Which 2024 Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee has the longest (and shortest) screen time?
Ever since Mahershala Ali won the 2017 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Moonlight” with less than 21 minutes of screen time, the academy has consistently lauded much larger featured male roles, with all of the last half dozen honorees having comfortably surpassed the category’s screen time average. That streak is practically assured to end this year, however, since most of the men currently vying for the prize clock in below average and none of them appear in more than a quarter of their movies.
The 2024 supporting actor nominees have an average screen time of 29 minutes and 36 seconds, or 19.56% of their respective films. While they outpace last year’s group by 42 seconds, they also fall behind them by almost five percentage points. Their physical time average essentially puts them right in the middle of the category’s all-time ranking, while their percentage mean is the 17th lowest ever.
The last 10 winners of this award appeared on screen for an average of 41 minutes and two seconds, or 32.35% of their films. With his staggering total of 58 minutes and 33 seconds, 2023 champ Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) ranks seventh on the list of featured male victors with the most actual screen time, while his percentage (42.03%) is greater than those of all but 11 of his predecessors.
The 2024 contender who comes closest to matching Quan’s physical time is Robert De Niro, who is recognized for his 47 minutes and 38 seconds of work in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Given the film’s massive running time of 206 minutes, he naturally does not boast the highest percentage in his lineup but rather places second in that regard at 23.12%. By actual time on screen, his villainous turn is the 58th longest ever nominated for this award and would be the 18th longest to win it.
Next is Mark Ruffalo, whose fourth Oscar notice (all in this category) comes for his 31-minute and seven-second performance in “Poor Things,” constituting 21.99% of the film. This is now his shortest nominated turn in both senses, with his longest one still being his first in “The Kids Are All Right” (2011; 41:03 and 38.62%). Counting all 20 of this year’s acting nominees, Ruffalo exits his film the earliest, at the 85.66% mark (after also entering relatively late at 22.32%).
Although he physically ranks in the middle of this lineup with 28 minutes and 59 seconds of screen time in “Barbie,” Ryan Gosling’s percentage (25.42%) is higher than that of any of his competitors and surpasses the category’s all-time nominee average by nearly half a point. If he succeeds on his first featured outing, he will essentially fall right in the middle of the percentage-based ranking of all supporting male winners.
The second shortest performance in this bunch is also the smallest by percentage, as Robert Downey Jr.’s 23-minute and 50-second turn in “Oppenheimer” takes up just 13.22% of the three-hour movie. His new percentage, which is 20.48 points lower than the one associated with his 2009 supporting bid for “Tropic Thunder,” is the 69th lowest in the category’s history, whereas only eight proportionally shorter performances (none of which were given before 1992) have earned this prize.
Rounding out this roster is first-time Oscar nominee Sterling K. Brown, whose 16-minute and 25-second performance in “American Fiction” (translating to 14.07% of the film) is the 74th shortest ever nominated here. To date, only six men – including back-to-back champ Jason Robards (“All the President’s Men,” 1977; “Julia,” 1978) – have received this honor with less physical time, with the most recent having been 2007 winner Alan Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) at 14:20.
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