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

Sylvester Stallone could win his first Oscar for playing Rocky Balboa in Creed, nearly 40 years after he created the character.

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 this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are:

Christian Bale for The Big Short

Tom Hardy for The Revenant

Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight

Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies

Sylvester Stallone for Creed

So often when we talk about great supporting performances, we talk about big, flashy characters who come in and steal every scene in which they appear. We think of out-sized villains or larger-than-life personas that make an immediate impression with some big show of power, strength, or often as not, oratory talent. There is nothing like that in the Best Supporting Actor category this year.

Sure, these nominated performances feature showy moments, and each of these actors certainly leaves his mark on these films, but this year, the nominees leave their mark with subtle character work and attention to detail. In so doing, they create portraits of relatable people with flaws and virtues similar to our own.

There is little to connect these five characters – a math genius with no people skills, a cowardly fur trapper, an idealistic journalist, a Soviet spy, and a broken-down boxer – but the one thread that carries through is the idea that each man, no matter his actions, believes what he is doing is right. These may not be noble people, and a couple may even be misguided or on the wrong side of history, but they pursue their causes faithfully because there is nothing else for them to do.

Sylvester Stallone for Creed – Sometimes, it really is as simple as the Academy wanting to see someone win. It may not be everybody’s favorite performance, but it would be hard to find people who would not at least enjoy watching Stallone accept an Oscar. Something about it just feels right – and for this role in particular. Rocky Balboa is his creation, one of America’s favorite fictional heroes, a cultural icon, and a figure many of us grew up idolizing. Rocky represents the best of us, and the character still resonates so deeply today because Stallone has spent nearly 40 years cultivating this legacy.

If Stallone wins – and he is the frontrunner right now – it will no doubt be for those 40 years of work and not just his singular performance in director Ryan Coogler’s Creed. This may or may not be fair – after all, none of the other actors had four decades to build a character – but it would not be undeserved. A close viewing of the Rocky series reveals an actor completely at one with his character.

Rocky is who he is not because of his role in these grand American sports epics but because of the little moments Stallone inserts that make up the fabric of the character. Stallone’s looks, his line deliveries, and his posture tell us everything we need to know about Rocky. Spoiler for one of the most popular films of all time that is also 40 years old, but Rocky loses the big fight in Rocky, and we love him anyway. The Rocky movies have never been about winning championships. They are about finding something special within yourself, the will to struggle, to fight, and to survive. That remains true of Coogler’s Creed, and it remains true of Rocky because Stallone makes sure of it.

Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies – You may recall last month I named Rylance’s work in Steven Spielberg’s Cold War thriller my second favorite performance of the year. The quality of the work has only grown in my estimation since then. It is otherworldly how much Rylance communicates without doing much of anything. He never raises his voice, never furrows his brow, and generally never seems concerned about the reality staring him in the face.

Rudolf Abel is a man condemned, both literally by the U.S. court system and figuratively by his chosen profession. He has had a long time to come to terms with his fate, and Rylance plays this character fighting for his life as someone at peace with the decisions he has made that have brought him here. Though what he has done may be illegal in the eyes of the law, spying on the U.S. for the Soviet Union, he has no sense of guilt because he knows in this war, people do what they must to survive. Rylance turns this criminal into someone the audience roots for just by showing us the power of accepting one’s self.

Tom Hardy for The Revenant – What a year for Hardy – four wildly different turns in three utterly unique films, The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Legend. He has always been a chameleon, disappearing into roles like few other actors of his generation. He is a big, intimidating presence, but he is just as likely to play debonair as destructor, and he seems most at home giving himself over to the demands of the part.

His character in The Revenant, John Fitzgerald, could easily be a stock villain – a selfish, mean bastard who is inherently evil – but Hardy has never taken the easy route. He digs into Fitzgerald to find the man beyond the action of the story. He plays him with sympathy and understanding, recognizing that each man is the hero of his own story. While the audience follows Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) in his quest for vengeance, Fitzgerald similarly wants only to survive. His actions are cowardly, but cowardice is never in short supply in this world. Thanks to Hardy’s performance, though, the audience sees the roots of Fitzgerald’s choices, and if we do not like it, at least we can understand it.

