Should multiple Oscar noms warrant an Oscar win.

No.

No, by no means.

But unfortunately, that's the way it is. Some times it seems the academy doesn't reward the performance an actor/actress gives but the career he/she has made before that.

While I see your point and largely agree with it, it has to be said that lately, critics and smaller awards bodies have been functioning more as prognosticators more and more, and it's become increasingly harder to separate their support for a film/performance as genuine versus "oh, we assume this will be the winner because of X, Y and Z factors, so let's get the narrative started now." Phoenix, Pitt and Dern were pretty well cemented months in advance because of outside factors (most of which were overdue narratives).

I mean, we live in a world where critics' awards are starting to release categories such as "Most Overlooked Film/Performance" rather than acknowledging it in their main categories because they want to make themselves look like they're "in the know" on what's going to win/be nominated at the end. There's a disingenuous cloud hanging over the whole process, much more these days than they used to be.

Even worse...they were throwing wins at Laura Dern for a performance she could have done in her sleep.

I think sweeps like that perputuate the belief that critics can take part in the "it's their time/Career win" process. I love Dern. Wonderful actress. And maybe she was "overdue". But that performance winning everything....really 

Because he's the biggest movie star without one? 

Ah, I see - you are arguing EVERY Oscar category ever - pick an f'n lane. 

You started off saying it "wasn't" a career win, I just said you can't tell people what to think or feel. You don't think it was, ok, that's nice I guess?

Were any of those categories identical in your example- all the competitors are previous winners? - if not does your comparison hold.........

Because he's the biggest movie star in the world right now, everyone of his competitors had an Oscar - 3 of his competitors were BA winners even, he had a great year, he recently went through a highly publicized divorce, he's 56 and has earned a lot of money for most of the people in that room over a lot of years.

But that's just my opinion

No. You can give a lot of good nod worthy performances but not a great one that deserves the win. Those are separate things.

I don't mind Phoenix, Pitt, Dern getting their first wins. Long over due. They all have contributed a lot to the industry and all great at what they do.

I think the most over rated performance was - Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers. Granted, she was buoyed by a big $ campaign. But it's as if she was being rewarded for making an effort to act. I doubt any other actress would have gotten that kind of undeserved recognition. BAFTA and AMPAS at least had the good sense to see otherwise.

Of course it shouldn't. Glenn didnt win cause the new kids felt it wasnt their responsibility to give her the win. Glenn's peers failed her.

No way."Career wins" are patronizing and awful and they deprive more worthy winners.

Here's the last thing I'll say on this. I don't think nomination totals should be an evaluative method of someone being due or warranting a career win because there's too many variables when doing that. And yes, I am accepting that career wins are a thing. For one, there's obviously countless examples of actors having better careers than other actors who have more nominations than them. Secondly, there's enough examples of actors who's nominations don't reflect their actual best work.

You used Cooper, but I'll do Matt Damon, who I expect will find himself in a similar situation to Brad Pitt at some point this decade. Does anyone actually think Invictus is one of Matt Damon's three best performances? No. Was Matt Damon close to winning for any of his three nominated performances? No, in fact, I could make the argument he was 4th or 5th all three times he was nominated. What should matter, if we're accepting career wins as a reality, is whether he's accrued a career worthy of an Oscar. Not whether he was close to winning at any point or how many nominations he has. I think that variable helped Pitt, who has an undeniably stellar filmography with at least three stone cold classics (Fight Club, Se7en, and Inglourious Basterds) and a lot of variance w/r/t directors he's worked with (you certainly don't see a lot of A-listers seeking out Terrence Malick, Andrew Dominik, or James Gray while they're already well established). The goodwill from his work as a producer certainly helped too.

I actually think Cooper, despite four acting noms, may take a while to actually win one because I don't think he's starred in a single film that's widely regarded as great or a masterpiece yet and his rise to being taken seriously was so sudden. His highest rated film on Letterboxd that isn't a Marvel movie has an average rating of 3.7. If I had to list all the films DiCaprio and Pitt have starred in with higher ratings than that, we'd be here a while. I don't think any career narrative is going to benefit him for a while. If he's going to win in the next few years, it'll be entirely performance based. I scoffed at people who thought an overdue narrative would help him with A Star is Born and I was right.

So no, I don't think Pitt's win was a career win. But I do think the totality of its work didn't hurt his chances. He's given enough performances that at least some people think should have been nominated (i.e. Fight Club, Snatch, Babel, Jesse James, Burn After Reading, Tree of Life) and been in enough films that have cultural significance that his career was surely something people reflected on when voting this year. But the performance had the acclaim from the second it premiered. I think a lot of this forum has claimed such because they're trying to discredit a performance they didn't want to win. Critics groups have been historically unkind to A-list males (DiCaprio has never won a major critics award aside from the LAFCA New Generation award) so Pitt winning the vast majority of them over Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, who were in a film that got better reviews, feels like a weird thing to just chalk up to "critics are sheep."