Awards Watch: Best Actor Features Veterans Versus Young, Breakthrough Actors; Steve Carrell Bows Out With ‘Foxcatcher’ Moved Next Year

The Best Actor Race is tight to say the least. There's gritty veterans and there are a couple of young breakthrough actors.

The top young actor generating Oscar Buzz in the Toronto International Film Festival was Chiwetel Ejiofor. He plays the title role in the movie "12 Years A Slave" which won the People's Choice Award.

Another breakthrough actor is Michael B. Jordan in "Fruitvale Station" and it has to be mentioned, Idris Elba for the role of Nelson Mandela.

From the award circuit, Indiewire recommends: "Robert Redford (as a man lost at sea in "All Is Lost") and Matthew McConaughey (as a man who smuggles life saving drugs during the onset of the AIDS epidemic "Dallas Buyers Club"). McConaughey would be a first time nominee, while Redford has rather shockingly only received one Oscar nomination for acting (in 1973 for "The Sting," which he lost to Jack Lemmon), though he did win a directing Oscar seven years later for "Ordinary People." Another Oscarversary gift could meet Bruce Dern this year, too. It's been 35 years since he received his first and only Oscar nomination for "Coming Home," and Alexander Payne's "Nebraska" has been consistently building buzz since it debuted in Cannes. Dern won that festival's best actor prize for his work as a man dealing with deteriorating health as he makes the trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim a million dollar lottery prize. Sentiment will be in Dern's corner to get this nod, and the film is certainly beloved enough to back that up."

That leaves us to the frontrunner who has actually won two Oscars in a row: Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips. He was nominated once before his streak, and twice after. After two losses in "Cast Away" and "Saving Private Ryan" (which some believe were mistakes), would Tom lose the Oscar again?

Some possible nominees may emerge this fall, but count out the awaited "Foxcatcher" with Steve Carrell. It has been moved to 2014.