HLS Movie Awards Best Acting Ensemble

    Welcome back to HLS Entertainment! Today we are covering the HLS Movie Award Nominees for Best Acting Ensemble! These films have just incredible acting from top to bottom throughout all the main players in the film as well as side characters. Outstanding singular performances that might get nominated themselves for Best Actor or Actress is NOT a requirement for this award, but that does not mean a singular performance can't help elevate the film as a whole. This award is to highlight all of the incredible people who did such a good job playing their roles no matter if it was a lead performance or not. Before we get into the nominees, please be sure to follow us on Twitter @HLSEntrtainment and my personal account @HaroldLStokes. On to the nominees!

Belfast

Starring: Jude Hill, Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, Judi Dench and Lewis McAskie

    Just an incredible movie that the entire thing hangs on Jude Hill's acting performance and likability, and he is just perfect, adorable kid. A child's perspective of life during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Must watch film that I will speak more on when it comes up on the Top 116 movies list.

Dune

Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgard and many other talented actors

    I have narrowed these actors out as they are the ones with the most screentime and this cast call sheet goes deep. Great actors like Zendaya still did incredible work but their screentime was much more limited. Don't worry Zendaya fans she should have a significantly larger role in Dune: Part Two. 

Judas and the Black Messiah

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons and Dominique Fishback

    Those four main incredible actors did such a great job in their roles. Both Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Standield were nominated for Oscars for their parts, and Kaluuya won Best Actor in a supporting role. You might remember there was debate on who should be in what category leading v supporting for awards season, but both were just outstanding, and more people need to watch this movie.

     This might be a good time to remind everyone, the HLS Movie Awards covers only movies released in a specific year, so to be eligible for these nominations the film had to be released in the year 2021. All that said that means we will get some overlap from previous award season movies that were not released to the mass public until the next year.

TRAILER SPOILERS READ BELOW

Mass

Starring: Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd and Reed Birney

    This movie is entirely about the acting performances by then four actors. I think it is a very safe guess to say 90+% of this movie takes place with only these four actors sitting around a table in one room. I want to warn you to not watch the trailer because it gives away why the four of them are meeting, just know that it is incredibly sensitive and depressing subject matter and the emotions and conversations had in this movie will linger with you for days.

Minari

Starring: Steven Yeun, Yeri Han, Youn Yuh-jung,, Will Patton, Alan S. Kim and Noel Cho

    This is another movie that fell to this year's awards nominees based on the timing of its' release and I loved getting to finally watch this movie when it did come out. The cast of the entire family do just brilliant work in this movie, so much so that Steven Yeun was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role and Youn yuh-jung won Best Actress in a supporting role. 

Licorice Pizza

Starring: Cooper Hoffman, Alana Haim, Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, Tom Waits

    Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim are the crux of this film as this film follows them "growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley in 1973"(from IMDb), many other actors come in and out of the movie for short spurts, but this is our main crew, and they did an excellent job in this film.

The Power of the Dog

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons

    This movie is just littered with Oscar nominations as all four of listed have been nominated for either leading or supporting roles with Benedict Cumberbatch being the lead. ALL FOUR, that is crazy. Now do I agree with all four nominations? Maybe, you will find out when the HLS Movie Award Best Actress and Best Actor nominations come out 3/11 and 3/18.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob, Batalon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire and the kitchen sink

    The crazy thing is that does not even mention the brief funny scene of some of some incredible funny people like Hannibal Buress, J.B. Smoove and Martin Starr. Also, Rhys Ifans, Charlie Cox, and Thomas Haden Church. I am just impressed with this cast list over and over again. I will give one spoiler for the HLS Movie Awards best actor nominations; Willem Dafoe gave just an outstanding performance that deserves more and more love.

Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know your favorite acting ensembles of 2021 were on Twitter @HaroldLStokes!