2019 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (May) – Chalamet Still #1; Adam Driver Moves Up

Erik Anderson May 24, 2018

Timothée Chalamet was already in a good position for an ‘afterglow’ nomination post-Call Me By Your Name and the first look of him in Amazon’s Beautiful Boy released last week of the Oscar-nominated actor with fellow Oscar nominee Steve Carell only solidified that. Chalamet holds on to the top spot this month with ease. I expect him to stay there through summer and fall festival announcements. He could go all the way.

Sam Rockwell, fresh off his Oscar win in this category earlier this year (for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), should easily score his second nomination playing former president George W. Bush in Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney biopic Backseat. I think a lot would have to go wrong with this film for Rockwell (and co-stars Christian Bale and Amy Adams) to miss out here. He moves up two spots to #2.

Stephan James (If Beale Street Could Talk) and Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) each drop just a bit but stay in the top 5. Daniel Kaluuya (Widows), like Chalamet, looks to parlay his Best Actor Oscar nomination last season (for Get Out) into a Supporting Actor nom this season. Although his film features a wealth of potential supporting actor contenders, Kaluuya has the juiciest role and the coupled with his role in the massive blockbuster Black Panther, is the most buzzed about actor in his film. He moves up into the top 5.

Adam Driver sees a move up as well, just outside the top 5 for his turn in BlacKkKlansman, which just won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival (read my four-star review here). He actually stands a better chance than that of the film’s lead, John David Washington, does in his category. Although the optics might seem problematic for a white actor being potentially the only nomination for a Spike Lee race-themed film, don’t forget that’s exactly what happened when Danny Aeillo was the only nominee for Lee’s Do the Right Thing back in 1989. Arguably, the optics then were not what they are now.

Another move up is Sam Elliott. He joins his A Star Is Born co-stars Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga as making strides towards Oscar glory and to his first career nomination.

Here are my predictions for Supporting Actor for May 24, 2018.

Green – moves up
Red – moves down
Blue – chart debut

1. Timothée Chalamet – Beautiful Boy

2. Sam Rockwell – Backseat

3. Stephan James – If Beale Street Could Talk

4. Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

5. Daniel Kaluuya – Widows

6. Adam Driver – BlacKkKlansman

7. Kyle Chandler – First Man

8. Sam Elliott – A Star Is Born

9. Jeff Bridges – Bad Times at the El Royale

10. Michael B. Jordan – Black Panther

NEXT UP

Mahershala Ali – Green Book

Steve Carell – Backseat

Armie Hammer – On the Basis of Sex

Oscar Isaac – At Eternity’s Gate

Alex Wolff – Hereditary

OTHER CONTENDERS

Casey Affleck – Old Man and the Gun

Joe Alwyn – Boy Erased

Jon Bernthal – First Man

Steve Buscemi – Lean on Pete

Russell Crowe – Boy Erased

Robert Duvall – Widows

Joel Edgerton – Boy Erased

Colin Firth – Kursk

Robert Forester – What They Had

Topher Grace – BlacKkKlansman

Michael Greyeyes – Woman Walks Ahead

Jake Gyllenhaal – The Sisters Brothers

Lucas Hedges – Mid 90s

André Holland – Widows

Samuel L. Jackson – Life Itself

Aaron Taylor Johnson – Outlaw King

Tommy Lee Jones – Ad Astra

Irrfan Khan – Puzzle

Ben Kingsley – Operation Finale

Matthew McConaughey – White Boy Rick

Lin-Manuel Miranda – Mary Poppins Returns

Liam Neeson – Widows

Chris O’Dowd – Juliet, Naked

Guy Pearce – The Catcher Was a Spy

Jonathan Pryce – The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Sam Rockwell – Woman Walks Ahead

Mark Ruffalo – Newsflash

Matthias Schoenaerts – Kursk

Michael Shannon – What They Had

J.K. Simmons – The Front Runner

Alexander Skarsgård – The Hummingbird Project

Sebastian Stan – Destroyer

Corey Stoll – First Man

Donald Sutherland – Ad Astra

David Tennant – Mary Queen of Scots

Courtney B. Vance – Ben is Back

Vince Vaughn – Fighting with My Family

Dominic West – Colette

Forest Whitaker – Burden

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE (May)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR (May)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (May)

2019 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTRESS (MAY)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.