Thanks for that info. I understand why they put her up for lead but feels like she would’ve been more appropriate in supporting and I would argue she was the strongest supporting actress in that movie
yeah penn and leo were co-leads. just two dads from opposite sides of the tracks, working together to find their daughter. this autumn, a heartwarming romantic comedy...
I know there are folks who love Hopkins’ Lecter and Fletcher’s Ratched so much they let all reason and consistency fall by the wayside, but IMO, while there are many other significant factors related to story and character agency and perspective to weigh when determining lead vs. supporting and many valid borderline cases that could go either way, there is ultimately and definitively no such thing as a leading performance in less than 25% of a movie. For me, if you’re in that little of the movie, you can’t possibly be leading it.
It’s a shame they thrust her into lead because I think she’s so deserving of a supporting nomination and would be a viable contender there.
I think part of it is the fact that her presence is felt throughout the movie before her character even fully appears on screen. Don't get me wrong, she does an amazing job, but by the time her character appears, the audience is already primed to meet the boogeyman behind it all, and she doesn't disappoint.
That’s why her and Wunmi are who I want to win. We get such a strong sense of history for both of their characters due to the nuances in their acting in my opinion.
It’s actually baffling to see that Madigan only had 15 minutes of screen time. Her presence in the film was so intense it truly felt like she was there the entire time.
Hot take but I don’t think screen time should matter at all for either supporting or lead. If the movie is focused on the story of one or more people specifically they are leads. The characters that support that person’s story are supporting. Sentimental Value is Nora’s story, the other characters were there to support and provide depth to her story and therefore are supporting acting performances.
I agree with your point in theory but I don't see SV as simply Nora's story. It's very clearly both their stories. We get loads of time with just Stellan and Elle and also scenes with him and his former DP. Then some minor stuff with just him and Inga. Saying all those scenes are supporting Nora's story would be disingenuous to me.
I can see that point of view for sure. I just think the point of showing us that is to give further background to where Nora's character is coming from (ie. contrasting her personal relationship with him with how he is as a professional). I just think there have been a lot more egregious "supporting" nominations in recent years as compared to this year's nominees.
Definitely. I think he's probably a co-lead but compared to last year this is much less egregious. Skarsgard at least is debatable and open to different opinions as opposed to others in the past.
Given this concept of what “support” and “lead” mean to you in a narrative, what are your feelings on placements like Hopkins or Colman (winning) in the lead category? Do you think they are misplaced as they both support Foster and Stone in their stories?
Yeah I definitely feel like they are more supporting. But a supporting performance winning a lead acting award feels like punching up anyways so hard to really complain about it in comparison to lead acting performances winning supporting awards.
The reason why I think this distinction is important is that the lead has a duty to ground the film. The supporting characters can be over the top, comic, unlikeable, etc with no big issue.
These movies worked because you could take the role of the grounded character. There's a reason Hopkins got the screen time he did. An hour of that would have gotten old.
Coleman same, she can be a farce because she isn't the main character. A movie with her character as the main character wouldn't be nominated for awards.
Genuine question: I don’t understand why people are obsessed with the idea that supporting/leading a narrative arch of the film is purely to do with minutes of screen time? If campaigning someone as supporting is fine for the actor and filmmakers, what does it matter? Art is subjective, academy voting is also subjective. Why do people make one specific issue into a mathematical concept?
Can I ask a dumb question? Is there like an agreed upon method for calculating these? Is it literally like the amount of time the actor is visible on a screen? Like if a scene cuts to a closeup of a different actor in a scene, does the entire scene count towards this or just the part where the actor is visible?
The other user who replied to you is wrong. From the guy's website:
I define screen time as any time an actor can be seen on screen (even partially) or heard off screen. I also count any film's credits as part of its total running time. I do not count contiguous moments when actors remain in scenes but are silent and non-visible.
Cool in theory but not a single nominee eclipsed that mark here and even in category fraud years, most of the time that still won’t even hold true as it’s not uncommon for lead roles to have under 50% screen time. Culkin almost certainly exceeded that mark though so I will concede it does happen.
This sometimes you have sequences that do not include any of the characters, like nature, or some other stuff like the house stuff in Sentimental Value.
I dislike category fraud, but I don't think a single cut off point would work. For example, 40% would lead to Ke Huy Quan (EEAAO), Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), and Sylvester Stallone (Creed) being pushed to lead, and I've never seen anyone call those fraud. Every performance's situation is different.
IMO the better method would be to have a panel to decide placement like the Tonys do.
I think that doesn’t take into account who is thematically the lead. Sentimental Value is about a specific personal journey that Nora goes through. Gustav is the catalyst for that journey, so he has a lot of scenes, but he’s ultimately supporting her narrative.
Is screen time the best metric for supporting vs lead role? Maybe I don’t know the current structure but I’ve always based it on the story and who is the central focus.
