Actor: Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor posthumously for The Dark Knight, and the Joker performance changed what a comic-book antagonist could be, built on unpredictability and physical discomfort instead of menace.

Brokeback Mountain brought the earlier nomination, and Ennis Del Mar is the more difficult performance, a man so closed that the tragedy is almost inaudible.

A Knight’s Tale and Monster’s Ball show the range before it. He died in 2008 at twenty-eight during production on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which was completed by three other actors playing the role.