Oscars 2024: Best Supporting Actor Predictions

Nominations voting is from January 11-16, 2024, with official Oscar nominations announced January 23, 2024. Final voting is February 22-27, 2024. And finally, the 96th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 10 and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT. We update predictions through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2024 Oscar picks.

The State of the Race

While there are no Best Supporting Actor contenders from the first half of the year that seem set to dominate this coming awards season the whole way through, like this year’s winner Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), plenty of performances have been deemed standouts among impressive ensembles.

The biggest current example would be the praise Ryan Gosling is receiving for his comedic turn as Ken in the highly-anticipated Warner Bros. release “Barbie,” but turn back the clock a bit, and actors like Noah Galvin (“Theater Camp”), Chris Messina (“Air”), and Glenn Howerton (“Blackberry”) all garnered a wave of praise from filmgoers coming out of premieres at Sundance and SXSW.

But if one were to place bets on the three actors that already seem destined for a nomination, even though there are dozens of performances audiences have not seen yet, it would be Robert De Niro for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” John Magaro for “Past Lives,” and Charles Melton for “May December.” While the former is a two-time Oscar winner excelling at a uniquely antagonistic role, the latter pair represent two different kinds of breakouts the Academy loves to honor.

Magaro had recently been a longshot awards contender for his role in the 2020 Kelly Reichardt film “First Cow,” so those who were rooting for him then are now ecstatic to see him get an even bigger showcase with “Past Lives,” which the majority of critics consider to be the best film of the year so far. Meanwhile, “Riverdale” star Melton has not been on the brink of awards contention in the same way, but was the talk of Cannes after the buzzy “May December” premiere, where folks saw a different side of his acting capabilities holding his own between Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman — both Best Actress winners.

Still to come are films like “Challengers,” “The Bikeriders,” “Saltburn,” and “The Iron Claw,” which look like they could offer more than one viable Best Supporting Actor candidate, in part because it is not fully clear yet how many performances in them will be considered leads.

The more known quantities are films like “Poor Things,” which has a trailer that heavily hints at Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, and Ramy Youssef all orbiting lead Emma Stone. “The Color Purple” already has a lot of things going for it — the original film adaptation received 11 Oscar nominations, and the Broadway musical adaptation was a major Tony winner — but Colman Domingo is especially one to watch here as a celebrated turn as Mister could bolster his Lead Actor campaign for “Rustin,” and vice versa. Lastly, Samuel L. Jackson was just nominated for a Tony playing the same role he will be playing in “The Piano Lesson.” The Academy has given Oscars to the two August Wilson film adaptations Denzel Washington has produced so far, and Jackson has been nominated in this category before, so the 2024 Oscars could very well be the year the prolific actor finally wins a competitive award.

Contenders are listed in alphabetical order, below. No actor will be deemed a frontrunner until I have seen the film.

Frontrunners:
Robert De Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”)
Noah Galvin (“Theater Camp”)
John Magaro (“Past Lives”)
Chris Messina (“Air”)
Jesse Plemons (“Killers of the Flower Moon”)

Contenders:
Ben Affleck (“Air”)
Matt Bomer (“Maestro”)
Willem Dafoe (“Poor Things”)
Matt Damon (“Oppenheimer”)
Colman Domingo (“The Color Purple”)
Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”)
Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”)
Samuel L. Jackson (“The Piano Lesson”)
Charles Melton (“May December”)
Mark Ruffalo (“Poor Things”)

Long Shots:
Jason Bateman (“Air”)
Austin Butler (“Dune: Part Two”)
Raul Castillo (“Cassandro”)
Jacob Elordi (“Priscilla”)
Corey Hawkins (“The Color Purple”)
Glenn Howerton (“BlackBerry”)
Nathan Lane (“Beau is Afraid”)
Jude Law (“Firebrand”)
Will Pullen (“A Little Prayer”)
Ramy Youssef (“Poor Things”)