AFT Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role

This is the third category of the 9th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them and drawn from a pool of approximately 122 films. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions:
Ben Mendelsohn (Slow West), Benedict Cumberbatch (Black Mass), Bradley Cooper (Joy), Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Martian), Edgar Ramirez (Joy), Emile Hirsch (Ten Thousand Saints), Giorgi Nakashidze (Tangerines), Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation), Jeff Daniels (Steve Jobs), Jeff Daniels (The Martian), Josh Charles (Freeheld), Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight), Michael Fassbender (Slow West), Michael Stuhlbarg (Steve Jobs), Mikheil Meskhi (Tangerines), Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina), Rory Cochrane (Black Mass), Seth Rogen (Steve Jobs), Steve Carell (Freeheld), Sylvester Stallone (Creed), Thomas Middleditch (The Bronze), Tom Noonan (Anomalisa), Tom Hardy (The Revenant), Domnhall Gleeson (The Revenant), Max Irons (Woman in Gold), Chris Pine (Z for Zachariah)

Runners-up:
Robert De Niro (Joy)
Jason Mantzoukas (Sleeping with Other People)
Harvey Keitel (Youth)
Gabriel Garko (Misunderstood)
Joel Edgerton (Black Mass)

The winner:
Walton Goggins (The Hateful Eight) stood out in a stacked cast because of the pure delight and energy he brought to his rampant racism and outlook on his situation, matching five Oscar nominees and a handful of other respected actors to prove that he is worthy of incredible film roles.

Other nominees:
RJ Cyler (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), as the middle part of his film’s title, was droll and unenthusiastic, so perfectly muted in contrast to the absurdity of his film parodies and the excitement of his costar. Sasson Gabai (Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem) and Menashe Noy (Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem) did most of the talking for a sparring couple, investing their characters’ emotions into a trial that wasn’t initially about them and truly laying their emotions bare in a way lawyers rarely do. Jason Schwartzman (The Overnight) was just the actor to play a peculiar young father with some strange interest that isn’t immediately apparent, an odd but hilarious role for the always committed actor.