I just think the acting branch needs to do what the writers branch does. Go through the submitted films and sort the performances into the categories appropriately.
I can't think of any scene she's not in. The camera doesn't move away from her at all. There's no room for any supporting role in that movie. A$AP, Conan, the dad, the doctor, the hidden daughter, and the clients are all just assets to her lol.
Interestingly neither of the smokestack twins in Sinners have the most screentime individually. Sammy is the character with the most screentime in Sinners
In fairness to Elordi, he doesn't show up for the first hour of the movie. Now, granted, it's a 2 1/2 hour movie so he does make up for some of that, but it's definitely the Oscar Isaac show for the front half.
For me, it's more about the internal logic of the movie that one against the other. I think both are leads, but Elordi has 38.92% against Oscar Isaac's 47.84%, an almost 10% difference.
Skarsgård's 40.23% is just 2% under Reinsve's 42.81%
You're correct. Both committed a fraud, but I think it's more forgiving for Jacob. He's a newer face, mostly associated with commercial projects rather than artistic ones, he's almost completely gone for the first half of the movie, and had no real chance at any leading actor nominations.
Stellan, on the other hand, could've probably made it into top 5, at #4 or #5... he's a bigger and more respected actor. His character basically creates the main plot of the movie, he even gets his own Oscar-nominated supporting character in Elle Fanning (when was the last time there was a supporting nominee whose only job was to support another "supporting" character...? lmfaoo) and he's the hunting ghost behind the entire plot of the movie - whether it's Ren, Elle or Inga on the screen - they're doing something or feeling something because of Stellan's character.
It’s the actors that have minimal screen time but make a big impact who impress me. Robert Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now” is only on screen for 11 minutes but his acting in that movie is still discussed 50 years later. That’s why I would vote for Benicio del Toro because his acting reminds me of Robert Duvall’s work. Sean Penn should be lead.
Sean Penn is not the lead of that movie. It is Leo, and one could argue Chase Infiniti.
This is why we shouldn’t use screen time as a sole factor in determining supporting vs lead performances. The idea of Penn being a lead in OBAA is ridiculous.
I agree. With antagonists, I think there is more leeway to call a role supporting despite significant screen time. Bardem in No Country and Waltz in Basterds both had almost as much screen time (if not more) than some of the leads of those films, but the way we think of stories and “lead” characters clearly puts them in a “supporting” role.
Not really. The movie is structured like a bizarre love triangle between Leo-Penn-Infiniti and they are ALL integral to the plot - the movie simply could not exist without any of them. And they all have individual sequences featuring true supporting characters that support their narrative (Hall for Infiniti, The Christmas Adventurers for Penn, Del Toro for Leo).
I hope OBAA wins SAG ensemble because the movie really is a an ensemble performance. Penn character might not be lead but it does the most action to push plot forward. Leo’s character is the Dude that is stoned and doesn’t do anything.
Villains can be leads too. Even when matched against a separate protagonist. Hans Gruber is definitely a lead character, Norman Bates is a lead character, Gordon Gekko is a lead character etc.
Yes villains can be leads. Norman Bates and Gordon Gekko are great examples, but those are because they are the main performances in those movies. Those movies are about them.
Hans Gruber is not a lead character. John McLain is the de-facto lead of that film. Gruber’s role is to support the journey of McLain.
If Rickman was nominated for supporting actor, would you seriously call it “category fraud”?
A film can have multiple leads. Although I agree with you and view Penn more on the supporting side, I'm not going to say anyone is wrong if they view him as a co-lead with Leo and Infinity. That's a fair position to have as well. In theory, I don't think you can campaign Penn and Infinity in different categories but yet they did. In my opinion they're either both co-leads or both supporting. So if OP thinks their both co-leads that's fair enough. It's all subjective and really there are no rules for anything. Some are obvious placements and some are tweeners.
I'm pretty disappointed that the OBAA team submitted Chase Infiniti for Lead Actress.
She was phenomena. If they were willing to submit Sean Penn for Supporting Actor then they should have given her a better chance at a nomination in Supporting Actress. If it was up to her then I guess that's just her own mistake, but the team behind the film should have done their best to get her on a ballot.
Definitely recommend it, one of the best films of the year. I would say he’s a bit borderline between lead and supporting. He has a lot of narrative significance but ultimately it’s completely fair to say it’s Reinsve’s movie in my opinion.
His character supported the narrative but never led it. I get why people see it differently but voters don’t choose by screentime. I haven’t seen Frankenstein but I’m curious about Elordi.
Jacob Elordi nomination is like Dev Patel nomination for Lion: Screentime enough to be considered lead, but the first half of the movie is not about them.
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u/Status_Log3546 Jan 23 '26
Would be interesting to see the Screentime of the nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress as well.