AFT Awards: Best Actress in a Supporting Role

This is the fourth category of the 10th 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 117 films. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions:
Anna Kendrick (The Hollars), Assi Levy (Wedding Doll), Azita Ghanizada (Complete Unknown), Carla Gugino (Wolves), Christine Estabrook (Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?), Christine Taylor (Little Boxes), Dakota Johnson (A Bigger Splash), Elisabeth Moss (High-Rise), Gillian Jacobs (Dean), Giulia Lazzarini (Mia Madre), Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women), Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake), Helen Mirren (Eye in the Sky), Janeane Garofalo (Little Boxes), Janelle Monae (Moonlight), Jessica Barden (The Lobster), Julianne Moore (Maggie's Plan), Karen Gillan (In a Valley of Violence), Kathryn Hahn (The Family Fang), Lauren Bowles (Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?), Léa Seydoux (The Lobster), Lucy Boynton (Sing Street), Malin Akerman (The Ticket), Margo Martindale (The Hollars), Marie-Josée Croze (An Eye for Beauty), Maryann Plunkett (The Family Fang), Mili Eshet (Beyond the Mountains and the Hills), Naomi Watts (Demolition), Naomie Harris (Moonlight), Naruna Kaplan de Macedo (Is That You?), Nicole Kidman (Lion), Nicole Kidman (The Family Fang), Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures), Rachael Deering (Adult Life Skills), Rachel Brosnahan (The Fixer), Rachel Weisz (The Light Between Oceans), Rachel Weisz (The Lobster), Rima Te Wiata (Hunt for the Wilderpeople), Sheila Vand (Women Who Kill), Shiree Nadav-Naor (Beyond the Mountains and the Hills), Teresa Palmer (Hacksaw Ridge)

Runners-up:
Janelle Monae (Hidden Figures)
Viola Davis (Fences)
Taissa Farmiga (In a Valley of Violence)
Olivia Colman (The Lobster)
Kerry Bishé (The Ticket)

The winner:
Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea) did a magnificent job of inhabiting a character defined by her connection to others whose circumstances go from one extreme to another in this equally excellent film.

Other nominees:
Elle Fanning (20th Century Women) was completely on point as a young woman with a distinct idea of what she wants and how she doesn’t want to be defined by anyone else’s expectations of her. Rooney Mara (Lion) reserved little recognition for her part in a powerful story, supportive of the main man in her life despite not being able to understand his experience. Riley Keough (American Honey) was a leader to those with no particular aims, lording her power over her minions just because she could. Breeda Wool (AWOL) drove her film’s energy as an alluring enigma who represented everything that a lost young woman could have wanted but never seemed to be quite within reach.