Favorite Non-Oscar Nominated Performances: Actor, 2001

[SelwynMcGinty]

As the title of the thread suggests, we're looking to pinpoint the Next Best Celebrated Acting Performances of film history. Plenty of great turns get ignored or forgotten through the sands of time, and this is a quick way to review and vote for our favorites.

This is for the North American calendar release year of 2001, so to save us clicking on Wikipedia, the following Oscar nominees are exempt:

Best Actor - Denzel Washington, Training Day
Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind
Sean Penn, I Am Sam
Will Smith, Ali
Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom

Best Supp. Actor - Jim Broadbent, Iris
Ethan Hawke, Training Day
Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast
Ian McKellen, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Jon Voight, Ali

Anything else is fair game! You may notice that the choices are primarily Leading roles, but I'm not going to disallow other selections. It doesn't seem fair or sensible to quibble about Lead/Supporting categories.

Feel free to discuss these or other choices, 2001 the movie year in general, or any other rankings or opinions.

Thanks to everyone participating in these crazy polls! Cheers!!