Christian Bale for The Big Short – A three-time nominee, Bale is the only previous winner in this category, having earned an Oscar in 2010 for The Fighter, and is well known for his physical and emotional commitment to his roles. While on the surface, his transformation into Michael Burry for The Big Short may seem to pale in comparison to some of his other similarly lauded work, Bale absolutely takes on the skin of a man who knows he is right but does not have the aptitude for sharing that information with others.

Burry is quite clearly on the autism spectrum – like so many math geniuses in pop culture these days – but Bale employs none of the quirky, platitudinous mannerisms or line readings we have come to expect from these kinds of characters. Burry is just a man who can see the future in the numbers, and his job is to earn money for his clients with that knowledge. Because he understands numbers but not nuance, his life is constantly frustrating, and Bale taps into that frustration expertly.

Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight – Ruffalo was here just last year for his wonderful turn in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher. He is back for his standout performance as fiery journalist Mike Rezendes, the kind of man whose passion for his job sometimes clouds his judgment but whose goals are always noble. He is so appalled by the depth of the abuse and corruption he uncovers that it rattles him in ways he never could have imagined.

This is the only performance in the category this year to feature what one might call an “Oscar scene” – that big, showy moment we talked about above – and Ruffalo nails it. The goal of the Spotlight team is to dig deeper than anyone else is willing to go, to investigate more than anyone else has thought to, and to find what others missed.

As the scope of the Catholic Church’s cover-up becomes clear, Rezendes insists they publish their findings sooner rather than later, while the rest of the team says there is still more to find. Ruffalo never hits a false note during Rezendes’ impassioned speech about taking down the system that has allowed this to happen. The scene is the culmination of all the careful groundwork Ruffalo has laid to establish who this man is, what he cares about, and what he wants.

The final analysis

The most likely winners are Stallone and Rylance. Stallone has the nostalgia factor in his favor and the kind of story voters may want to give a happy ending. He also won the Golden Globe. However, Rylance mostly dominated the critics’ awards – at least among those who were nominated – and just picked up the BAFTA last Sunday. The Golden Globe may mean little for Stallone’s chances since the Hollywood Foreign Press loves celebrities and Stallone is a huge international star. However, Rylance’s win with BAFTA was not so surprising since he is a wildly popular stage actor in England.

Interestingly, each of the other three nominees is here representing one of the three Best Picture frontrunners. Should Stallone or Rylance falter, whichever of the other actors wins would be a major signal for which film might take the top award. If Hardy wins, we could be looking at a sweep for The Revenant. If it goes to Bale, then it means The Big Short’s seemingly waning strength has rebounded. A Ruffalo win would be a powerful statement for Spotlight. In the end, though, I expect Stallone to win and get a standing ovation to boot.

Will win: Sylvester Stallone for Creed

Should win: Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies

Should have been here: Michael Shannon for 99 Homes

Tomorrow: Best Actress

New movie review: Spotlight

The team comes together in writer-director Tom McCarthy's masterful Spotlight.

Spotlight is an American masterpiece. As a journalist, the true story of the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team uncovering the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal fills me with pride. As a human, however, it fills me with shame and disgust. This is among the darkest chapters in our shared cultural history, and it is ongoing. Every day in every part of the world, new victims come forward, and we are confronted with the painful reality of a system and a society that has allowed this to continue.

The concerted effort to protect pedophile priests in the Catholic Church has been described as a conspiracy of silence, but few can agree on the members of the conspiracy. The church wants the public to believe this is the work of “a few bad apples,” a phrase repeated throughout the film. The evidence suggests the entire church is corrupt all the way to the top. Common sense, however, tells us systems take their power from people – in this case, the parishioners.

“If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a village to abuse one,” says Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), the lawyer for the victims. Like that, we are all implicated. Even the venerable Globe is not without blood on its hands as we learn the paper had the all the pieces needed to break the story years before the Spotlight team but refused to put them together. No one wants to acknowledge the abuse because to do so is to recognize a fundamental flaw in ourselves. Knowing everything, we still did nothing.

