My Award nominations: Supporting Actor

No clear frontrunner for me in this category this year. I'm not yet sure which of these five Supporting Actors I'll choose as the year's best:

LEONARDO DICAPRIO in Django Unchained:

DiCaprio slyly allows the malicious venom of his wicked plantation owner to simmer beneath a slightly fey surface before his big scene, teasing us with an intangible sense of danger that suddenly bursts forth in an explosion of terrifying hostility.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER in Prometheus:

The clear standout of the cast, Fassbender plays the robotic David with calibrated nuance, carefully projecting resentment, jealousy, and guile only by the power of suggestion. His “synthetic” personality is far more interesting than any of the human ones.

DWIGHT HENRY in Beasts of the Southern Wild:

Henry is heartbreaking as the man struggling simultaneously with his own mortality and his stubbourn pride. The tenuous, fluctuating relationship between his character and Hushpuppy is one of the films most brilliantly evoked elements.

EZRA MILLER in The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

In a complete 180 from the fundamentally evil presence he carved in last year's We Need to Talk About Kevin, Miller ignites a much valued spark of glee in this otherwise dulcet film. His flamboyant scene-stealing never undercuts his character's more dramatic beats.

DAVID STRATHAIRN in Lincoln:

It's a shame Strathairn's role as Lincoln's loyal but harried Secretary of State William Seward became less prominent in the movie's last half, because it was an effortlessly natural and subtle take on well-meaning but nervous pragmatism.



Just Missed: Jason Clarke in Zero Dark Thirty,
Brian Cranston in Argo, Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises,
Jude Law in Anna Karenina, Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained