Best Supporting Actor

Welcome to the Oscar categories you might actually be interested in! So far this week, we’ve analyzed some miscellaneous categories and some more robust technical fields. Now, we get to the good stuff—the supporting actor/actress races. Bonus points for both battles being somewhat competitive this year!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

NOMINEES
Benicio del Toro—One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi—Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo—Sinners
Sean Penn—One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård—Sentimental Value

WILL WIN
For most of the year this felt like del Toro’s race to lose, but then the actual awards started happening and his name never got called. Instead, the big winner thus far has been Penn, who claimed victory at both the Actor Awards (aka SAG) and the BAFTAs. His likeliest competition is Skarsgård, who won the Golden Globe; he’s a well-liked performer who’s never received an Oscar, whereas Penn already has two. But I used that logic the last time Penn was the favorite (in 2008 for Milk, when he defeated Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler), so I’m not getting burned by it again. The Academy just really likes giving trophies to Sean Penn, and I don’t see them stopping now. Penn takes it. Read More

Now we’re cooking. The past few days, we’ve looked at 2024’s miscellaneous Oscar categories great and small, which means it’s time to dig into the races that might actually interest normal people. First up, the supporting actor races, where the outcomes are virtually assured but my personal preferences are rather less clear.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

NOMINEES
Monica Barbaro—A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande—Wicked
Felicity Jones—The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini—Conclave
Zoe Saldaña—Emilia Pérez

WILL WIN
Saldaña. It helps that she’s the lead of her movie, but that’s not her fault. You can make a half-convincing case for Grande (also a co-lead) if you argue that the Emilia Pérez backlash will preclude Academy members from voting for it in any major category. But Saldaña has been saying all the right things on the circuit, where she’s been scooping up every trophy in sight. With luck, she’ll use her speech to accuse the audience of acting like a baby, making noise, don’t know what to do. Read More

And now, we get to the good stuff. Having previously analyzed the odds and ends and the big techies, we move on to the categories that are more likely to provoke excitement, debate, and name-calling. “He’s overacting!” “She disappears into the role!” “How could the Academy have nominated that guy over THAT guy??”

In my view, discussion of the acting categories isn’t especially interesting in terms of who will win (especially not in these two races, which are both veritable locks), or even who should. It’s most valuable as an excuse to publicize my own ballots, which are meant to fend off post-hoc grumblings about “snubs,” and which can be cited (and ridiculed) in perpetuity. Sure, it’s fine years after the fact to kvetch that Lily Gladstone should have been nominated in 2016 for her devastating performance in Certain Women, but how many of you monsters were on record saying that at the time?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

NOMINEES
Emily Blunt—Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks—The Color Purple
America Ferrera—Barbie
Jodie Foster—Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph—The Holdovers Read More

Here we go. Having blitzed past some technical categories large and small, we now get to the good stuff. This morning, we’re looking at Best Supporting Actor and Actress; later today, we’ll turn to the screenplays.

Let’s start with the boring supporting race first.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

NOMINEES
Brendan Gleeson—The Banshees of Inisherin
Brian Tyree Henry—Causeway
Judd Hirsch—The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan—The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan—Everything Everywhere All at Once Read More

There are quite a few competitive races at this year’s Oscars, including several in categories we’ve previously analyzed. They do not include the races for the supporting actors, which are virtually written in stone at this point. But who cares? After all, the whole point of this annual exercise isn’t to predict the winners but to officially log my own choices so that years from now, I can issue boastful statements like, “Sure, you all like Anya Taylor-Joy now that she’s earned her third Oscar nomination of the 2020s, but how many of you put her on your ballot in 2018 for Thoroughbreds??”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

NOMINEES
Jessie Buckley—The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose—West Side Story
Judi Dench—Belfast
Kirsten Dunst—The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis—King Richard Read More