Val Kilmer in Tombstone vs Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood

Not even a comparison for me: one is the greatest male performance I've seen, the other isn't even among the top 5 supporting performances of 1993. I mean, I like Kilmer in the movie just fine but this is no contest. And I'm not sure where your assessment of the opinion of the "real world" is coming from.

Honestly 

Attempted bait for a flame war I'd imagine. 

DDL is a cartoon in TWBB. Probably the single most overrated performance of all time. DDL has several of those, with My Left Foot and Lincoln. He's only great in GoNY and In the Name of the Father.

Surprised how close this poll is though (that can always change though ). Like I said, I know how much this board worships DDL in There Will Be Blood, so I expected a complete blow-out of Kilmer by the oilman. He still won't win, but the current vote of 9-6 is better than I expected for Iceman. Glad to see some appreciation for the greatness of Kilmer's Doc Holliday on MAR. 

I wouldn't doubt Tombstone is more popular among a certain (older) crowd as it's a cable TV staple, but idk if I'd say it's significantly more seen than There Will Be Blood. At the very least, I can't find any evidence of that - TWBB laps it multiple times over in number of ratings on IMDB, RT, Letterboxd, etc. and it's referenced much more often in other media and memes ("I drink your milkshake," "I've abandoned my child"). Just going anecdotally, damn near everyone over 40 I know has seen Tombstone and only around half of them have seen TWBB, but among younger people it's much more rare to hear someone talk about Tombstone but way more common to hear a DDL impression.

As someone who grew up in the American South and distinctly remembers when Tombstone made cultural landfall, it has entered the cultural lexicon with a few of its choice quotes ("I'm your huckleberry"; "Skin that smokewagon and see what happens" and the delicious "Bye" that Powers Boothe richly delivers). I just think comparing the two's pop culture status is a bit lopsided because one is an easily digestible movie about an iconic historical event every American knows, and the other is a dark and brooding character study about an unlikable oil tycoon waging war against a sham preacher.

Not sure why so many people say he deserved to win when Ralph Fiennes exists and was doing all timer work on par with DDL in TWBB in Schindler's List. Kilmer deserved a nod and would have been good enough to win in a lot of years but 93 was stacked for supporting actor.

No disrespect to Fiennes, who was terrific, but a lot of people think Kilmer was doing all-timer work on par with DDL in TWBB. I mean, that's kind of the point of this thread .

Fiennes was great. For me, Kilmer was better.  It was a stacked year (look at the supporting performances that didn't get nodded ...Kingsley in Schindler's List, Sean Penn in Carlito's Way, Denzel in Philidelpia ( if you count him as supporting, which many did at the time), Sam Neil in The Piano). Many people consider 1993 an all-time supporting actor line-up, but you could arguably make an even better line-up with those who weren't nominated. In hindsight, I don't think Tommy Lee Jones or John Malkovich really merited their nominations in a year that stacked.

And I'd give Kilmer the win over all of them, nomimated or non-nominated. So many good/great actors have played Doc Holliday. It's practically the Hamlet of westerns. The role has now become so iconic and synonymous with Kilmer's portrayal. Nobody quotes lines from any other Doc Holliday. That's hard to achieve with so many other actors taking a stab at it. It's a very unique performance. Kilmer never reached that level before and didn't reach it after, but by God did he pull something extraordinarily special out of the bag with his take on Doc. Kilmer's a great actor, but he's not in GOAT actor conversations (like a DDL), and I don't think he should be. But his work in Tombstone shouldn't even be remotely controversial to be in GOAT performance conversations. 

Wanted to give a shoutout to Stephen Langs’ great work as Ike Clanton. Probably one of his best performances as well. Because law don’t go round here…savvy?

He was great in Gettysburg. Lang sure did have a nice 1993. An underrated film, the entire cast brought their A-game for that one. Decent argument could be made that that is Jeff Daniels finest hour. People talk about 1999 and 2007 as all-time great film years, but I’ll put 93 right with them. So many great films and performances that year.