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Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another. The performance of the year in so much as del Toro achieves the supreme movie actor state of just being.
Liz Larsen, The Baltimorons. Larsen innately embodies a movie that is all about living in and responding to the moment by appearing to make it all up as she goes along.
Marisa Abela, Black Bag. In a movie where so many other actors are deliberately programmed and theatrical, Abela’s uninhibited vulnerability is the necessary contrast, bursting free of the pan and doing her own thing.
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent. In playing someone pretending to be someone else for his own safety, Moura’s guarded but soulful turn effortlessly emits the emotional and mental toll taken not just from living a lie but from being unable to be yourself. What’s more, like Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners,” he is also giving two performances, though in an entirely different way, with a cameo essentially wrapped inside his own lead performance in which he conveys a wistfulness for what he remembers and a true sadness for what he does not.
The 2025 Ruffalo: It is tempting to award this year’s Ruffalo to Nina Meurisse for doing so much to lock “Souleymane’s Story” into place through nothing more than one scene at the end, except Meurisse won the César Award for Best Supporting Actress, which goes against the breezily defined criteria of Wesley Morris when he concocted the unofficial Ruffalo for the late web site Grantland a decade ago as a way to reward actors not only playing the background a little bit but not being nominated for anything. And though I also considered giving this year’s Ruffalo to Billy Crudup for “Jay Kelly,” briefly breathing wild life into a film that frequently feels devoid of it, stealing a movie, as he does, still seems slightly counterintuitive to the nature of this award. So, let’s give the 2025 Ruffalo to Gaby Hoffmann for “The Mastermind” instead who in just a few flourishes, really, provides the necessary contrast to Josh O’Connor’s protagonist, a rock to his pitiful tumbleweed blowing in the wind.
