AFT Awards: Best Breakthrough Performance

This is the twentieth 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. Click here to see previous years of this category. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them.

The winner:
Adèle Exarchupoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color) displayed an incredible natural comfort with being on screen, delivering an intimate and honest lead performance opposite a much more experienced actress.

Other nominees:
Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) went head-to-head with Tom Hanks and commanded the screen. Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland (Mud) were the indisputable stars of their film, imbuing infinite maturity and endless curiosity. Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave), who is deservedly reserving plenty of awards attention, truly inhabited her heartbreaking role as an enslaved woman desperate not to be noticed.