Voting for nominations will take place January 11-16, 2024, with the official Oscar nominations announced on January 23, 2024. Final voting is February 22-27, 2024. Finally, the telecast of the 96th Academy Awards will be broadcast Sunday, March 10 and live on ABC at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. We update the predictions throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all of our Oscars 2024 picks.
The state of the breed
While there aren’t any Best Supporting Actor contenders from the first half of the year that look set to dominate the entirety of the upcoming awards season, like this year’s winner Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once” ), many performances have been considered outstanding among impressive ensembles.
The biggest current example would be the praise Ryan Gosling is receiving for his comedic portrayal of Ken in the highly anticipated Warner Bros. release “Barbie,” but go back a bit and actors like Noah Galvin (“Theatre Camp “), Chris Messina (“Air”) and Glenn Howerton (“Blackberry”) have all garnered a wave of praise from viewers coming out of previews at Sundance and SXSW.
But if one had to bet on the three actors who already seem destined for a nomination, even if there are dozens of performances that the public has not yet seen, it would be Robert De Niro for “Killers of the Flower Moon”, John Magaro for “Past Lives ” and Charles Melton for “May December”. While the former is a two-time Academy Award winner who excels in a uniquely antagonistic role, the latter pair represent two different kinds of breakouts that the Academy loves to honor.
Magaro had recently been an awards contender for his role in Kelly Reichardt’s 2020 film ‘First Cow’, so those rooting for him are now thrilled to see him get an even bigger showcase with ‘Past Lives’, which most some critics consider it the best film of the year so far. Meanwhile, ‘Riverdale’ star Melton hasn’t been on the verge of awards contention in the same way, but he was the talk at Cannes following the sizzling ‘May December’ premiere, where people saw a different side of her acting skills hold her own between Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, both winners of Best Actress.
Still to come are films like ‘Challengers,’ ‘The Bikeriders,’ ‘Saltburn,’ and ‘The Iron Claw,’ which look like they might offer more than one strong Best Supporting Actor candidate, in part because it’s still not entirely clear how many performances in them they will be considered leads.
The best-known quantities are films like “Poor Things,” which has a trailer that heavily alludes to Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, and Ramy Youssef all orbiting lead character Emma Stone. “The Color Purple” already has a lot going for it — the original film adaptation received 11 Academy Award nominations and the Broadway musical adaptation was a big Tony winner — but Colman Domingo is especially one to watch here as a famous turn as Mister could bolster his lead actor campaign for “Rustin” and vice versa. Finally, Samuel L. Jackson has just been nominated for a Tony playing the same role he will play in “The Piano Lesson.” The Academy has awarded Oscars to the two August Wilson film adaptations Denzel Washington has produced so far, and Jackson has been nominated in this category before, so the 2024 Oscars could very well be the year the prolific actor finally wins. a competitive prize.
The contenders are listed alphabetically, below. No actor will be considered a favorite until I have seen the film.
First classified:
Robert De Niro (“The Flower Moon Killers”)
Noah Galvin (“The Field Theater”)
John Magaro (“Past Lives”)
Chris Messina (“Aria”)
Jesse Plemons (“The Flower Moon Killers”)
Contenders:
Ben Affleck (“Aria”)
Matt Bomer (“Master”)
Willem Dafoe (“Poor little things”)
Matt Damon (“Oppenheimer”)
Colman Domingo (“The Color Purple”)
Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”)
Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”)
Samuel L. Jackson (“The Piano Lesson”)
Charles Melton (“May December”)
Mark Ruffalo (“Poor Boys”)
Shots from distance:
Jason Bateman (“Aria”)
Austin Butler (“Dune: Part 2”)
Raúl Castillo (“Cassardo”)
Jacob Elordi (“Priscilla”)
Corey Hawkins (“The Color Purple”)
Glenn Howerton (“BlackBerry”)
Nathan Lane (“Beauty is Afraid”)
Jude Law (“Burning Ember”)
Will Pullen (“A Little Prayer”)
Ramy Youssef (“Poor things”)
