Leonardo DiCaprio vs the Oscars: Will 2016 be his year?

During the awards season, there are only two guarantees ' cruel jokes by the hosts and Leonardo DiCaprio once again coming oh-so-close to taking home that elusive Oscar. Within hours of the Golden Globes ceremony ending this week, Leo made headlines for his spooked reaction to Lady Gaga' err' for bagging the best actor award for The Revenant. The staple headline of '(*Insert year*) will be the year Leo finally wins an Oscar,' began to appear everywhere.As the actor gets his fifth Oscar nod, we take a look at his two-decade long struggle to take home the gold.
What are his chances this year?
The minute the SAG nominations listed Leo as a candidate last December, like clockwork, the Oscar buzz began, particularly because The Revenant had all the ingredients to score him a win:
Method Acting: Adrien Brody famously sold all his possessions and became homeless for his role in The Pianist, while Daniel Day-Lewis talked, talked and walked like Lincoln even off the film's sets. For The Revenant, Leo took extreme measures for his role, like eating raw bison meat, sleeping on animal carcasses and not seeing The Force Awakens till all the promotion work was done. Now that's dedication!
The solo journey: The Oscars favour movies with a character whose odds are stacked against him, like in Birdman, Cast Away and The King's Speech, according to many analyses. So, it stands to reason that they'd love the story of a man's relentless struggle to come out the winner, despite unsympathetic Academy Awards voters' we mean despite a bear attack and being left to die.
Good narrative: A US magazine stated that one Oscar formula is, 'Is 'Film X' the kind of film that filmmakers aspire to create?' adding that films like Casino Royale or Star Wars can't get an Oscar nod because 'at the end of the day, all they do is inspire studios to make more fantasy franchise instalments.' If it wins, however, The Revenant will 'be proof that a big budget, adult-skewing, technically superb action drama can be a genuine smash sans franchise attachment or brand awareness thanks to a single prestigious movie star,' it stated.
Leonardo DiCaprio wishes to play Ruso-Prez Putin
So why hasn't he won before?
There are many conspiracy theories surrounding Leo's Oscar curse:
Too pretty: DiCaprio's idea of going ugly is Django Unchained's Calvin Candie, which is basically a smouldering Leo with greasy hair. As one site put it, 'His younger, pretty/party boy reputation still haunts him in (the Academy voters') eyes.'
Too consistent: Yes, he's done a variety of intense films, but they're only intense films. Most Oscar winners have showcased their ability tackle comedy too, as Colin Firth did with Bridget Jones' Diary or Adrien Brody in The Grand Budapest Hotel. The closest thing Leo has to a rom-com on his resume is a movie where he falls head over heels for a girl and then freezes to death in the Atlantic for it.
A great career: Two negatives make a positive, but too many positives equals Leo's Oscar curse. He escaped the child star syndrome and, aside from The Beach, his films have been a series of blockbusters. 'Where's the drama in that?' ask The Academy, who love a 'story' to go with their Oscar-winners,' as one site put it. Mickey Rourke had to lose his looks to booze and boxing before he snagged the prize for The Wrestler and Matthew McConaughey's face was reduced to a rom-com stamp before he made a comeback with The Lincoln Lawyer.
They're just jealous: The most improbable, yet, most popular theory. Some believe that Leo's reluctance to show any signs of ageing, affinity to 25-and-below models and a lack of scandals (apart from his inexcusably bad dancing at 2014's Coachella Festival), has stirred up someone's wrath in the Academy.
Do we really want him to win, though?
Of course we want the 'Oscar winner' prefix before his name. And yet, enough commentors have pointed out that the lack of it has become a part of Leo's identity. 'It's one of a million narratives we foist onto celebrities ' JLaw the cool girl, Angelina the saint, Bieber the brat. It's a way to validate our fascination with them. I'm rooting for Leo, but a part of me hopes he doesn't win. Because if he gets what he wants, the story is over,' one site wrote. But more importantly, nothing brightens a bad day better than the plethora of memes and gifs on him reaching out for a photoshopped Oscar ' all of which will cease to have meaning if he does bag the award this season.
WATCH: The Revenant Official Teaser Trailer #1 (2015) - Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy Movie HD