Following the recent annual Academy Award nominations announcement on the morning of Tuesday the 23rd of January, one of the most intriguing and exciting categories to emerge from the foundations comes from the Best Supporting Actor selection.
2024 is a year in which audiences have been overwhelmed with a grand list of strong performances within the male supporting genre, with a number of impressive performances just missing out on the cut at this year's nominations.
Exciting performances such as Charles Melton in 'May December', Dominic Sessa in 'The Holdovers', Jacob Elordi in 'Saltburn' and Willem Dafoe in 'Poor Things' were all deemed to be outside of the top 5 male supporting performances of the year, inevitably increasing the value and standards of those included within the 5.
The 5 men nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2024 Academy Awards are:
Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)
Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction)
Robert De Niro (Killers Of The Flower Moon)
Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
Following the awards season so far and the well respected pre-curser awards to the Oscars, it has been Robert Downey Jr. that has emerged as a slight frontrunner for his performance as Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'.
The industry legend, best known for his 10+ year portrayal of Marvel's Iron Man, is currently in possession of a Golden Globe and Critic's Choice win for his performance in the historical biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer. This, along with the fact that he is yet to miss out on any major pre-curser nomination, puts Downey Jr. in a strong position to make that Oscar his own when the night of March 10th finally arrives.
But the road towards Downey Jr's Oscar search may not seem so simple as it looks. As previously mentioned, the 5 performances nominated within the Best Supporting Actor category this year are all exceptional performances, all of which capable of competing with Downey Jr. for that beloved Oscar.
One of his most fierce opponents shapes up through the form of Ryan Gosling. Gosling brought tears to eyes and stitches to stomachs through his hilarious and unique performance as the real-life reimagination of Ken (yes, the doll) in Greta Gerwig's 'Barbie'.
Although it was meant to be Margot Robbie that would wow audiences with her performance as the titular character in this film, it ended up being Gosling that would steal the show for his performance in this movie, and put himself in with a very decent chance of becoming an Academy Award winner.
Despite the fact that the 43-year-old has been labelled as second best to Downey Jr. at a handful of pre-curser's so far this awards season, Gosling has picked up a smothering of nominations at well respected awarding bodies such as the Golden Globes, the Critic's Choice, the SAG Awards and the BAFTA's.
The final performance within the category that seems to be narrowing these 5 actors down to 3 when it comes to chances of taking home the award, is none other than Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's 'Killers Of The Flower Moon'. Much like Gosling, the industry great has been overwhelmed with nominations at every major pre-curser throughout this year's awards season, placing him in a decent position to make himself a three-time Oscar winner.
The predominant narrative circulating De Niro, reducing his chances of winning this year's award, is the fact that the 80-year-old is already a two time Academy Award winner (The Godfather Part II & Raging Bull). Although this isn't the bottom line for De Niro's chances of winning the Oscar, it does negatively impact them.
History throughout the Academy Awards has shown that voters tend to prefer to award performances within the acting categories that have received no prior love from the Academy. And although both Gosling and Downey Jr. have received nominations in the past, both are winless throughout their combined 4 nominations, giving them the edge over De Niro when it comes to their chances of taking home the award.
So although there seems to be an order formulating that represents the chances of these three men winning on March 10th, it would be idiotic to assume that none of the three could take home the award when the annual event finally arrives. De Niro, Gosling, Downey Jr, the chances are that one of those three names will be read out on the big night and be crowned as the Best Supporting Actor of 2024.
Who do you think will take home the award?
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