A mid-shot of Aunt Gladys in full makeup angled from below in Weapons
The Best Supporting Actress race this year has been almost as exciting as Best Supporting Actor, and possibly even harder to predict. Unlike the latter, it doesn't quite feel like every nominee could realistically win – the two lovely performances from Sentimental Value split that film's significant support to the extent that neither have been true contenders all season.
But the other three actresses have all picked up precursors. There's no telling which of them will end up on stage on Oscars night. Which of them most deserves to be is another matter, and, after ranking Best Picture and all the other acting categories for SR, one I'm eager to weigh in on. All five are excellent; the Academy deserves credit for knocking the performance noms out of the park this year. But this is how I'd rank the five nominees for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar from"worst" to best. 5 Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value It's honestly very cool that this nomination happened. I instinctively assumed that what Elle Fanning does in Sentimental Value would turn off awards voters, but I should have trusted the actors branch, which actually does the nominating, to recognize its greatness. Fanning is out of place in this Norwegian family drama, by design. She plays an American movie star brought onto the new, deeply personal project of an auteur filmmaker in the twilight of his career, after his daughter refused to even read the script he'd written specifically for her. Fanning's character, as gradually becomes clear to all involved, is miscast. Fanning, however, is perfectly suited for the difficult task of playing not a bad actress , but the wrong one. She must bring an energy to the material that feels off in the same, intangible way that the lead character, played by Renate Reinsve, feels exactly right – in a film where practically everyone but her feels exactly right. That she manages to do this without giving the impression that she's looking down on her character is a testament to her exceptional talent, even if Sentimental Value isn't exactly the prime showcase for it. 4 Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners Wunmi Mosaku's performance in Sinners is what happens when someone like Ryan Coogler gives a great actor a knockout part. His films, and this one in particular, have an interesting quid-pro-quo relationship with actors: Serve the film, and the film will serve you. In the period-drama first act, Mosaku's Annie helps bring texture to Michael B. Jordan's dual lead performance, alongside Hailee Steinfeld's Mary. Without those two characters to draw Smoke and Stack out of lockstep with each other, we wouldn't understand who the twins are nearly as well as we do. And in the action-horror second act, Annie plays the critical part of supernatural expert, breaking down and sniffing out the vampires. In return, Sinners gives Mosaku the space to be truly memorable. She plays Annie with real complexity, but also with an easy certainty, as if it should be obvious that she contain these multitudes. She is a force of both discerning intelligence and deep empathy, which Mosaku can convey with no more than a glance. She is perfectly suited to draw the more sullen Smoke out of his head, but rather than feel like a fictional construct designed for just that purpose, she is wholly believable as a person who could do that to anyone she chose. Steinfeld is great in the flashier of the two roles, but Mosaku's subtler work leaves just as much of an impression. 3 Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value Like Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas has a difficult job in Sentimental Value. The other principal characters are all artists or performers, and a touch of artifice or heightened emotionality feels expected from them. Lilleaas' Agnes, despite having acted in one of her father's films as a child, is not. In fact, the grounded normality of her life in contrast to her tempestuous older sister's is an important feature in the film. To work, she has to feel like a"real" person among all these movie and theater types. And she does. Lilleaas has the benefit of being largely new to international audiences – it can be easier to see the character when you don't have to look past the baggage of an actor's on-screen history – but that doesn't fully account for just how natural Agnes is in every scene. It's an open, wonderfully warm performance, and it connects with the most ease. Sentimental Value's centerpiece scene is a moving dialogue between the two sisters, and it works so well in large part because of how Lilleaas plays it. 2 Amy Madigan, Weapons When the calls to nominate Amy Madigan for an Oscar for Weapons first started, I expect many imagined she would be the alternative pick that was ultimately too cool for the Academy, in the vein of past horror snubees Toni Collette in Hereditary and Lupita Nyong'o in Us. Instead, Aunt Gladys might actually win. If she does, regardless of whether it was fuelled by the magic of the industry comeback narrative, it will have been an incredible choice. For most of Weapons, Gladys is a mysterious, almost spectral presence, haunting the main characters as they struggle to understand what happened to the town's missing children. When she finally enters the film as a character, she's not exactly the kind of monster we expected. As we come to learn in upsetting moment after upsetting moment, she is profoundly evil. But it's Madigan who makes her truly scary. The way she balances Gladys' physical frailty with her seemingly indomitable will makes them feel like complementary traits – she clings to life with a grip not even death can loosen. As much twisted fun as it is when Gladys appears in full makeup, Madigan's definitive scenes are her unvarnished confrontations with a terrified young boy. Though she's very comfortable inflicting bodily harm, this particular boy she has chosen instead to psychologically dominate, and she does so with calm cruelty. The way she owns the screen in those moments lingers in the imagination. 1 Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another As much as I love every nominee here, anytime I think about this year's Best Supporting Actress race, I'm always somewhat surprised it's been so close. Teyana Taylor in One Battle After Another is one of 2025's signature performances. She owns the first act of the movie with such an intoxicating rush of movie star charisma that her absence from the rest becomes a defining trait of the movie's unique feel. It's easy to understand how everyone in her orbit ends up spending the rest of their lives dealing with the consequences of her actions. Subscribe to the newsletter for Best Supporting Actress insight Crave deeper context on races like Best Supporting Actress? Subscribe to the newsletter for clear, expert coverage of awards performances, rankings, and the storytelling choices that shape contenders - plus broader film analysis you won't want to miss. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. That alone would be worth the Oscar nomination, but embodying the larger-than-life revolutionary persona of Perfidia Beverly Hills is only part of Taylor's accomplishment. There is a more vulnerable human being beneath all that bravado that Perfidia would rather people not see. Calculated decisions and emotional mistakes alike are cloaked in the language of the revolution, but she is hardly a woman of pure ideology; the truth of them is visible in the performance for those paying attention. And it's quite often heartbreaking. Taylor's competitors in this category, in addition to their great work on-screen, come prepared with some strong awards season narratives. But if we're going purely off the performances, to me, hers is the most powerful. She most deserves to be the one holding the Oscar on Sunday night.
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