how good the performance, perhaps "too evil" for the Oscar?
List: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls4154290258/copy/
Poll: TBD
Sources:



RezaKJoi
691 Messages
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9.2K Points
15 days ago
It's an interesting idea. In general, I think that in cinema in the realism genre, an evil person is not shown by showing the reality of the person and how he acts. Generally, films that are very affecting and generally cause anger in the audience are not shown, and I am not satisfied with this approach.
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Breumaster
11.6K Messages
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195.8K Points
12 days ago
I think that those chit-chat magazines just chatter around. No matter about what they write. ;D
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Pencho15
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8K Messages
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131.7K Points
9 days ago
FYC:
Cody Jarrett from White Heat
Tony Montana from Scarface
The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz
Little Caesar from Little Caesar
Kevin from We Need to Talk About Kevin
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Breumaster
11.6K Messages
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195.8K Points
8 days ago
It's a hard tie between my favs on that list. Mostly great picks!
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Peter_pbn
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16.1K Messages
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348.2K Points
3 days ago
Convenient for the article to just not mention Anton Chigurh.
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Peter_pbn
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16.1K Messages
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348.2K Points
3 days ago
FYC:
Kevin Spacey in Seven
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