It is a common trick in movies like this to use one or two people to represent large numbers of victims – the old adage, “One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic,” comes to mind. Writer-director Tom McCarthy thankfully avoids this trap, and we watch the team interview survivor after survivor after survivor, establishing both the pattern and scope of the abuse. They are not just numbers. They are real people with families and friends and lives. They feel regret and shame and anger, and we in the audience feel anger for them as we come to know each and every one of them personally.

In an early sequence, expertly assembled by editor Tom McArdle, the film cuts back and forth between interviews with two victims. Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) speaks with a middle-aged gay man about his abuse at the hands of a priest who earned his trust little by little before exploiting it. At the same time, Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) hears the story of a younger, married working-class man and the priest who abused him in the wake of his father’s death.

These two men could not be more different, but their stories are distressingly similar, to the point where one wonders if a priest’s copy of the catechism comes with a handbook for abuse. We meet more survivors, whose experiences differ in the details but the cumulative effect of which leads us to only one conclusion. The church’s abuse robbed these people of their innocence, their trust, and their faith in god, and the hypocrisy at the center of it all is a legal and moral wrong that went willfully unchecked for too long.

If this all sounds like a tragically bleak tale, it is, but under the masterful direction of McCarthy, working from a script he co-wrote with Josh Singer, it never feels like a slog. Quite the contrary. Spotlight is a riveting legal thriller and excellent journalistic drama on par with the classic All the President’s Men. The film plays off the audience’s own sense of right and wrong, and though we know the abuse will be brought to light, we sit glued to our seats, breathlessly anticipating the moment when the Globe fires the first shot to bring down this system.

Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, and Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight.

So few films understand the mechanics of journalism, and even fewer seem to try. Spotlight, for which McCarthy collaborated closely with the staff of the Globe, gets it. This film knows what it is like to pore over the stacks in search of one piece of information. This film knows what it is like to go door to door with a pad and pencil in your hands, seeking answers from people who do not want to talk to you. This film also knows an editor will get annoyed if you use “golf” as a verb. The Globe in this movie has the feel of a real newsroom, and it is refreshing to see that feeling accurately depicted on screen.

Moreover, the cast, which also worked closely with those being portrayed, feels like a news team. In these people, I recognize the personalities and professionals I have worked with throughout my career. Ruffalo nails the style of a hard-nosed reporter who puts the story above all else. Michael Keaton is perfect as Spotlight Editor Robby Robinson, who must at all times keep the bigger picture in focus. John Slattery is great as Globe Editor Ben Bradlee Jr., who knows how important it is to check every fact and cover every base. McAdams, Tucci, Liev Schrieber, and Brian D’Arcy James are all excellent, as well. This cast is perhaps the best evidence yet for the need of an ensemble award at the Oscars.

They are helped by a tremendous screenplay that seems to understand how each of these characters would speak. McCarthy and Singer shift seamlessly from the heightened, condescending manner of the clergy to the workingman vernacular of many of the victims, hitting every other level in between. Compare that to something like an Aaron Sorkin script, in which every character sounds as witty and didactic as Sorkin, and you understand how rare it is to see real people interact how they might in life.

The film’s facility with language and understanding of human connection should be no surprise, though, coming as it does from McCarthy, whose filmography is full of compassionate, lonely people trying to find their way in life. McCarthy is the same writer-director who brought us the excellent trio of independent films The Station Agent, The Visitor, and Win Win. Even his most recent effort, the critically derided The Cobbler, displays the same care for building character and motivation McCarthy has always shown.

McCarthy is perhaps best recognized as an actor in films such as Meet the Parents, Syriana, and Good Night and Good Luck or television shows such as The Wire and Boston Public. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing Pixar’s magnificent Up. His directorial efforts, however, have rarely garnered much attention, despite being generally well liked. Spotlight could change all that. McCarthy has deserved larger recognition for his work behind the camera for years, and this should be movie that brings it to him.

