Oscar Predictions: Best Lead Actor

It's time again for the Oscars. It's been a long Awards season as always. Guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks  and I'm here to figure out what it all means. Yes, it's time again for my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each category, tell you who has been nominated and won for what, give a context for what that means, and order the nominees from most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.


Previously:
Nomination Reaction
Documentary, Animated, and Live-Action Short
Documentary Feature
Animated Feature 
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Sound Mixing and Sound Editing
Makeup & Hairstyling 
Costume Design
Score and Song
Production Design
Cinematography
Film Editing
Adapted Screenplay
Original Screenplay
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actor
Lead Actress
Lead Actor
Director
Best Picture

Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards 
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award
SAG - Screen Actors Guild Award

Like Lead Actress, this one should be locked up. Again though, some numbers, for fun. The SAG Award is about as definitive an indicator as it gets for an Oscar in this category. It's called 16 of the last 20 winners, including a current 11 in a row streak. They're 20 for 20 with at least nominating the Oscar winner too.

The Golden Globe is the next best thanks to two lead actor categories. They've called 14 of the last 20 winners and at least nominated the eventual winner 19 of those years. Oddly, for a group called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the one Oscar winner they completely ignored: Roberto Benigni for Life is Beautiful in 1998.

Thanks to a much different voting method until recently, the BAFTA have only called 11 of the last 20 winners, although they have still managed to nominate the eventual Oscar champ 17 times in the last two decades.

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Winner
SAG - Lead Actor - Winner
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Winner
It's about damn time that Leo gets an Oscar. I called it as soon as he lost for The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013. He's winning this. The public sentiment is driving this too much. He's won everything he could leading up to the Oscar. That's nomally enough. Of the 9 times an actor has won the Globe, the SAG Award, and the BAFTA Award, he also won the Oscar 8 of those times.
The one exception is Denzel Washington winning for Training Day in 2001, despite Russell Crowe winning everything else for A Beautiful Mind. That was a special circumstance though, because Crowe had just won the Oscar the year before for Gladiator but lost the Globe, SAG, and BAFTA leading up to that. In short, there was no urgency for Crowe. There is urgency for DiCaprio.

Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Nominee
SAG - Lead Actor - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Nominee
Back to back wins are tough. The only reason Tom Hanks was able to do it is because Forrest Gump was a huge hit and Hanks was a big star. The Danish Girl did ok and Redmayne isn't a household name [not yet]. Another win is unlikely.

Bryan Cranston (Trumbo)
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Nominee
SAG - Lead Actor - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Nominee
People love Cranston. A SAG win would've made this interesting. If he couldn't get that, I have to assume that Leo is unstoppable.

Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs)
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Nominee
SAG - Lead Actor - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Nominee
For a minute there in October, it really looked like this Oscar was his to lose. Then, Steve Jobs massively under-performed in theaters (like, way under-performed. It's barely tracking ahead of the Ashton Kutcher Jobs), and this went on the list of "obvious nominees without the momentum to win".

Matt Damon (The Martian)
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Comedy - Winner
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Nominee
This is Damon's third Oscar nomination for acting. The first was obviously for Good Will Hunting. The second? Not The Talented Mr. Ripley or any of the Bourne movies. Neither The Departed or The Good Shepard yielded one in 2006. He was passed up in True Grit. No, it was the quickly forgotten Invictus. What I'm trying to say is, his chances of winning are so slim, that I might as well ask some Matt Damon trivia.