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Ahead of the Oscars: Our critic鈥檚 picks for the best acting awards

It鈥檚 Academy Awards season, and that means it鈥檚 time for my annual Oscar survey highlighting my best picks in the acting categories. Whenever I am asked about the best part of being a film critic, my answer often comes down to the acting. No matter how mediocre a movie, the saving grace of a terrific performance almost always serves as a life raft. I am forever amazed at how good actors are able to insinuate themselves into the very depths of the people they play.

As usual, my choices and the best acting nominees of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are not in total sync. (The Oscars ceremony airs on ABC on March 15). More so than ever, the performances that often meant the most to me were in underseen, out-of-the-mainstream fare. All the more reason for me to weigh in. Riches are to be reaped if you know where to look. Many of these movies are either streamable or still in theatrical release.

Best Actress

All five nominees are notable: Rose Byrne (鈥淚f I Had Legs I鈥檇 Kick You鈥�); Emma Stone (鈥淏ugonia鈥�); Renate Reinsve (鈥淪entimental Value鈥�); Kate Hudson (鈥淪ong Sung Blue鈥�) and Jessie Buckley (鈥淗amnet鈥�). Of these, I was most impressed with Hudson and Buckley. Hudson鈥檚 turn as a beleaguered, resilient pop singer revealed a depth and range I had not expected from her. 鈥淗amnet鈥� is a four-hankie sobfest, but Buckley鈥檚 all-out acting earns the tears she elicits.

A number of other performances in this category I thought were equally deserving, if not more so. Jane Levy is subtly, heartbreakingly powerful in 鈥淎 Little Prayer鈥� as a troubled wife who rescues herself from sadness. Eva Victor, who not only stars in 鈥淪orry, Baby鈥� but also wrote and directed, plays a survivor of sexual violence 鈥� we never see the assault 鈥� who refuses to be victimized. It鈥檚 one of the most authentic depictions I鈥檝e ever seen of recovery from trauma.

In 鈥淧reparation for the Next Life,鈥� the new-to-movies
Sebiye Behtiyar plays an unauthorized Uyghur immigrant in New York on the run from the authorities. Her incisive, intuitive work here has the force of a hundred headlines. Chase Infiniti, also a relative newcomer, makes a smashing movie debut as the renegade daughter of anarchists in 鈥淥ne Battle After Another鈥� 鈥� an intermittently brilliant movie that, for all its acclaim, I felt cartoonized the violence of political insurrection. (See 鈥淢essage for a troubled America?鈥� page 40.)

In the neglected 鈥淟eft-Handed Girl,鈥� Shih-Yuan Ma plays to perfection a Taiwanese daughter caught up in a dysfunctional family maelstrom. Her seemingly effortless acting was, to be sure, anything but effortless.

Best Actor

There is much to like in the five nominees: Leonardo DiCaprio, wearing a ratty bathrobe for half the movie, gets to display his comedic chops in 鈥淥ne Battle After Another.鈥� Timoth茅e Chalamet is a human spark plug as the table tennis phenom in 鈥淢arty Supreme,鈥� though the actor never really hits more than one note. In the overrated 鈥淭he Secret Agent,鈥� Wagner Moura adeptly enacts essentially three different roles as a Brazilian professor fleeing political persecution. In 鈥淪inners,鈥� Michael B. Jordan plays identical twins, courtesy of a bit of camera trickery that preserves the power of his presence as both brothers. In 鈥淏lue Moon,鈥� Ethan Hawke, my favorite of these nominees, plays the dissolute Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart with a mix of nonstop jabber and furtive sorrow.

Neglected but no less worthy is Ralph Fiennes as the Yorkshire choirmaster in 鈥淭he Choral,鈥� a film that never came close to receiving its due. Fiennes is a master at underplaying. Acting awards are most often given to overplaying. David Strathairn, as the churchgoing Vietnam vet in 鈥淎 Little Prayer,鈥� is another underplayer par excellence. So is Joel Edgerton, playing a logger in early 20th-century America in 鈥淭rain Dreams.鈥� His silences have a resounding eloquence. Tom Basden, as the over-the-hill rock idol in 鈥淭he Ballad of Wallis Island,鈥� which he also co-wrote, goes way beyond the usual pop star clich茅s. Beneath the preening and the bad moods lies an unextinguished innocence.

Best Supporting Actress

I have no bone to pick with the five nominees: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (鈥淪entimental Value鈥�); Amy Madigan (鈥淲eapons鈥�); Wunmi Mosaku (鈥淪inners鈥�); Teyana Taylor (鈥淥ne Battle After Another鈥�) and Elle Fanning (鈥淪entimental Value鈥�). Fanning, in particular, playing an American movie star in a Swedish art film, is especially touching. The scene in which she ruefully confesses to the director (supporting actor nominee Stellan Skarsg氓rd) that she is not right for the part is the best scene in the movie.

I would also single out Kerry Condon in a small but piercing cameo in 鈥淭rain Dreams鈥� as a U.S. Forest Service worker who explains why a dead tree is just as important as a living one. Odessa A鈥檢ion, as Marty鈥檚 co-conspirator in 鈥淢arty Supreme,鈥� fulfills one of the key requirements of good acting: You never quite know where the performance is taking you. This is equally true of Margaret Qualley in 鈥淏lue Moon,鈥� who gives her Yalie socialite unexpected resonance.

Best Supporting Actor

Besides Skarsg氓rd, I鈥檓 fine with Oscar picks Benicio Del Toro (鈥淥ne Battle After Another鈥�) and Delroy Lindo聽(鈥淪inners鈥�). Del Toro, with the driest of deadpans, plays a cooled-out martial arts sensei running a kind of underground railroad for undocumented migrants. Lindo has a bone-deep authenticity as a Mississippi Delta bluesman. As for the remaining two nominees, Jacob Elordi as the monster in 鈥淔rankenstein鈥� was all sound and fury signifying, well, I鈥檓 not sure what. And as the brutal Col. Steven J. Lockjaw in 鈥淥ne Battle After Another,鈥� Sean Penn, who I would watch in anything, appears to have locked down every other part of his body as well.

Not nominating William H. Macy as the grizzled, hypertalkative logger in 鈥淭rain Dreams鈥� was a big miss for the Academy. Andrew Scott鈥檚 Richard Rodgers in 鈥淏lue Moon鈥� was equal, in its own subtle way, to Ethan Hawke鈥檚 work. Tim Key has a wonderful oddball charm as the eccentric millionaire in 鈥淭he Ballad of Wallis Island.鈥� In 鈥淣uremberg,鈥� Russell Crowe plays Nazi leader Hermann G枚ring, a role I assumed he had been miscast in until I saw what wonders he wrought.

Finally, there鈥檚 Simon Russell Beale鈥檚 cameo as the temperamental British composer Edward Elgar in 鈥淭he Choral.鈥� If this performance had appeared on stage and not on film, it would have prompted a standing ovation. I鈥檒l give it one anyway.

Peter Rainer is the Monitor鈥檚 film critic.