While Spotlight is a quintessentially American film, its story is global as we are reminded at the end by a series of title cards listing the cities all over the world in which major sex abuse scandals have been uncovered. One is too many. That the final list names too many cities to count is disgraceful. Against this international backdrop, the Globe’s victory in highlighting abuse in Boston parishes may seem small, but its larger triumph is to force us to see what we would rather not. Knowing what we know now, we can never look away again, and it is incumbent upon us to pick up a torch, shine a light, and guide the way to providence.

See it? Yes.

Now Watch This: The Brothers Bloom

By Sean Patrick Leydon

Contributor

The Brothers Bloom may not sound familiar to you. That’s okay. Nobody I’ve investigated has admitted to seeing it either. The fact is: It is the second feature film written and directed by Rian Johnson, the same guy who did Brick and Looper. He was also recently announced as the writer-director for Star Wars Episodes VIII and IX.

Johnson is a playful artist, unafraid to set a drugged-out film noir in a high school and almost singularly capable of making time travel cool again via mafia hitmen. He mixes genres in ways mere mortals could never conceive, then uses those familiar tropes to flesh out the layers of meaning that create interesting, multi-faceted characters.

All of these aspects of Johnson’s work are brought to life in The Brothers Bloom, a highly stylized film that tells the story of the brothers Bloom (Adrian Brody) and Stephen (Mark Ruffalo), con men since childhood. The narrator tells you directly: “If one [story] bears a bookmark in the confidence man’s tome, it would be that of Penelope and the Brothers Bloom.”

There is an openness to the tall tales within the film, a constant awareness of the nigh impossibility of the acts, which lends a childlike sweetness to the story. Many scenes are cut using sketches from Stephen’s storyboard for the job. It's like reading a picture book about fabled honorable thieves written for the coolest kid ever. Because of this, admittedly, some scenes are slightly telegraphed, but like pointing out the flaws in our favorite childhood tales, over-examining the simple noir plot points distracts from the fun to be had by suspending your disbelief and giving yourself over to Johnson’s story.

When you accept what you are watching and let yourself be taken along for the ride, you get to enjoy watching clever people use their minds to hack the planet. Stephen and Bloom are masters of the human psyche, using clothes, settings, accents, and fear but mostly their words to get what they want.

They are our protagonists, and we love them. We don’t mind that they spin wonderful lies to rob their marks blind. As my mother would say, this is not the type of movie the nuns would let you watch. Stephen argues that ignorance is bliss for their marks, and there is a darkness in his rationalization, and in that darkness, we realize that The Brothers Bloom is something more than just a childish fable.

This darkness is not singular within Johnson’s work. Brick is full of murder, paranoia, depression, lust, and greed, while Looper doubles down on the greed and adds hate, suicide, and loneliness. There is a recurring theme of characters involved is shady goings on yet still trying to make things right. Johnson tells stories about criminals and heroes – often indistinguishable – who work at cross purposes to the world around them. He takes us to places defined by the grayness of their morality and filled with people struggling to define what honor means for them.

I watched Johnson’s first film, Brick, a million times as a teen and the (original) Star Wars trilogy about as much in my childhood. The marriage of Star Wars and Johnson represents a freakish collision of the varied tastes I’ve spent my life developing. I’m wary of one of my favorite directors being given so much power but extremely excited to see what he does with it.

Think about Han Solo. He rules. Everyone watching Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time knew Han Solo ruled when he appeared on screen. Here was a badass smuggler with a laser pistol on his hip and a yeti for a companion, and he reluctantly accepts a noble quest because, what the hell, there’s money in it. He is a perfect Johnson-type hero: morally ambiguous but with deeply hidden notions of what’s right and what’s wrong.

Most of the characters in the Star Wars canon take a while to understand. Growing pains abound. Not so for Han Solo. He’s seen the whole universe, and he’s guarded because he knows it can crush anything with its indiscriminate wrath. I predict Johnson’s Star Wars entries will be full of mysterious, Solo-esque characters, eking out meager existences on the margins of their worlds and hiding the ghosts and demons within them from their friends and enemies alike.

