Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actor

Welcome to this year’s edition of Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, where we will break down each of the 23 categories, analyze the films, and make some guesses at their awards prospects.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are:

Sterling K. Brown in American Fiction

Robert De Niro in Killers of the Flower Moon

Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer

Ryan Gosling in Barbie

Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things

Sterling K. Brown in American Fiction

In American Fiction, Brown plays Cliff, brother of the uptight protagonist Monk (Jeffrey Wright). We spend so much time with the buttoned-up Monk that when we meet Cliff, it’s like a breath of fresh air. Finally, someone willing to let loose and just be himself. Cliff has his own set of personal issues, as well, but compared to his brother, he’s a picture of enlightenment. First-time nominee Brown also imbues the character with such heart and humanity that we are able to look past the flaws and see the wounded but loving person underneath it all.

Robert De Niro in Killers of the Flower Moon

As remarkable as it may seem for someone widely considered one of the best, if not the best, actors of his generation, I think we may be at a point where we’re undervaluing De Niro. Now, to some degree, he did it to himself. Years of crummy studio comedies and nondescript thrillers with names like Heist and Killing Season have not helped him maintain an A+ credit rating in the minds of viewers. But, with good material and a good director to motivate him (how about good friend Martin Scorsese?), De Niro can absolutely still reach into his bag and pull out a performance you’ve never seen before.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, he plays, for all intents and purposes, the devil. He fashions William Hale, the mastermind of the Osage Reign of Terror, as a man of fake beneficence, masking a calm, calculated menace. It’s the darkest kind of evil, and De Niro plays it so subtly, so masterfully that you could almost mistake it for charm. It is some of the best work the actor has delivered in the latter section of his career.

This marks De Niro’s eighth career Oscar nomination, which actually seems low for a performer of his caliber and renown. It’s tied for 10th-most all time. He has five nominations for Best Actor and one win for Raging Bull and three nominations for Supporting Actor along with one win for The Godfather Part II.

Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer

As depicted in this movie, Lewis Strauss is the perfect antagonist to J. Robert Oppenheimer. He’s a career bureaucrat with aspirations of political power who sees Oppenheimer as a means to an end. He uses him, betrays him, and discards him, all with a smile. Downey is one of the best actors in the business at killing with a smile, and he puts that power to great effect here in one of his finest dramatic roles.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 31 years since Downey received his first Oscar nomination for playing Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin. He’s lived multiple lifetimes since then, seeing his star rise and fall and rise again amid a battle with addiction. He became the face of the superhero boom that has lasted the better part of the past 15 years. He scored his second Oscar nomination in 2008 for Tropic Thunder at just about the last moment in history you could be rewarded for a performance in blackface. It’s been a helluva ride, and it appears the next stop on that journey is the Oscars stage.

Ryan Gosling in Barbie

There has been a lot of talk about Gosling’s Ken stealing the movie from Barbie. I wouldn’t go that far. Margot Robbie has the incredibly difficult task of holding the emotional center of the film together, while Gosling can mostly go for broke, getting the biggest laughs of the movie. This is not a knock on the performance, which is stellar, but it’s important that the record reflects: Robbie and Barbie own the Barbie movie. Gosling is just Ken. And, that’s more than Kenough.

This is Gosling’s third career nomination. The first two were for Best Actor for Half Nelson and La La Land. It’s been thrilling to watch Gosling avoid the pitfalls that come with Hollywood stardom. After The Notebook, he could easily have become the next big romantic lead, playing the hunky guy in a bunch of middling fare that would go straight to Netflix these days. Instead, he has made it a point to choose daring projects with exciting directors, and we’re all better off for it.

Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things

Ruffalo now has four Academy Award nominations, all for Supporting Actor. It’s a fascinating niche he has carved for himself in Hollywood. He could, of course, lead movies and has been a great leading man as recently as Todd Haynes’ Dark Waters in 2019. But, when you need an actor to take over one portion of a larger narrative and to do so with depth and nuance and gravitas, well, he’s your man.

In this case, it’s the middle section of Bella Baxter’s (Emma Stone) journey, during which Ruffalo’s Duncan Wedderburn represents both the freedom of a larger world and the repression of social graces. Ruffalo is perfect as a man who thinks he has his world all figured out, then falls apart as soon as anything disrupts this assumption. The performance is sexy and strange and volatile in ways we have rarely seen Ruffalo on screen.

