If the leading races orbit more around star power, the supporting field this year feels carved from something sturdier, like risk, restraint, and razor-edged character work. The 98th Academy Awards lineup seems to have resisted the usual gravitational pull towards prestige fatigue or genre bias. Instead, its honorees all have reshaped their films from the inside out.

These are not mere second leads lingering in narrative shadow; they have become tonal architects through their efforts. Across war dramas, gothic reimaginings, musical tragedies, and introspective European cinema, each nominee has proven that supporting acting, at its finest, might be cinema’s most honest barometer of craft.

The lineup in its entirety, while not wary of the bedazzlement with both veterans and modern-day heartthrobs, is a masterclass in skill.

Benicio del Toro’s Sergio St. Carlos arrives cloaked in myth but grounded in bruised humanity in One Battle After Another. He played the emotional gravity of the entire film, a karate sensei to Willa Furgeson. Toro, in fact, had reportedly collaborated closely on dialogue rhythms, shaping Sergio into a tactician haunted by wars he cannot unlearn.

His stillness is what does the heavy lifting, through watchful eyes scanning moral terrain before any weapon is raised.

The performance could be a masterclass in internalized conflict. Several reactions have highlighted how Toro reframed the film’s ideological stakes, never overpowering the narrative yet subtly steering it. Already a past Oscar winner, Toro's performance has likely sidestepped the return fatigue surrounding his resurgence and instead earned citations from critics’ circles for embodying war’s psychological residue with unnerving calm.

Jacob Elordi’s casting as The Creature, which was actually a replacement of Andrew Garfield, announced in early 2024, initially sparked curiosity more than certainty. Known for his brooding modern roles in Euphoria, Saltburn, and others, he disappeared beneath prosthetics and posture work to build a Creature defined less by monstrosity and more by wounded cognition. Upon Frankenstein's release, reception quickly pivoted from skepticism to awe.

Critics singled out Elordi’s vocal restraint, the personalized yet signature fragmented speech he layered with longing.

 Genre performances often struggle for Academy traction, yet Jacob Elordi's work transcended horror labeling. More guild nominations have followed the Oscar nomination, with commentators noting how his Creature reframed the film’s emotional core, turning spectacle into sorrow.

As Delta Slim, Delroy Lindo channeled blues history through a body weathered by sound and survival, with a strength that moved even himself to tears. He immersed himself in archival recordings and period performance styles, crafting a musician whose regrets echo louder than his music. His introduction scene, equal parts swagger and spiritual fatigue, became an instant critical touchpoint.

Lindo, rather than playing mentor cliché, infused Delta Slim with sharp humor and private grief, elevating every shared frame without ever demanding narrative dominance.

Sharing the film with Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn’s Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw operated on the opposite emotional frequency; he was volatile, ideological, and increasingly unmoored in One Battle After Another. Where del Toro's character internalizes, Penn's externalizes with clipped orders, simmering paranoia, and moral absolutism. The dual nomination from the same film, in this case, does not feel redundant at all; rather, it perfectly showcases contrasting war psychologies framed by craft. 

Stellan Skarsgård’s Gustav Borg is perhaps the quietest performance in the lineup, and the one that lingers longest. Skarsgård approached Sentimental Value's aging patriarch as a man negotiating legacy in real time, calibrating voice and posture to suggest dignity fraying at the edges. On cue, after the European critics led the early praise, Skarsgård’s restraint became its own narrative engine; a glance across the dinner table carried more weight than monologues.

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These roles have not culminated in simply hoardings of the actors' names, but landmarks in popular culture, and hopefully, in the history of cinema. 

What defines this year’s field is not volume but variation. Benicio Del Toro’s psychological minimalism sits worlds apart from Sean Penn’s ideological combustion. Jacob Elordi transforms creature-feature acting into a tragic embodiment. Delroy Lindo, on the other hand, fuses musicality with memory. Stellan Skarsgård, meanwhile, turns silence into structure.

Notably absent is the industry’s quiet habit of sidelining repeat winners or genre performers. Horror, musical drama, European art-house, and war epics are made to coexist without hierarchy through a lineup like this. These nominations recognize actors who did not orbit protagonists but recalibrated them: performances that deepened stakes, reframed conflicts, and, in several cases, stole thematic ownership without stealing screen time.

This year’s Best Supporting Actor race feels less like a sidebar and more like a blueprint for where film acting is headed. Free from franchise bias, fatigue of serialization, or showy theatrics, the category seems to have honored precision, patience, and perspective. If leading roles ignite the fire, these performances control the oxygen.

And in doing so, they proved that cinema’s most transformative work often happens just outside the spotlight; steady, sculpted, and utterly essential.

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Which of these Best Supporting Actor nominees are you rooting for? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.