These secret dark places in the minds of the characters Johnson creates are among the many reasons I’m excited for Star Wars Episodes VIII and IX. Add to that the fact that Johnson filmed Brick with donations from his family and friends and shot it at a high school while classes were in session. That film blew my brain apart, and I know I’m not the only one. Just imagine what he could do with the financial weight of Disney behind him – and hopefully the creative latitude to see his vision through to the big screen.

Johnson has been a director to watch right from the beginning of his career. While not as widely available as they should be, his films are out there waiting to be discovered. I watched The Brothers Bloom on DVD because, of course, I own it because Rian Johnson is my favorite. You, however, can and should watch this on whatever streamy tablet/computer/phone you like because it is currently screening somewhere in the vast cosmos of Netflix Instantwatch. You should do that. Go watch this children’s book of a film noir, then dream about lightsabers after.

Sean Patrick Leydon is a photographer, artist, and contributor to Last Cinema Standing. You can check out more of his work at nonotthought.blogspot.com.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actor

JK Simmons is the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Whiplash.

Each day as we make our way to the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, Last Cinema Standing will take an in-depth look at each of the categories, sorting out the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Check back right here for analysis, predictions, and gripes as we inch toward the Dolby Theater and that world-famous red carpet.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are:

Edward Norton for Birdman

Ethan Hawke for Boyhood

Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher

Robert Duvall for The Judge

JK Simmons for Whiplash

Every year before the Oscar nominations come out, I put together a wish list for work I hope to be cited, the work I would vote for if I had a ballot, and every year, about 70 to 80 percent of that is left on the sidelines. Suffice it to say, my personal tastes do not align much with the Academy’s. That held mostly true this year except for one category: Best Supporting Actor. Three of the nominated actors were on my wish list, and a fourth just barely missed my list, which means you will get no complaints from me in this category – well, maybe one complaint, but we will get to that later.

Even beyond my personal preferences, this is a fun group, featuring four previous nominees but no previous winners, although Duvall does have an Oscar for Best Actor. Somebody is walking away with his first trophy for Best Supporting Actor, and that alone is pretty cool. For you comic book fans, two of these guys have played the Hulk, and a third is featured prominently in several Spider-Man movies. Duvall is obviously an industry legend, whom you may recognize from a few of the greatest films of all time, and Hawke has spent his career standing toe to toe with some of the best actors of his generation, such that it might be time to start thinking of him in that arena as well.

The Academy likes its supporting actors flashy. The winners in this category tend to be outsized characters who step in for a few scenes and leave a huge impact. Being a memorable villain certainly does not hurt, and if your role is actually more of a co-lead than supporting, so much the better for your chances. As good as this list of nominees is, though, this might be the most locked-up category of the whole evening. All the precursors, all the industry love, everything has pointed to one man for the win: Simmons.

JK Simmons for Whiplash – What can you say about Simmons except, “Wow?” You have to feel good for a longtime character actor who gets this kind of showcase role and just knocks it out of the park. If you know Simmons, it is probably as J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, as the Farmers Insurance guy, or as “You know, I recognize him, but I don’t know his name.” Hopefully a well-deserved Oscar for playing a borderline psychopath music instructor will change all that.

Simmons has never really been known for playing the nice guy anyway – the closest I can think of is as the gruff dad in Juno – but as the band teacher Fletcher, Simmons shapes a whole new kind of bad guy. He is not underhanded. He does not want to be your friend. His goals are not even all-together evil. His intentions are as plain as the fresh-from-the-pack black T-shirts he wears. He wants to push his students to the breaking point, then break the ones who can be broken.

Fletcher accomplishes this by spewing an unending stream of hate and vitriol at his students. He spits, he growls, he throws instruments, and he is dedicated to exactly one thing: perfection. Simmons gives himself over entirely to the role, disappearing into the mind of a madman with a method. Even when Fletcher is at his most maniacal, Simmons imbues him with a sense of poise and togetherness that suggests there are further untapped wells of hate and violence in him, which might be the scariest thought of all.

