20. Mark Ruffalo: You Can Count on Me (2000) – best supporting actor
Kenneth Lonergan’s bittersweet study of two orphaned siblings struggling to reconnect as emotionally damaged adults was Ruffalo’s big-screen breakthrough. His unreliable itinerant Terry habitually infuriates Laura Linney’s stoic single mother Sammy; yet Terry’s halting, heartfelt final monologue, referencing the film’s unspoken title, is an understated tear-jerker. For that speech alone, Ruffalo should’ve been nominated alongside Linney and Lonergan’s script.