The final analysis

There’s really no second choice here. It’s Downey all the way. At the beginning of the season and throughout the critics awards announcements, it seemed like there might be a bit of a race among Downey, Gosling, and even Ruffalo. But, once the major industry awards kicked off, Downey took the lead and never looked back.

Downey is very good in Oppenheimer, but this is undoubtedly a career achievement award, an opportunity to reward a beloved actor who has been in the game for 40 years and experienced all the ups and downs Hollywood has to offer. Sometimes, it’s just your time.

Will win: Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer

Should win: Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things

Should have been here: Jamie Bell in All of Us Strangers

A note about my favorite snub: This could just as easily have been Paul Mescal for me from the same film as he is magnificent as the protagonist’s love interest and potential lifeline, but I give the edge to Bell. The former child star who won a BAFTA for best actor at 14 years old is stellar throughout the film but truly shines in a moment of reconciliation when he admits he, too, would likely have bullied his gay son had they known each other in school. The scene ends with a hug that just shatters your heart, and Bell plays it perfectly.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actor

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are:

Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin

Brian Tyree Henry in Causeway

Judd Hirsch in The Fabelmans

Barry Keoghan in The Banshees of Inisherin

Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All at Once

The acting categories are truly exciting this year. It is rare that we have this much drama in four of the biggest awards of the night. I love it. Last year, I broke down the previous 15 years of winners across all four acting categories. Across 60 winners, there were at most eight that could even be considered surprising, and the real number is probably closer to three or four.

Last year was about as bland as they come with Jessica Chastain, Will Smith, Ariana DeBose, and Troy Kotsur sweeping their way to the Academy Awards stage with virtually no (pre-show) drama. I am not saying they were not deserving winners, particularly DeBose and Kotsur, but I am saying they were predictable. And, that’s not a healthy place to be for the future of this awards show.

This year, on the other hand, there’s drama all down the line. Actress is a toss-up between two worthy performers. Supporting Actress is a free-for-all. Actor is a fight to the finish between the up-and-comer and a comeback story for the ages. And, while Supporting Actor seems the most locked of any of them, there is one little stat that stands in the way of predicting a clean sweep for the frontrunner. Exciting stuff. Let’s get to it.

Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All at Once – As much as I might prefer other performances in this category, it’s hard not to be happy for Quan. It’s the comeback of a lifetime. Even Brendan Fraser has been working steadily overseas and on television. Quan was all but out of the game. Before making Finding ‘Ohana in 2021, he had not acted in a feature film since 2002. It’s a cliché, but the put-upon husband/universe-hopping secret agent Waymond Wang is the role of a lifetime, and Quan did not miss his chance to leave a mark.

Though the script often leaves the actors high and dry, Quan makes the most out of what he’s given. Whether in the In the Mood for Love-style romantic drama pastiche or the Matrix-style fight sequences, Quan rises above the mess around him and pulls real emotion out of a character that’s pretty one-note on paper. Quan has already filmed the next Russo Brothers movie – a sci-fi action adventure movie, if you can believe it – and I’m sure he’s great in it. But, here’s hoping all this attention nets him some opportunities to dig into some real characters.

Barry Keoghan in The Banshees of Inisherin – Keoghan has been unforgettable in every movie he has appeared in. Whether in scene-stealing bit parts like The Green Knight or weightier supporting roles like Dunkirk, he brings an unmistakable blend of intensity and vulnerability to every role he plays. Though he had been around for a few years, I first noticed him in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer as an implacable villain hellbent on revenge. I called it the best supporting performance of 2017. He outdoes himself in The Banshees of Inisherin.

We have seen the village idiot character in plenty of movies before but never portrayed with this much pain and pathos. Keoghan plays Dominic as a man bound by circumstance, good-hearted in a cruel world, not wholly innocent but moral in his way. There is a gentleness to everything Keoghan does in the role, a touch so light you wonder if you felt it – that is until the tears start falling. It is a beautiful piece of acting, and I look forward to many more years of Keoghan’s work.

Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin – If we’re being honest, Gleeson is really more of a co-lead with Colin Farrell in this picture, but Farrell is the movie star, and Gleeson is the character actor, so it was always going to go this way. Regardless, Gleeson is perfect in The Banshees of Inisherin as a musician who just wants to use the time he has left composing songs and thinking about the weightier aspects of life.

