For our seventeenth Rundown article, we look at the secondary male acting category. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best Supporting Actor as well as general commentary about the race. Next week, we’ll start off on Monday with a category where Best Picture nominees are most required to feature a nomination.

Best Supporting Actor

Winner Predictions

• Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project
• Woody Harrelson – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Richard Jenkins – The Shape of Water
• Christopher Plummer – All the Money in the World
• Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (WL O) (PP O) (TB O) (TL O)

Runner-Up Predictions

• Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project (WL O) (PP R) [New] (TB O) (TL O)

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Wesley Lovell: Early in the season, Willem Dafoe looked like he would run away with this. Then Sam Rockwell started barreling through the televised precursors and has become the inevitable frontrunner. Although he isn’t as assured as either Gary Oldman or Frances McDormand, Rockwell is far more likely a winner than Allison Janney is in Supporting Actress. However, if Three Billboards runs afoul of too many members, I could see Dafoe taking it in a small surprise.
Peter J. Patrick: The race started out with Willem Dafoe in front with numerous critics’ votes for The Florida Project, but momentum has shifted to Sam Rockwell who has won all the televised awards for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I don’t see anything that would reverse the situation or throw the race at this late stage to someone else.
Tripp Burton: Of the four acting winners who have run the board of all the televised awards so far, I feel like Sam Rockwell is the most vulnerable winner. The problem is that there is no one else in the category I could see winning.
Thomas La Tourrette: It looks like Sam Rockwell will become a winner on his first nomination. The early awards had favored Willem Dafoe’s work in The Florida Project, and then momentum suddenly shifted to Rockwell’s biased deputy in Three Billboards. A lot of people had viewed Dafoe as a deserving winner, even if it was less than a deserving movie. My reactions to the movie were mixed, but he had done a good job. But I was blown away by the acting work in Three Billboards from Rockwell as well as co-nominee Woody Harrelson and probable Best Actress winner Frances McDormand. Rockwell had spent years turning in decent performances in indie films, but nothing prepared me for what he delivers in Three Billboards. He has a great character arc, even if parts of it are improbable, and he makes one care for a racist who was warped from the beginning by his dear old mama. He will be a deserving winner. It has always been a two-man race, though Harrelson and Richard Jenkins from The Shape of Water also gave thoughtful performances. Jenkins brought both pathos and humor to a role that easily could have turned to cliche, and I was pleased that the Academy recognized what he did with the role. Christopher Plummer was probably the weakest of the nominees playing money-hungry J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World, though he was good too. Dafoe might stage an upset, but this looks solidly in the hands of Rockwell.

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