AFT Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role

This is the third category of the 7th 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 100 films. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions:
Richard Jenkins (A.C.O.D.), Alex Shaffer (The Lifeguard), Peter Sarsgaard (Lovelace), Daniel Gimenez Cacho (Blancanieves), Yiftach Klein (Fill the Void), Jack Huston (Kill Your Darlings), Richmond Arquette (This is Martin Bonner), Steve Carell (The Way, Way Back), Steve Coogan (What Maisie Knew), Alexander Skarsgard (What Maisie Knew), Antony Starr (Wish You Were Here)

Runners-up:
Jacob Lofland (Mud)
Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)
Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
Ben Foster (Kill Your Darlings)
Guillaume de Tonquedec (What's in a Name?)

The winner:
Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek Into Darkness) was a mesmerizing villain who mysterious, alluring, and an excellent nemesis for Kirk and Spock.

Other nominees:
Sam Rockwell (The Way, Way Back) dominated his ensemble comedy, pretending to be carefree and managing to be entirely hilarious. Dane DeHaan (Kill Your Darlings) stood out among a talented cast as a darkly appealing young intellectual. Matthew McConaughey (Mud) showed that he can get serious with this astounding turn as a mystery man who truly springs into action when he has purpose. Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) created a layered demon, a slavemaster who convinced himself that white men were ordained to enslave others.