AFT Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role

This is the first category of the 14th 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. I’m drawing only from films that were either released or playing at a film festival in the 2020 calendar year. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them.. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions:
Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami), Sarm Heng (Buoyancy), Cooper Raiff (S#!&house)

Runners-up:
Pete Davidson (The King of Staten Island)
Eli Goree (One Night in Miami)
Jahi Di’Allo Winston (Charm City Kings)
Andy Samberg (Palm Springs)
Fionn O'Shea (Dating Amber)

The winner:
Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) tuned into the passion and ego of a man best equipped to express himself through music and equally capable of doing so through words. It’s a formidable final performance.

Other nominees:
Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)
Clayne Crawford (The Killing of Two Lovers)
Bartosz Bielenia (Corpus Christi)
Gary Oldman (Mank)