Favorite Non-Oscar Nominated Performances: Actor, 2003

[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 2003, so to save us clicking on Wikipedia, the following Oscar nominees are exempt:

Best Actor - Sean Penn, Mystic River
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog
Jude Law, Cold Mountain
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation

Best Supp. Actor - Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Alec Baldwin, The Cooler
Benicio del Toro, 21 Grams
Djimon Hounsou, In America
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai

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, 2003 the movie year in general, or any other rankings or opinions.

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