Favorite Non-Oscar Nominated Performances: Actor, 2002

[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 2002, so to save us clicking on Wikipedia, the following Oscar nominees are exempt:

Best Actor - Adrien Brody, The Pianist
Nicolas Cage, Adaptation
Michael Caine, The Quiet American
Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt

Best Supp. Actor - Chris Cooper, Adaptation
Ed Harris, The Hours
Paul Newman, Road to Perdition
John C. Reilly, Chicago
Christopher Walken, Catch Me if You Can

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, 2002 the movie year in general, or any other rankings or opinions.

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