AFT Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role

This is the third category of the 8th 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 156 films. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions:
Aaron Paul (Hellion), Andrew Scott (Pride), Ben Mendelsohn (Starred Up), Bill Nighy (Pride), Chris O'Dowd (Calvary), Colm Meaney (Alan Partridge), Deke Garner (Hellion), Dominic West (Pride), Dylan Llewellyn (Frequencies), Ethan Hawke (Boyhood), Fabio Audi (The Way He Looks), Gordon Pinsent (The Grand Seduction), Henrik Rafaelsen (Blind), Jaeden Lieberher (St. Vincent), James Corden (Begin Again), Jeff Goldblum (Le Week-End), Joe Swanberg (Happy Christmas), Johnny Flynn (Song One), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Young Ones), Laurence Fishburne (Rudderless), Mackenzie Crook (One Chance), Marc Hosemann (A Coffee in Berlin), Marius Kolbenstvedt (Blind), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher), Paddy Considine (Pride), Richard E. Grant (Dom Hemingway), Sam Shepard (Cold in July), Scoot McNairy (Frank), Zach Galifianakis (Birdman)

Runners-up:
Josh Brolin (Inherent Vice)
Sam Rockwell (Laggies)
Nicholas Hoult (Young Ones)
Demian Bichir (Dom Hemingway)
Anton Yelchin (Rudderless)

The winner:
Edward Norton (Birdman) was electric, maniacal, focused, and brilliant, as an actor well aware of his audience and not keen to merely accept his role for what it is, intensifying an already fantastic and layered film with his nuanced performance.

Other nominees:
Don Johnson (Cold in July) burst onto the scene with such a vigor and energy that contrasted the film’s darkness and somehow managed to be one of its most magnetic parts. J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) took pieces of the smaller parts from throughout his career to craft one truly formidable and cruel instructor intent on making his students suffer for failing to achieve perfection. Tye Sheridan (Joe) handed in a fine, mature performance just as strong as his big debut in “Mud” last year, full of just as much hope and wonder but more committed to hard work and the reality of his situation. Jonathan Pryce (Listen Up Philip) brilliantly embodied a writer obsessed with his own intellect, a suitable mentor for the similarly-minded Philip and the source of many fantastic lines.