As part of my 2023 movie wrap-up, this week I’ll be presenting my own nominations for the acting and directing categories (if I ran the Oscars). First up is Best Supporting Actor.

This was a very good movie year, with so many films jockeying for the top spots on my year-end list and so many performances worthy of singling out. In the interest of spreading the love, I’ve tried to lean toward performances that haven’t been recognized by the Academy when compiling my acting nominations. In some cases, though, I had to go with the favorites.

Before getting to my picks, I’ll offer up some honorable mentions, including two pairs of actors from two very different movies: Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things, and Jamie Bell and Paul Mescal in All of Us Strangers. I also considered Killers of the Flower Moon‘s Robert DeNiro, They Cloned Tyrone‘s Jamie Foxx, and May/December‘s Charles Melton.

And the nominees are…

Ryan Gosling – Barbie
This one has been far from overlooked, as the most talked-about performance in the year’s most successful movie. But I couldn’t exclude Gosling from this list. He delivers one of the best comic turns I’ve seen in years, giving a unique, off-kilter spin to every line delivery and facial expression. He’s so goofily earnest even when going dark. Sublime!

Milo Machado-Graner – Anatomy of a Fall
Child performers rarely get their due from the Academy, which is a shame because in recent years they have delivered some of cinema’s most memorable work. Fifteen-year-old Machado-Graner plays a pivotal role in this gripping family drama, carrying the film’s climax on his small shoulders with the confidence of a veteran thespian.

Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers
First-time actor Sessa was a student at the school where The Holdovers was filmed, and his drama teacher asked if some of the students could audition for a role. Sessa lived up to that incredible origin story by stealing scenes against heavyweights Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, portraying a troublemaking boarding school kid with a wounded heart.

Stanley Simons – The Iron Claw
The whole supporting cast of The Iron Claw deserves a mention here: Holt McCallany as patriarch Fritz Von Erich, along with Jeremy Allen White and Harris Dickinson as two of his sons. But the performance I couldn’t shake was Simons’ gut-wrenching turn as youngest brother Mike, a sweet and artistic young man swallowed up by the pressures of his family.

Donnie Yen – John Wick 4
I’ve complained in the past about comic performances not getting their due from the Academy. That bias goes double for action stars. Yen, an award-winning performer in his native Hong Kong, does amazing physical work as a blind assassin, but also gives us a sense of the conflicted man behind the fierce facade. And he does it all from behind a pair of sunglasses.

And the winner is… Dominic Sessa. This is such a meaty role, rich with humor and sadness, and Sessa inhabits it so fully. It helps that this is his first role, because you never believe he is anybody other than this character, but… this is his first role! I’m blown away by what he was able to accomplish here.

[Note: Today’s song happens to come from The Holdovers, but I won’t only feature songs from my winners this week.]