Seeking their first Oscar acting mentions: Critics Choice and BAFTA nominees Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons both landed nominations for their roles in Jane Campion’s festival hit “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix). Smit-McPhee plays Peter, an enigmatic medical student who joins his mother Rose (nominee Kirsten Dunst) and her new husband George (Plemons) on a remote Montana cattle ranch. Out of his element on the range, Peter is happy for the couple’s newfound happiness, until George’s surly brother Phil (nominee Benedict Cumberbatch), a loudmouth bully, seeks to undermine his new family at every turn.
Also a first-timer at the Oscar table, surprisingly, is Belfast-born stage veteran Ciaran Hinds, who shares the screen with Dame Judi Dench as the doting grandparents to young Buddy (Jude Hill) in Kenneth Branagh’s festival hit, ’60s remembrance “Belfast” (Focus). Hinds and Dench make us laugh and care and cry in Branagh’s moving testament to family and loss. ©Apple TV/Courtesy Everett Collection And Theater of the Deaf star Troy Kotsur is also both poignant and profanely hilarious opposite Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God”) as the parents of a budding singer (Emilia Jones) in Sundance prize-winner “CODA” (Apple TV+). Kotsur marks the first deaf male Oscar nominee, and given his sweep of SAG, BAFTA, and Critics choice, he’s going to mark an historical win, too. Nominees are listed in order of their likelihood to win, below. Contenders Troy Kotsur (“CODA”) Kodi Smit-McPhee (“The Power of the Dog”) Ciaran Hinds (“Belfast”) Jesse Plemons (“The Power of the Dog”) J.K. Simmons (“Being the Ricardos”) Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
