A mid-shot of Stellan Skarsgård laughing in Sentimental Value
Best Actor might be grabbing all the headlines as an all-time great lineup, but the performance category with the tightest grouping of nominees at the 2026 Oscars is Best Supporting Actor. All five come from the most nominated films of the year, and awards precursors have spread the love among the contenders, making this race virtually impossible to predict with any certainty.
I'd argue that's because these performances are, qualitatively speaking, as close to each other as it gets. I've ranked the nominees for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress so far for Screen Rant, but none of them gave me as much trouble as this list. On a different day, I might've written an entirely different article. But, today, this is how I would rank the five nominees for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, from"worst" to best. 5 Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein Any one of these five actors could have their names called on Oscar night, and all of them would be worthy winners. Jacob Elordi is an exciting and ascending presence in Hollywood, and I'd be glad to see him recognized for what I think is excellent work in Frankenstein. But if I'm honest with myself about these performances, this would be my last choice for the golden statuette. Guillermo del Toro is renowned for his soulful monsters, and he shares credit with Doug Jones, often the man beneath the prosthetics, for the greatest ones. Elordi's Creature can stand proudly among them in that canon. His physical performance is wonderful, flexing an acting muscle that he hadn't yet had the opportunity to show. Without him, Frankenstein wouldn't have nearly the same impact. 4 Delroy Lindo, Sinners Having been nominated here without appearing at any of the key precursors, Delroy Lindo is this year's Best Supporting Actor wildcard. A win would make up for the Academy ignoring his performance in Da 5 Bloods, arguably the most egregious Oscars snub of the decade so far, but the reason to do it doesn't have to trace back to his storied career. It's all in what he does in Sinners. I'm on record as loving the first half of Ryan Coogler's Best Picture nominee, and having problems with the second – and I don't think the action-horror turn does Lindo any favors here. But he is the soul of that first hour. He gives his grizzled character a weight and texture that rubs off on those around him, and outside the movie's"I Lied to You" centerpiece, there is no scene more thematically essential to Sinners than when he transforms anguish into music in real time. There's plenty of great acting in the film, but I'd argue no performance is more load-bearing than Lindo's. 3 Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value Stellan Skarsgård has been such a movie mainstay that he's easy to take for granted, but Sentimental Value makes that impossible. Joachim Trier's film has the uncanny ability to make use of an actor's natural screen presence while also plumbing its depths for new layers, and in Skarsgård's case, that results in a distant, authoritative man being pushed into a vulnerability he's tried hard to avoid. His performance is simultaneously familiar from his previous work and excitingly rich. His character is in many ways a classical interpretation of an auteur director – he builds worlds to escape a lack of control over his own, and he struggles to express himself if not through his art. But, crucially, that doesn't describe what Skarsgård is actually doing with his performance. The other characters may feel he's closed to them, but we the audience are drawn in, and treated to a full spectrum of unguarded emotion. Take this role's characterization at face value, and you risk underappreciating how we're shown a withdrawn man while still knowing exactly what he's feeling at any given moment. 2 Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another Conventional wisdom says the two nominees from One Battle After Another will split the vote. Considering how hard I found it to decide on a favorite between them, I buy that completely. Benicio del Toro brings an energy to the movie that no one else does: a reflective centeredness. In a whirlwind of unstoppable force, he is the immovable object. Without him, OBAA becomes the politically muddied film that its critics already accuse it of being; with him, it's both incisive and thrillingly alive to our current cultural moment. Del Toro's character is committed not to ideology, but morality, and unwaveringly so. Somehow, he manages to perform that in all its seriousness, while also being the perfect straight man to Leonardo DiCaprio's buffoon. It's delicate, unshowy work, the kind that elevates those around him without calling too much attention to itself. And yet, it's also extremely memorable – a testament to how much the film loves this performance and refuses to let it go unsung. It may be that, despite all the outlandish characters in One Battle After Another, Sensei ultimately proves the most enduring in the popular imagination. 1 Sean Penn, One Battle After Another Sean Penn's performance in One Battle After Another is practically the opposite of del Toro's. Del Toro grounds the film; Penn is why it needs grounding. He's loud, grotesque, and cartoonishly big. Every moment he's on screen feels like a battle for our attention, waged against his fellow actors. And he is absolutely captivating. Paul Thomas Anderson's movie has more than a little Dr. Strangelove in it, and much of that is channeled through Lockjaw, who is practically the result of putting Peter Sellers' titular scientist, Sterling Hayden's Ripper, and George C. Scott's Turgidson in a blender. But the essence of the satire here is that, in a world in which our fascistic public figures have long since outstripped the caricatures designed to mock them, he is also recognizable. Penn's grip on that dichotomy is absolute. The real man, with his pathetic ambitions and incongruent desires, is barely hidden behind the shell he's built for himself. The harder he tries to believe the mythology he's spun for himself, the more that shell cracks, and the more his ugliness oozes through the screen. I understand those who feel that Penn, who already has two Oscars, would be the least exciting choice of these five. Out of a desire to spread the wealth, I may even share that view. However, I feel the same about this race as I did when Anthony Hopkins' unexpected victory sadly prevented a posthumous Academy Award for Chadwick Bosemen. If Penn wins, it will be because, in a purely qualitative vacuum, he gave the best performance of any supporting actor candidate in 2025.
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