Edward Norton for Birdman – One of the complaints lodged against the performances in Birdman is that many of the actors appeared simply to be playing themselves. While that assertion is of course ludicrous, one could see where critics get the idea from when watching Norton portray a self-involved, self-satisfied actor who claims to be above commerce and solely interested in finding truth and creating art. That is what makes the performance so perversely good. Norton is playing off the public perception of himself as an actor, and his critics are playing right into his hand.

Birdman is a satire that hits every target in the entertainment industry, the actors included, and Norton’s portrayal of the serious Actor-with-a-capital-A Mike cuts the legs out from under all of his self-important peers. His wild mood swings, his insane demands, his supposed dedication to finding truth – these are all jabs at the very people who nominated Norton’s work. So, good on the Academy for appreciating the joke, and good on Norton for having the guts to stare right back at these people and tell them what he thinks of them.

Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher – In real life, Ruffalo already seems like everybody’s favorite older brother. In Foxcatcher, he takes on that role and adds layers of pathos and empathy, acting as the one person trying to hold everything together while it all falls apart. Ruffalo plays David Schultz as the responsible one, the family man, the guy trying to honor his commitments while doing right by his brother. Schultz carries this weight because no one around him is capable of it, and Ruffalo’s every action lets the audience in on his burden.

Ruffalo has a natural weariness about him, perfect for exploring the inner life of a wrestler who is getting a little old for the life of an Olympic athlete. He has competed for years, and he is tired, but he loves what he does, and he loves his brother. This is his undoing. As a man of honor and principle, he cannot walk away when he should. As icy as director Bennett Miller makes Foxcatcher overall, Ruffalo brings warmth and heart to the proceedings, and by the end, it seems as if he is the only person with blood still running through his veins.

Ethan Hawke for Boyhood – As with his parenting counterpart in the film, Patricia Arquette, Hawke’s dedication to Boyhood is an astounding feat in its own right. A lot can change in the life of an actor over the course of 12 years. Hell, a lot can change for anyone over the course of 12 years. Still, Hawke showed up every year to join director Richard Linklater, Arquette, and his two young co-stars to create a stunning paean to the passage of time and the importance of slowing down to appreciate the little things in life.

The most remarkable aspect of these characters is how seamless the performances are. Though he grows and ages and matures, Hawke seems like the same dad at the end of the film as he was at the beginning. For a dozen years, Hawke spent one month a year living with this character and 11 months working on anything else, but he never loses the feeling for who is character is. Though the intervening time may have changed him, the core is still there, and that is thanks to Hawke.

Robert Duvall for The Judge – I have been pretty hard on this nomination all season because it has always felt like a ballot filler. There were five spots to fill, and voters already penciled in the four outstanding performances above. They needed one more, so why not go with the beloved, longtime actor who turned in solid work in a mediocre movie? Here are a few reasons: Michael Fassbender in Frank, Chris O’Dowd in Calvary, Josh Brolin in Inherent Vice, Riz Ahmed in Nightcrawler, and Andy Serkis in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. That is just off the top of my head.

From the beginning of the season, Duvall was pegged as a contender, and that train could not be stopped, though it arguably never should have left the station. Duvall has some good scenes as an elderly judge on trial for murdering a man he felt slipped through the cracks in the justice system. He is particularly good in the final courtroom scene, but the whole film is just impossibly corny. The sentiment pours in like fog, and whatever good work Duvall does is just lost in it.

The final analysis

On Sunday night, Simmons will leave the Dolby Theater with his first Oscar. There is not much analysis in that, but sometimes, these things are just written in the stars. Early in the season, Simmons ceded some of the critics’ kudos to Norton, but there was never any real momentum in that direction, just outliers. Simmons is the consummate professional, an actors’ actor, and the kind of guy whose peers want to see win awards. He deserves this, and he will win it. Sometimes, it really is that simple.

Will win: JK Simmons for Whiplash

Should win: JK Simmons for Whiplash

Wish he had been here: Michael Fassbender for Frank