Top 5 Performances that didn’t win Leo an Oscar…

After scooping his third Golden Globe and his first BAFTA already, Leonardo DiCaprio looks like a shoe-in to pick up his first golden statue at this weekend’s Oscars ceremony. The bookies certainly seem to think so, and have him priced at a ridiculous 1/100 to win! Jokes have been had, memes have been shared but now we should celebrate his greatness by looking back at his best performances that were shockingly overlooked by The Academy…

5. Titanic

Yes, he’d already starred in Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of Romeo & Juliet, as well as being nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, but his performance as Jack Dawson in James Cameron’s disaster epic was arguably his breakthrough. The happy-go-lucky character enjoyed a whirlwind romance with Rose (Kate Winslet) before an icy twist saw his character memorably float to the bottom of the Atlantic.

4. The Departed

In 2002, Leo struck up a fruitful working relationship with auteur director Martin Scorsese when they collaborated on Gangs of New York. Their third project together was Boston gangster flick The Departed which explored a cat-and-mouse game of cops and criminals. The film earned Scorsese his first Best Director Oscar after a career that had spanned over thirty years but poor Leo wasn’t even nominated for his work.

3. Shutter Island

Another Scorsese directed film, Shutter Island is a neo-noir psychological thriller centered around U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels. DiCaprio stars alongside one of this year’s and last year’s nominees Mark Ruffalo, and gives a dark, complex performance that has more layers than Mary Berry’s sherry trifle, but again he went unnoticed awards-wise.

2. Inception

Appearing in an all-star cast that included Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page and Michael Caine, Leo starred as Dom Cobb in Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending heist movie Inception. He played an ‘extractor’ which is someone who has the skill to infiltrate minds to steal information. A complicated plot ensues where Leo delves into a dream within a dream within a dream, but still his dream to win an Oscar was unfulfilled.

1. The Wolf of Wall Street

Bold, brazen and bonkers, Leo’s outrageous turn as drug-fuelled stockbroker Jordan Belfort is perhaps his wildest performance to date, and saw him team up once again with Marty Scorsese. He pulled out all the stops and we saw him as we’d never seen him before, but was The Wolf of Wall Street just too extreme for The Academy? Probably.

It appears his brutal and bloody performance in The Revenant will finally get him his prize. If his name isn’t read out this year, he’ll be forced to grin and bear it.