Brad Pitt is a co-lead. Al Pacino is a co-lead. Tom Hanks is a co-lead. Anthony Hopkins is a co-lead. Willem Dafoe is a co-lead.

I mostly shrug off category fraud but it's true. #BestSupportingActor

Honestly I get the game-playing more than I get the insistence that any man who doesn't have the biggest role is by definition supporting. Stephen Graham and Joe Pesci are supporting actors. Pacino: co-lead.

Network had it right. Holden, Finch, Dunaway: All leads.

Beneath this is the idea that the person the movie is "about" is the lead. Beneath THAT is the idea that an important way to read a movie is to decide who it's "about." But you don't have to do that! P.S. All three women in The Favourite were leads. Good night. I SAID GOOD NIGHT!