Oscar season is upon us, which means studios are working overtime to ensure that their films get duly recognized by the appropriate awards bodies in the lead up to the Academy Awards. With the fall film festival behind us, we already have our frontrunners (hello, A Star Is Born), and the next two months are about the major contenders jockeying to get into the conversation. There’s always room for a spoiler or two (hello, Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World), but by and large a lot of the chess board has already been set.

Which is why I wanted to take a beat to highlight some great performances from 2018 that aren’t in this frontrunner conversation at the moment. It’s easy to get bogged down with what’s expected, but it’s important to remember that Academy voters don’t start making their choices until January 5th, which means there’s still a lot of time for folks to watch those screeners and consider who deserves to be on their ballots. A lot of this, sadly, depends on how much money a studio can spend on campaigns—it stands to reason that the more you see ads touting Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game, the more likely you are to remember his name when it comes time to fill out your ballot.

So before things get too settled, here are 15 truly great and somewhat underrated performances from 2018 that deserve to be part of the Oscar conversation.

Carey Mulligan – Wildlife

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Image via Sundance Institute

Carey Mulligan has been making films for nearly 15 years, but she delivers the best performance of her career thus far in Paul Dano’s sorely underrated drama Wildlife. The 1960-set film charts the dissolution of a family as seen through the eyes of a teenage boy, but Mulligan imbues the matriarch with a complexity and messiness that’s rarely seen in female characters, let alone mothers—especially in a non-judgmental way. Her character Jeanette is, above all else, human, and anchored by a tremendous screenplay from Dano and Zoe Kazan, Mulligan absolutely nails it. Her performance is astounding as she’s given a female character with the shadings and darkness usually reserved for leading male roles that go on to win Oscars. I get that Wildlife is a small movie, but Mulligan should absolutely be in the Best Actress conversation this year.

Ethan Hawke – First Reformed

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Image via A24

I’m not exactly sure when Ethan Hawke became one of our greatest living actors, but it happened, and his talents are on full display in Paul Schrader’s bold drama First Reformed. Hawke’s reserved, despairing reverend goes to some wild places towards the end of the film, and so it’s on Hawke to ensure that the arc fully charts for the audience. He traverses the path beautifully, and while the film has drawn comparisons to Taxi Driver, I’d say Hawke’s more understated work here is just as challenging as Robert De Niro’s groundbreaking turn in that Schrader-written 1976 masterpiece. It's a bold, perplexing ,and ultimately deeply impactful performance.

Michael B. Jordan – Black Panther

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Image via Marvel Studios

Many Oscar pundits have Michael B. Jordan already shortlisted for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, but I felt it necessary to include him on this list because, well, you never know. But yes, Jordan delivers one of the year’s best performances as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most interesting villain thus far. Black Panther’s Killmonger is a thematic foil to T’Challa, and their push-and-pull is the beating heart of the film. It’s a testament to Jordan’s performance that you empathize deeply with Killmonger’s motivations, even if you disagree with his means.

Kathryn Hahn – Private Life

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Image via Netflix

Kathryn Hahn’s performance in Private Life is not just one of the best “Best Actress” performances of the year, it’s one of the best performances of the year full-stop. Hahn plays a woman who, with her husband (played terrifically by Paul Giamatti), has been trying to get pregnant for years. Writer/director Tamara Jenkins’ drama charts the emotional ups and downs of IVF through the eyes of this one middle-aged couple, but it’s Hahn’s turn that haunts the picture. She’s endearing and funny, but also complicated and wonderfully dimensional. The story of IVF is not all good or all bad—people are going to have their moments, and Hahn charts this heartbreaking arc beautifully. We’ve known from work like Step Brothers and Parks and Recreation that Hahn is hilarious, but with Private Life she proves she has incredible dramatic chops.

John David Washington – BlacKkKlansman

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Image via Focus Features

BlacKkKlansman is one of the best films Spike Lee has ever made, and it’s all anchored by a deceptively simple performance from John David Washington. In filling the role of Ron Stallworth, Washington has to navigate both racial politics and police relations in the 1970s, and that’s all before the Ku Klux Klan comes into the picture. BlacKkKlansman is a film that can be very funny at times, and Washington nails that humor, but when the tone turns deadly serious Washington nails it. It’s a tricky role, and given the tonal ambition of the entire piece a lot of the film’s success is due to Washington’s work here. The film is expected to pick up some major Oscar nominations, but Washington’s performance shouldn’t be forgotten.

Toni Collette – Hereditary

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Image via A24

One of the year’s first major Oscar contenders was Toni Collette’s brilliant performance in the profoundly disturbing horror film Hereditary. Collette is still in the mix, but the race has only gotten more crowded since that time. Regardless, her brave, dynamic turn remains one of the year’s most striking performances. For all the terrifying other stuff in the film, Hereditary is, ultimately, a story about grief, and it manifests in various ways in Collette’s characters. She vacillates between denial, anger, frustration, elation, and despair without ever hitting a false note. It’s enough to make your head spin.

John C. Reilly – The Sisters Brothers

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Image via Annapurna Pictures

Destined to go down as one of 2018’s most underrated films, The Sisters Brothers is a contemplative, endearing Western that also happens to feature a downright terrific performance from John C. Reilly. Before Talladega Nights or Step Brothers, Reilly made a name for himself with stellar dramatic turns in films like The Aviator and Chicago, and in that vein Sisters Brothers is something of a return to form. Reilly’s heartbreaking turn as Eli Sisters, the more mild-mannered and meek brother to hot-headed Charlie Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix), is a complicated one, as the narrative begins to invert halfway through and Eli is forced to step up and take the lead position for once. Reilly charts the arc beautifully, and while Eli and Charlie are killers by hire, the actor never loses Eli’s humanity. It's a deeply soulful performance that may just be Reilly's best.

