I'll go with Seven and Kevin Spacey's performance over both of them. He was in the film for only about 15 minutes but he stole the show.

Se7en was years later Ivy. Great performance anyway.

See the original cape fear with Robert Mitchum I like to better then DeNiro's version.

Mitchum was not nuts just wanted a little pay back

Deniro had nothing on Robert Michums, Max Cady in the 60s. That being said i have never been a fan of Silence of the Lambs, or Hopkins performance in it, there was just no stronger nominee that year. The best performance of 1991 in my opinion was either, John Turturro in Barton Fink or Andy Lau in Days of Being Wild.

I agree I believe silence of the lambs was better. I believe cape fear is close. But yes that was a career defining performance by Hopkins and I think he also deserved it actually. I think De Niro was still great in cape fear though. He showed his versatility off imo. But I do believe de niro should've won for taxi driver, deer hunter, king of comedy(just saw that recently) and mean streets. How him and Keitel weren't even nominated for mean streets blows my mind. I guess you could make an argument for some of his other performances as well. Any other great Anthony Hopkins movies you guys suggest?

John Turturro is very underrated. There's a lot of underrated actors out there.

Agreed on Taxi Driver and especially The King of Comedy which is his best performance imo. I disagree on both Mean Streets and Deer Hunter though, i thought Jack Lemmon was a deserving winner in 1973 and i would also pick Pacino for Serpico above it. Jon Voight also deserved his Oscar imo, i watched Coming Home recently and while i didn't really like it i thought Voight was excellent.

curious do you consider Deer Hunter a war movie? I thought it was a movie about really good friends.

Turturro is a great actor, particularly in Barton Fink and Quiz Show imo. It's a pity that he appeared in all of those crappy Adam Sandler movies.

For mean streets he would be up for supporting actor not lead. And Voight was great(probably the only performance I really like by him)but I don't think I could say that performance was better than De Niro's(or Walken's for that matter even though he was a supporting actor). Yes I just saw king of comedy recently and I was very impressed. Also I think his performance in once upon a time in America is something to take note of too. Very reserved and still made a big impact on the screen. Midnight run as well is a favorite of mine. I think that's an underrated performance. Not your typical De Niro performance during that time but maybe that's why I liked it, because he went out of his zone that we were used to seeing him in.

Paper chase isn't bad. I think Houseman was very good. Idk if his perfomace was excellent to the point where he deserved the oscar or anything. But imo, out of all the people who were up for supporting actor, De Niro gave the best perfromance with Johnny Boy in mean streets. And Keitel should've been nominated for best lead actor. Like you said, I think Lemmon gave the best performance and deserved to win though. De Niro has given a lot of amazing performances though I'll tell ya. From the early 70s up til 2000 he gave so many phenomenal performances and gave us so many great movies. Now he's a shadow of what he once was. He was wonderful in silver linings playbook however. I think he should've won best supporting actor for that too over waltz. Waltz was great in django and inglorious bastards but in django it just seemed like he played the same type of guy but maybe a little nicer. Waltz should've been up for lead not supporting as well.

Actually I really believe Day-Lewis deserved that oscar.

Oh god yes I forgot about PSH! I change my mind I actually do think he should've won for that. Daniel day Lewis was great in Lincoln though idk it'd be tough to overthrow him that year. My favorite perfromance of the decade is christian Bale in the fighter I think.

And I'm not even a big Day-Lewis fan

I was talking about bale with the voice and mannerisms not Day-Lewis with Lincoln. But yeah I haven't gotten into Day-Lewis all that much yet. Haven't watched enough of his movies yet I guess. But yes agree to disagree on that topic. I think we agreed on most of the stuff that we just discussed though.