Gleeson is an actor’s actor, great in everything he does, but he has been at his best working with Martin McDonagh and McDonagh’s brother, John Michael McDonagh. Between the two filmmakers, Gleeson has appeared in four features and an Oscar-winning short, and they comprise the best work of the performer’s long career. Maybe it’s because they’re countrymen, or because Gleeson just understands the rhythms of their writing, but whatever it is, it’s magic.

Brian Tyree Henry in Causeway – Because of the vagaries of moviemaking and the way release dates can shift around, sometimes an actor who has been working a while will seem to burst on the scene and be everywhere. I think a lot about 2011, when Jessica Chastain had Take Shelter, The Tree of Life, and The Help all come out within a few months of each other. Henry experienced that to the nth degree in 2018, when he had seven movies in which he appeared come out in theaters. His brilliance in Widows and If Beale Street Could Talk could not be denied, and it has all led up to this.

Causeway is a strange little film. It was sold to audiences as something of a comeback for Jennifer Lawrenece, but Henry steals every scene they’re in together. He doesn’t get a ton to do in the film – honestly, neither of them does – but he does what he can as a mechanic who befriends Lawrence’s wounded war veteran. It is an understated performance, but if the movie works at all for you, it is because Henry grounds the events in an emotional reality that brings you into the characters’ world.

Judd Hirsch in The Fabelmans – Hirsch has already made Oscars history with this nomination, breaking none other than Henry Fonda’s record for the longest gap between Academy Award nominations. Fonda went 41 years between his nods for The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and On Golden Pond (1981). Hirsch’s previous nomination came for Ordinary People in 1980, 42 years ago. Hirsch is also now the second-oldest acting nominee ever at 87 years old. He is three months younger than Christopher Plummer was when he was nominated for Supporting Actor in 2018 for All the Money in the World.

With this nomination, Hirsch adds his name to the list of one-scene wonders to strike it big with the Academy, joining the likes of Ned Beatty in Network and William Hurt in A History of Violence. Hirsch is only in The Fabelmans for a few minutes, but as Great Uncle Boris, he delivers the central theme of the movie to little Sammy Fabelman and makes plain the conflict that will haunt Sammy (and Steven Spielberg) for the rest of his life. Art or family? Family or art? It’s quick and to the point, and Hirsh holds nothing back.

The final analysis

I have talked a lot over the years about the BAFTAs as the best predictor for the acting categories at the Academy Awards. I have never felt less sure about that than this year, and that uncertainty holds across all four acting categories. So, bear with me as I feel this out.

Quan has won basically everything of importance, except the BAFTA. He has given humble, heartwarming speeches every time he has been given the opportunity. He is somebody for whom his fellow actors root. Everything Everywhere All at Once appears to be a merciless frontrunner for Best Picture, gobbling up every other award it is within striking distance of. I see no good reason why Quan won’t win this in a walk.

That said, Keoghan did win the BAFTA. Over the past 10 years, the BAFTAs have matched the Oscars in Supporting Actor eight out of 10 times. The two that didn’t: Barkhad Abdi won the BAFTA for Captain Phillips in 2013, while Oscar winner Jared Leto wasn’t even nominated by the Brits for Dallas Buyers Club; then, in 2016, Dev Patel won the BAFTA for Lion, while Mahershala Ali went on to win his first award for his work in the Best Picture-winning Moonlight.

In the past five years, they have matched every time. But, this year feels much more like 2016, doesn’t it? Patel is a beloved British star who did career-best work in Lion, much like the Irish Keoghan delivering his best work in a movie the Brits liked quite a bit more than they liked Everything Everywhere All at Once. Meanwhile, Ali was the heart and soul of the movie that went on to win the top prize, much like Quan is for this year’s Best Picture frontrunner. Never mind that Keoghan actually delivers the best performance of the group. The winner will be Quan.

Will win: Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All at Once

Should win: Barry Keoghan in The Banshees of Inisherin

Should have been here: Nicolas Hoult in The Menu

A note about my favorite snub: As the amateur foodie who gets taken down a peg, Nicolas Hoult is pitch perfect in The Menu. He is exactly the right kind of infuriating, making you root for his downfall throughout the whole film. Then, when it comes, Hoult turns it around and actually makes you feel bad for the fate that will befall him.