Rosamund Pike – A Private War

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Photo by Paul Conroy/Aviron Pictures

In her best performance since her Oscar-nominated work in Gone Girl, Rosamund Pike wholly transforms in Matthew Heineman’s true-story drama A Private War. It’s an ambitious turn from Pike, who plays brave war journalist Marie Colvin, whose life-threatening reporting on events such as the Arab Spring proved invaluable. Pike gets at the courage of Colvin’s character while also showing shades of what makes her tick, as the film asks what kind of person it takes to continue going back into deadly war zones to witness horrors first hand so that the people back home don’t have to. It's a bold, important performance—especially for 2018.

Thomasin McKenzie – Leave No Trace

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Image via Bleecker Street

Eight years ago, filmmaker Debra Granik made a star out of Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, and if there’s any justice the young performer of her long-awaited follow-up Leave No Trace, Thomasin McKenzie, will similarly be recognized for a star-making performance of her own. In chronicling the story of a father and daughter living off the land in the Pacific Northwest, McKenzie toes the fine line between obedient child and curious teenager, and as the film charts her own coming-of-age, McKenzie’s subtle and thoughtful performance absolutely shines. She doesn’t go to obvious places, but the emotional impact is all the better for it, and the fact that she more than holds her own opposite a veteran performer like Ben Foster is proof positive she’s got a long career ahead of her.

Dakota Johnson – Suspiria

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Image via Amazon Studios

It’s a bit weird that a year after Luca Guadagnino helmed one of the season’s most critically acclaimed and accomplished films in Call Me by Your Name, his follow-up feature Suspiria isn’t getting the same attention. Such is the awards race when you’re an incredibly strange horror film I suppose, but Dakota Johnson’s performance in the horror redo is remarkable nonetheless. It’s tough to discuss the impressiveness of Johnson’s turn without getting into spoilers, but suffice it to say when the film goes to some crazy places, it’s Johnson’s arc throughout the course of the film that keeps the audience’s feet planted firmly on the ground. This is one that’s going to age really, really well.

Russell Hornsby – The Hate U Give

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Image via 20th Century Fox

I’ve already written about how the YA adaptation The Hate U Give should be taken seriously this Oscar season as one of the year’s best films, but at the very least Russell Hornsby deserves notice for this showstopping performance. Hornsby plays the father to a young girl whose life is split between two worlds—the mostly poor and black neighborhood in which she lives, and the mostly white and rich population of the private school she attends. Both worlds come crashing down when she witnesses her unarmed friend get shot and killed by a police officer, and her father struggles to protect her. Hornsby’s character is a complicated one—a black man proud of his people’s history, but one who also wants the best possible future for his daughter. Hornsby fills the character out with beautiful complexity, and he has at least one monologue in the film that has the audience breaking out into spontaneous applause.

Elsie Fisher – Eighth Grade

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Image via A24

Eighth Grade is one of the most uncomfortable viewing experiences of the year, and that’s a testament to how well young performer Elsie Fisher captures what it feels like to be in middle school. The newcomer’s stunning turn is sensitive and awkward and self-conscious, but also remarkably resilient and courageous. The reason we’re so uncomfortable for a lot of the movie is because we care so deeply for Kayla Day, and we only want her to be happy. Fisher’s work here is a genuine breakout performance.

Jeff Bridges – Bad Times at the El Royale

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Image via 20th Century Fox

It’s entirely possible that we take Jeff Bridges for granted at this point, and while Bad Times at the El Royale may have looked like simply another fun genre play for the Oscar-winning actor, Drew Goddard’s layered, character-centric script actually gives Bridges a lot to work with. The result is a man full of regret, attempting to rectify a wrong, but whose true identity is kept hidden for the first half of the movie. Bridges allows the intrigue and mystery to wash over his character, but when the stakes get raised in the third act and all the cards are on the table, Bridges brings it home with a tremendously emotional performance. If the Oscars took greater notice of genre films, Bridges’ name would be in this conversation.

The Entire Cast of Widows

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Widows is the perfect date movie that also happens to be a prestige drama. It’s a thrilling, rousing heist flick full of twists and turns, but it’s also a thoughtful, thematically rich chronicle of misogyny, morality, local politics, racism, and grief, and it’s a testament to director Steve McQueen’s skill that it works as well as it does. But the film’s secret weapon is its entire cast. The standouts are clearly Elizabeth Debicki as a woman who was treated as nothing more than a pretty face and Viola Davis as a complicated character with her own secrets, but Cynthia Erivo, Daniel Kaluuya, Brian Tyree Henry, Michelle Rodriguez, Liam Neeson and Colin Farrell all deliver tremendous performances. If we must pick a pair who deserve the most attention it’s Davis and Debicki (who also have the most screentime), but this film and this cast specifically are why a Best Ensemble category is warranted for the Academy Awards.

Tom Cruise – Mission: Impossible – Fallout

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Does Tom Cruise literally have to die for people to recognize the immense skill with which he’s delivering these jaw-dropping action performances? Mission: Impossible – Fallout is an action masterpiece and arguably the best Mission movie yet, and while the film gets seriously emotional—which we know Cruise is capable of knocking out of the park—it’s an action movie at heart. Over the last decade or so Cruise has seemingly made it his mission to perfect this specific genre, and his willingness to go the dangerous extra mile is unmatched in the realm of “movie stars.” For Fallout alone he jumped out of an airplane over and over again, rode a motorcycle through the streets of Paris, and jumped off a building and broke his freaking ankle. If “Best Actor” is supposed to encompass best acting, period, shouldn’t we consider the fact that Cruise is delivering a great performance while also, like, hanging off a helicopter?