I can’t believe I’m writing this, but in a year that has seen some of the best lead-actor performances ever, my pick for best male performer is Matthew McConaughey. With his roles in Mud (which actually premiered at Cannes in 2012) and Dallas Buyers Club, not to mention The Wolf of Wall Street, which I’ve yet to see, it’s clearly been an extraordinary year for him and one I never could have predicted based on his past performances.

Honorable mentions should go to Tom Hanks, who made a solid comeback in 2013 with Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks. And I suppose the rabidly popular Benedict Cumberbatch deserves praise for 12 Years a Slave, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, August: Osage County and The Fifth Estate. Talk about a busy year. But the Academy doesn’t award Oscars for an actor’s total body of yearly work. With that in mind, here are my top five picks (as of mid-December) for best performance by an actor in a leading role, in no particular order:

Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips
Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station
Robert Redford, All is Lost

Note: I haven’t seen Inside Llewyn Davis, The Wolf of Wall Street, Her or Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom yet, so this list could change rather dramatically when those films are thrown into the mix. Steve Coogan from Philomena would be my sixth choice, if the list went to six. Bruce Dern, from Nebraska, doesn’t even come close to making the cut.