Next time: Supporting Actress

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actor

The Last Cinema Standing Countdown to the Oscars is your guide to the Academy Awards. We will cover each of the categories in depth, talk about history and what the award truly means, and predict some winners. Check back all month as we make our way to the big show, one category (each as important as the next) at a time.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are:

Ciarán Hinds for Belfast

Troy Kotsur for CODA

Jesse Plemmons for The Power of the Dog

J.K. Simmons for Being the Ricardos

Kodi-Smit McPhee for The Power of the Dog

It is unfortunate for the Academy that every year, the categories with the least amount of drama are the acting categories. For an organization that seems so hell bent on increasing ratings, drama for the acting statuettes would be a great way to drum up viewers. Apart from superhero stories, actors drive the conversation when it comes to film. What do average people talk about when they talk about the Oscars, apart from Best Picture? Actors. Performers draw viewers, and when you think your favorite performer could win an Academy Award, you tune in to find out.

Going through all four acting categories, let’s try to count up the genuine surprises since 2006, which is about as far back as I have a genuine knowledge of the buzz around certain nominees leading up to the awards.

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) beating Sylvester Stallone (Creed) in 2015 felt surprising, but Rylance had won the BAFTA, which we are going to learn holds much sway over these awards. In 2012, Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) winning his second award in this category over Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) was a toss-up, but again, Waltz had the BAFTA. So, if we’re being honest, no surprises in the past 15 years.

Best Supporting Actress: In 2013, Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) had won the Screen Actors Guild award, but Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle) won the BAFTA. Still, Lawrence already had an Oscar by this point, and all the momentum and sentiment was with Nyong’o, so we’ll call this a mild surprise at best. Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) felt genuinely shocking in the moment, beating Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) in 2007, but stop me if you’ve heard this before: Swinton had the BAFTA.

Best Actor: Out of all these years, only last year felt truly surprising – it obviously surprised the show’s producers – with Anthony Hopkins (The Father) topping Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), but even then we should have known. Hopkins, of course, had the BAFTA.

Best Actress: The entire world expected Glenn Close (The Wife) finally to win her Oscar in 2018 … except us, right? Because, say it with me, Olivia Colman (The Favourite) won the BAFTA. Same goes in 2011, when Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) beat Viola Davis (The Help), and in 2007, when Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) beat Julie Christie (Away from Her). Though surprising in the moment, Streep and Cotillard both had taken the BAFTA.

And that’s it. Fifteen years, 60 statues, and we struggled to name eight “surprises,” only one of which (Nyong’o) was not presaged by a BAFTA win. Not great for categories that should be the show’s biggest draw. Because of the overlap between the two memberships (AMPAS and BAFTA), this issue is not going to fix itself, leaving the Academy only one choice: move the Oscars before the BAFTAs.

But, that’s all a problem for another day. We are here to talk about Best Supporting Actor. And, the winner is …

Troy Kotsur for CODA – Kotsur, who has won the BAFTA this year, is brilliant in CODA. The much lauded truck scene toward the end of the film is the scene of the year, and Kotsur plays it for everything it is worth. He understands the humor of the character, the fierceness, the defiance, and most of all the love he has for his daughter. He just gets it. Kotsur, who was born deaf, has been an actor for 20 years and deserves every ounce of praise he is getting for his work here.

Kodi Smit-McPhee for The Power of the Dog – The unfortunate side effect of Kotsur’s career-defining work is that Smit-McPhee will not win this award despite being the engine that powers (sorry) The Power of the Dog. The movie cannot work without an absolutely pitch-perfect performance in the Peter role, and Smit-McPhee nails every bit of the role. He finds a balance of strength, vulnerability, and cunning that was heretofore unknown to filmdom. As Smit-McPhee goes, so goes The Power of the Dog, and both ascend to great heights.

Jesse Plemmons for The Power of the Dog – Plemmons is absolutely one of the most fascinating actors working today. I did not watch Friday Night Lights when it was on the air, so my introduction to Plemmons was Breaking Bad, in which he epitomized pure evil. Then, I saw Game Night, and it turns out the man can do comedy. It says more about the quality of his co-stars than it does about Plemmons that I consider his the fourth-best performance in The Power of the Dog. But, that does not make it any less remarkable. Without a doubt, Plemmons is going to have more chances at this thing.

