Final Oscar Predictions: Supporting Actor — Why Delroy Lindo Could Be This Year’s Marcia Gay Harden

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety chief awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Oscars Best Supporting Actor Commentary (Updated March 12, 2026): One category. Five worthy men. Open possibilities.

In an awards season overflowing with frontrunners and over-analyzed narratives, it’s not best picture or lead actor that has stirred the pot the most. Instead, the two supporting actor races have emerged as the season’s most unpredictable.

Stellan Skarsgård once looked unbeatable after winning the Golden Globe for the Norwegian drama “Sentimental Value.” But a major red flag appeared when he was left out of the SAG nominations. That, coupled with Jacob Elordi’s CCA win for “Frankenstein” and Benicio Del Toro doubling Skarsgård’s number of critics’ wins with his turn in “One Battle After Another,” fractured the race.

Then came Delroy Lindo, the 73-year-old veteran who landed a surprise Oscar bid for his scene-stealing turn in Ryan Coogler’s vampire drama “Sinners,” despite being snubbed by every major precursor. Only three actors in modern history — Marcia Gay Harden (“Pollock”), Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) and Christoph Waltz (“Django Unchained”) — have won an Oscar without a SAG nomination. Harden is the only one who, like Lindo, missed every major precursor.

And then there’s Sean Penn, who won both SAG and BAFTA prizes for his villainous turn in “One Battle After Another.” Many pundits see him as the likely winner, and it’s not a bad call, but a few factors point to a potential surprise.

In December, I penned a column — Why Oscar Voters Love Villains, Just Not Truly Evil Ones — discussing how Penn was widely viewed as the frontrunner when the film premiered in September. As the precursors rolled in, co-star Del Toro, playing a character the audience loves, gained traction. Do Oscar voters quietly resist honoring performances that embody unflinching villainy? Consider Ralph Fiennes in “Schindler’s List,” whose chilling portrayal of Amon Göth remains one of cinema’s most indelible depictions of evil. Despite universal acclaim and Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust epic dominating the 1993 season, Fiennes lost the supporting actor Oscar to Tommy Lee Jones for “The Fugitive.” The same pattern appeared two decades later: Michael Fassbender’s terrifying turn as plantation owner Edwin Epps in “12 Years a Slave” earned widespread praise but lost to Jared Leto as a trans woman battling AIDS in “Dallas Buyers Club.”

Add to this Penn’s two previous Oscars — “Mystic River” (2003) and “Milk” (2008) — his outspoken criticism of the Academy, and his absence from SAG and BAFTA, and it’s easy to see why a race that isn’t clear-cut could tilt toward someone else.

That brings us back to Lindo.

Actors have earned surprise nominations without precursor support before, especially when their films are in the running for best picture: Alan Alda in “The Aviator” (2004), Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013) and Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (2011). The difference this season is that “Sinners” is surging. A surprise nomination for Lindo in a record-breaking film is somewhat unprecedented.

Looking further back, the 1977 season offers a useful precedent. “Rocky” and “Network” tied with 10 nominations each. “Network” added Beatrice Straight, whose five minutes of screen time was enough to edge out Jodie Foster in “Taxi Driver” and Jane Alexander in “All the President’s Men.” That year’s supporting race splintered: Katharine Ross won the Golden Globe for “Voyage of the Damned” but missed an Oscar nomination, even as her co-star Lee Grant made the lineup. On Oscar night, “Network” won three acting awards plus original screenplay, while “Rocky” took home three — including best picture, director (John G. Avildsen) and film editing. Both films lost BAFTA to “Annie Hall,” which kickstarted its Oscar run for the following year.

The point is Lindo’s support runs deep. If Penn isn’t the answer and Skarsgård has been inconsistent enough on the circuit, Lindo could become the modern Marcia Gay Harden — a rare Oscar win without precursor recognition — strengthened further by the possibility that “Sinners” could claim best picture.

Final predictions are below. Each category will be updated throughout the week leading up to the 98th Oscars, set for Sunday, March 15, and hosted by Conan O’Brien.