ScreenDaily brings you a list of potential Best Supporting Actor candidates.

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Christoph Waltz

Inglourious Basterds

Could it be a foregone conclusion that the Austrian actor will win the Academy Award for his scene-stealing, nay movie-stealing, performance as Colonel Hans Landa?

Stanley Tucci

The Lovely Bones

The ever-reliable Tucci brings a disturbed inner life to the serial killer and rapist George Harvey, who on the surface is a charming bachelor and behind closed doors, a calculating psychopath.

Alec Baldwin

It’s Complicated

Tapping into his new comic following from TV’s 30 Rock, Baldwin grabs the lion’s share of laughs and steals scenes from Meryl Streep, no less, as the fifty-something lawyer who cheats on his trophy wife with his ex-wife.

Woody Harrelson

The Messenger

Between Zombieland and 2012, Harrelson managed to deliver one of his finest dramatic performances in years as a salty, off-colour army captain who has the unenviable task of notifying loved ones of their losses.

Peter Sarsgaard

An Education

The versatile Sarsgaard is effortlessly charming as David, the adult seducer of 16-year-old Jenny in An Education. Yet as his character is revealed as increasingly corrupt and deceitful, the US actor wears his amorality with a truly British reserve.

Paul Schneider

Bright Star

US actor Schneider made a strong impression as John Keats’ best friend Mr Brown; a sometimes comic, sometimes dark character. Although his Scottish accent flounders on occasion, Schneider’s characterisation full of masculine aggression is a highlight of Campion’s film.

A favourite in the best actor category, Bridges also gave a winning performance in a return to The Big Lebowski territory as Bill Django, a Vietnam vet and New Age hippie who runs the army-endorsed psychic unit, The New Earth Army.

Like Bridges, Clooney is a leading actor contender as well, but his deliciously deadpan comic performance as the former army psychic warrior now running a dance school could give him a shot at two nominations.

Jake Gyllenhaal

Brothers

It is the less showy part of the two brothers, but Gyllenhaal acquitted himself well as the hard-drinking jailbird who cleans up his act to care for his sister-in-law and two nieces when his brother is declared dead.

Liev Schreiber

Taking Woodstock

Schreiber gives a hilarious supporting performance as cross-dressing Vilma, bringing a deadpan masculinity appropriate to the gender-bending movement that was all a part of the Woodstock tapestry.