Ciarán Hinds for Belfast – As I sat in the theater watching Belfast, the thought occurred to me that I hoped the Academy would not forget Hinds come nomination time. Everyone is doing wonderful work in Belfast, from Jude Hill in the lead role to Caitrona Balfe and Jamie Dornan as his parents, as well as the also-nominated Judi Dench as Granny. But, it was Hinds, as the lovable Grandpa who has seen it all and has nothing but practical advice for living to give Buddy, who stuck with me the longest.

J.K. Simmons for Being the Ricardos – Actors just really love Simmons. It’s easy to understand why – he’s great. Unfortunately, that love does occasionally translate to uninspired nominations like this. Simmons is fine in Being the Ricardos and might actually be one of the most memorable things about the movie, but that does not make this nomination less frustrating. Remember 2012, when Alan Arkin was nominated for Argo, in which he essentially ran back his Oscar-winning character in Little Miss Sunshine in a different context? This is That 2.0.

The final analysis

Kotsur won the Screen Actors Guild award. He won the BAFTA. He is beloved by his peers and co-stars in a movie clearly beloved by most of the Academy. This award is his in a walk.

Will win: Troy Kotsur for CODA

Should win: Troy Kotsur for CODA

Should have been here: Mark Rylance for Don’t Look Up

Next time: Best Supporting Actress

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actor

Michael Shannon is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Nocturnal Animals.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are:

Mahershala Ali for Moonlight

Jeff Bridges for Hell or High Water

Lucas Hedges for Manchester by the Sea

Dev Patel for Lion

Michael Shannon for Nocturnal Animals

This is an unusual year in that none of the characters portrayed by these five men is a villain. Supporting Actor generally is the home of the villain at the Oscars. There was a run from 2007-2009 when Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) won this award for playing over-the-top, larger-than-life villains who steal their respective films right out from under the heroes. Just two years ago, JK Simmons swept up every award in sight for his mercilessly villainous role in Whiplash.

The reasons for this over-representation of villainy seem clear enough. From the earliest films noirs through the Bond villains of the 1960s right on through to today, writers have crafted their antagonists as witty, urbane, fun, and out-sized, while actors dig right in every time, chewing up scenery and stealing the show. Villains have always been big, and the Academy loves to reward big. How wonderful, then, this year, the actors went another way.

Beyond not being villains, it would be hard to characterize any of these performances as any one thing. They are complex, three-dimensional portraits of mostly good people trying to do the best they can in worlds of limited options. The five nominated actors here do not so much steal the show as weave themselves into the fabric of the stories being told. They disappear in their roles and resurface in these characters to give us a better understanding of their points of view and their experiences.

Mahershala Ali for Moonlight – In a year of complex character studies, few characters are as complex or as studied as Ali’s Juan, a kind-hearted drug dealer who befriends and scared, lonely young boy. There is never any question of Juan’s status within his community – he is a kingpin and rules over all he surveys. He commands respect at every turn and gets it. He lives a hard life on hard streets in hard times, but he refuses to let his circumstances make him a hard man. Such is the power of a script that exists solely to force the audience to confront its prejudices and preconceived notions.

None of this would land as well, however, without Ali’s strong, confident performance at its heart. He infuses his character with a gentleness you would not expect. He displays a tenderness he not only refuses to bury but even seems eager to share. Ali is quiet and still, communicating in small gestures and nods, letting the world – and thereby, the audience – come to him. Juan only appears in the first of the film’s three acts, but Ali’s performance makes us feel both his absence and his impact throughout the rest of the story.

Dev Patel for Lion – I complain every year about category fraud, and I promise – or warn, as the case may be – I will rail about it tomorrow, when we discuss Best Supporting Actress. The fraud here is more subtle. Lion is the story of Saroo Brierly and his long journey to find the family he lost. The film’s opening 45-50 minutes concern Saroo’s early life, and in these passages, he is played wonderfully by Sunny Pawar. The second half of the film – more than, if we wish to count minutes – is the adult Saroo’s search for his family, when he is portrayed by Patel. But make no mistake: This is Patel’s film, and he carries it magnificently.

It is sometimes baffling to me the way these things go down. Patel faced the same scenario in 2008, when he was campaigned in Supporting Actor for Slumdog Millionaire despite being the demonstrable lead of the film. The difference is he was not nominated then, and he is now. However, he was deserving then, and he is deserving now. To focus too much on these awards distinctions, as I have done, perhaps distracts from Patel’s powerful work in Lion.

