This year, the Academy Awards really knocked it out of the park when it comes to their acting nominees, and that’s abundantly clear in their choices for Best Supporting Actor. This year’s nominees include two actors who should’ve absolutely been nominated by now, two actors who have Oscars, and one young actor receiving his well-deserved first nomination.
Overall, it’s an excellent group of nominees, five choices that elevated their individual films in major ways. Even better, they did so by not playing it safe, embodying everything from emotionally distant filmmakers to monstrous creatures and even an unconventional sensei. With five great performances to choose from, let’s rank the five nominees in this year’s Best Supporting Actor race at the Oscars.
5
Delroy Lindo – ‘Sinners’
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Delroy Lindo finally getting his first Oscar nomination for his performance as Delta Slim in Sinners was one of the biggest, most welcome surprises in this year’s Oscar nominations. Lindo has always elevated every project he’s in, and it still stings that he wasn’t nominated for playing the lead in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, which might still be Lindo’s finest role. As one would expect, Lindo is a great addition to the ensemble of Sinners, fighting the vampires that are circling the juke joint, desperate to get in for fresh blood.
It would be absolutely wonderful for Lindo to win here to celebrate a remarkable career that still surprises. But Delta Slim just doesn’t have quite the same weight as many of the other nominated characters in Sinners have. And while we wouldn’t complain at all if Lindo won this long-overdue award, it’s unfortunately fifth place in this incredibly talented group of nominees.
4
Jacob Elordi – ‘Frankenstein’
Jacob Elordi as The Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is the heart and soul of this adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, giving us one of the most sympathetic versions of this character brought to screen so far. Not only has Elordi been vastly underrated in films like Priscilla and Oh, Canada, but the process of bringing The Creature to life truly shows his dedication to this performance.
Elordi only had nine weeks to prepare for the role after Andrew Garfield dropped out of the project, and the makeup process to turn him into The Creature took 10 hours. And yet under all this makeup and with very little time to prepare, Elordi brought new life to a character we’ve seen countless times in other adaptations, a son searching for a father, a creature searching for humanity, and a life that desperately wants to be lived. Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a grand production with so many moving parts, but without Elordi’s dedicated performance and his ability to make The Creature come to life, from learning how to become a living person to a human being all of his own, Frankenstein simply wouldn’t have worked as well as it does.
3
Benicio del Toro – ‘One Battle After Another’
Is anyone having as much fun in a small role as Benicio del Toro is having in One Battle After Another as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos? Halfway through Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, del Toro comes in as a welcome addition to this world, a sensei who is also hiding undocumented people in his dojo, and doing his best to get Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson on his way and with a charged phone. The good sensei isn’t just an incredible source of memes, from “a few small beers” to his little dance after getting pulled over by the cops, but he gives Bob a much-needed sidekick as he tries to find his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti).
When Bob and the sensei are together, they’re an incredible team-up that is fighting for the revolution and has each other’s back, no matter where the road takes them. It’s also in this dynamic that the spirit of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, which inspired the film, really starts to shine through, as he’s such an unusual character with so many angles that manages to make perfect sense in this world. Del Toro might not be our number one pick, but in terms of fun characters in this category, he’s absolutely the winner.
2
Sean Penn – ‘One Battle After Another’
Sean Penn is already one of the few actors to have two Oscars, having previously won for Mystic River in 2004 and for Milk in 2009, but his performance as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw shows just what makes him such a great actor. Lockjaw manages to be both a terrifying threat and a ridiculous character that you can’t help but laugh at because of his absurdity.
His obsession with Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) and his dedication to taking down the French 75 haunt this entire story, as you can almost feel him closing in on Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson throughout the film. However, he’s also a racist idiot with a gravelly voice and fake macho posturing that’s easy to see through. Penn plays Lockjaw as a fragile ego that is just waiting for any provocation, a weak man pretending to be otherwise. Especially now in this political and societal environment, Penn’s performance at Lockjaw feels more relevant than ever.
1
Stellan Skarsgård – ‘Sentimental Value’
Stellan Skarsgård getting nominated in Best Supporting Actor for Sentimental Value is arguably a case of category fraud, considering he’s very clearly the lead actor in Joachim Trier’s drama. We’ll allow it since it’s ridiculous that this is the actor’s first nomination, and quite frankly, he deserves to win an Oscar for his performance as filmmaker Gustav Borg. Skarsgård has to play a very delicate balancing act, both a parent that we understand to be very flawed and wasn’t there for his kids when they needed him the most, but who we also need to sympathize and care for, especially regarding his dedication to making sure his latest film gets made. But Skarsgård handles this balance beautifully and with ease, making Gustav a layered, complicated man who struggles with sharing how he feels — something he seemingly can only do through the framework of his films, whether he knows it or not.
The entire weight of Sentimental Value shifts when he’s on screen, whether it’s coming to terms with his relationship to his daughter, Nora (Renate Reinsve), relying too much on his other daughter, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaaas), or trying to prepare actress Rachel Kemp (Ella Fanning) to star in his newest project. Skarsgård’s Gustav is a commanding presence throughout Sentimental Value, and even though it might not be as much of a supporting role as the other performances on this list, it’s certainly one of the best performances of the year.
date: 2026-02-12 00:25:00