He must embody both sorrow and rage, grief for the family he lost and anger at the world that would allow this to happen. He is by turns the well-adjusted adopted son of Australian parents and the mournful, emotionally guarded orphan torn from his family. Patel is remarkable in all facets of this character, and were it not for the fact American films rarely cast actors of Indian heritage in leading roles, he would be a much bigger star even than he is. Let us hope such casting prejudices change and Patel soon takes his rightful place among the acting elite.

Jeff Bridges for Hell or High Water – An interesting bit of Academy Awards trivia: Katherine Hepburn holds the record for the longest span between an actor’s first and last nomination – 48 years from Morning Glory in 1933 to On Golden Pond in 1981. Bridges, now on his seventh nomination, earned his first in 1972 for The Last Picture Show, 45 years ago. If things keep going the way they have been, this will not be his last nomination, and we will not see that last nomination hopefully for a long, long time.

In the current decade, Bridges has settled into a comfortable groove, playing tough, grizzled men who cannot afford to show weakness but whose world weariness has taken a toll. He won his first, and to date only, Oscar for just such a role in Crazy Heart and was most recently nominated for perhaps the most grizzled hero of all, Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. In Hell or High Water, he offers a new take on this archetype as a southern lawman whose only purpose is justice in a world that no longer seems to know what that word means.

Lucas Hedges for Manchester by the Sea – Bridges had already secured three nominations by the time fellow nominee Hedges was born in 1997. It calls to mind, for me at least, the time in 1999 when Michael Caine, during his acceptance speech for The Cider House Rules, shouted out his co-nominees, including an 11-year-old Haley Joel Osment, there for The Sixth Sense. It is one of the things that makes the Oscars ceremony so beautiful, the different generations of artists all coming together to celebrate each other’s work.

Hedges is wonderful in Manchester by the Sea as Patrick, a teenager whose father dies unexpectedly and is left in the care of his uncle (Casey Affleck). Hedges brings to the part the right mixture of general teenage angst and self-centeredness and more specific, restrained grief over the loss of his father. His breakdown scene while putting meat in the freezer – reminding him of his father’s body being kept on ice until the ground thaws enough to bury him – is one of the great moments in cinema this year. Though his feature credits to this point represent a limited list, including small parts in Wes Anderson’s two most recent films, Hedges’ future seems limitless.

Michael Shannon for Nocturnal Animals – I have spent a fair amount of space on this site over the years talking about the greatness of Michael Shannon. He is among my favorite performers working today, and he will win an Oscar sooner or later. He should have been nominated last year for 99 Homes, and it is hard not to think this nomination, though deserving in its own right, is a make-good for his just missing the nod last time.

No matter. Make-good or not, Shannon commands the screen with his intimidating frame and overwhelming presence, taking over as the skewed moral center of Nocturnal Animals. He plays Bobby, a lawman helping Jake Gyllenhaal’s character seek revenge against the men who wronged him. In an otherwise uneven film, all of the performances are great, but Shannon stands tall above them all. Audiences are instinctively drawn to this mysterious live wire of a character, and Shannon masterfully pulls us deeper into his web like one of Bobby’s ill-fated criminal targets.

The final analysis

This category presents an interesting conundrum this year. The signs point to Ali. He was the critics’ favorite choice for supporting actor, and he won the Screen Actors Guild award. On top of that, Moonlight is a clearly beloved film, and the character of Juan and Ali’s performance in the film’s early passages are unforgettable.

However, apart from the Screen Actors Guild, the two biggest Academy Award precursors are the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. Ali was beaten to the Golden Globe by Nocturnal Animals star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is not nominated here, and to the BAFTA at yesterday’s ceremony by Patel. Now, Patel is British, and it is possible the British Academy was looking to reward one of its own, but it certainly gives us pause in predicting this category.

Perhaps the BAFTAs are an indication Patel has the momentum and the inside track to the Oscar, though he has picked up almost no other awards this season. Perhaps the frayed nature of the precursors with three different actors winning at the three different shows suggests anything can happen, such as a Shannon or Bridges win. But maybe – and I think this is most likely – the winds really are blowing the direction they are pointing, and these other victories are simply misdirection on the road to Ali’s well-deserved coronation.

Will win: Mahershala Ali for Moonlight

Should win: Mahershala Ali for Moonlight

Should have been here: Ben Foster for Hell or High Water

Tomorrow: Best Supporting Actress