# BIFA Award for Best Supporting Actor

The British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor is an annual award given by the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) to recognize the best supporting performance by an actor in a British independent film.
From 2003 to 2007, only one award was presented for supporting performances named Best Supporting Actor/Actress. Since 2008, two categories named Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress are presented.
Actors Eddie Marsan and Sean Harris are the most nominated actors in this category since its creation in 2008 with three nominations each.
In July 2022, it was announced that the performance categories would be replaced with gender-neutral categories, with both Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress merging into the Best Lead Performance category. Additionally, a category named Best Joint Lead Performance was created for "two (or exceptionally three) performances that are the joint focus of the film, especially where performances share a large number of scenes and screen time".

## Winners and nominees
### 2000s
#### Best Supporting Actor/Actress

| Year | Actor/Actress | Film | Character |
| 2003 (6th) | Susan Lynch | 16 Years of Alcohol | Mary |
| 2003 (6th) | Benedict Wong | Dirty Pretty Things | Guo Yi |
| 2003 (6th) | Sophie Okonedo | Dirty Pretty Things | Juliette |
| 2003 (6th) | Adrian Rawlins | Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself | Harbour |
| 2003 (6th) | Shirley Henderson | Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself | Alice |
| 2004 (7th) | Eddie Marsan | Vera Drake | Reg |
| 2004 (7th) | Gary Stretch | Dead Man's Shoes | Sonny |
| 2004 (7th) | Samantha Morton | Enduring Love | Claire |
| 2004 (7th) | Romola Garai | Rory O'Shea Was Here | Siobhán |
| 2004 (7th) | Paddy Considine | My Summer of Love | Phil |
| 2005 (8th) | Rosamund Pike | The Libertine | Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester |
| 2005 (8th) | Bill Nighy | The Constant Gardener | Sir Bernard Pellegrin |
| 2005 (8th) | Tom Hollander | The Libertine | George Etherege |
| 2005 (8th) | Kelly Reilly | Mrs Henderson Presents | Maureen Ashford |
| 2005 (8th) | Rob Brydon | A Cock and Bull Story | Captain Toby Shandy / Rob Brydon |
| 2006 (9th) | Leslie Phillips | Venus | Ian |
| 2006 (9th) | Martin Compston | Red Road | Stevie |
| 2006 (9th) | Joseph Gilgun as Woody | This Is England | Woody |
| 2006 (9th) | Stephen Graham | This Is England | Combo |
| 2006 (9th) | Vanessa Redgrave | Venus | Valerie |
| 2007 (10th) | Toby Kebbell | Control | Rob Gretton |
| 2007 (10th) | Colin Firth | And When Did You Last See Your Father? | Blake Morrison |
| 2007 (10th) | Samantha Morton | Control | Deborah Curtis |
| 2007 (10th) | Armin Mueller-Stahl | Eastern Promises | Vor Semyon |
| 2007 (10th) | Cate Blanchett | Notes on a Scandal | Sheba Hart |

#### Best Supporting Actor

| Year | Actor | Film | Character |
| 2008 (11th) | Eddie Marsan | Happy-Go-Lucky | Scott |
| 2008 (11th) | Liam Cunningham | Hunger | Father Dominic Moran |
| 2008 (11th) | Ralph Fiennes | In Bruges | Harry Waters |
| 2008 (11th) | Ralph Fiennes | The Duchess | William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire |
| 2008 (11th) | Daniel Mays | Shifty | Chris |
| 2009 (12th) | John Henshaw | Looking for Eric | Meatballs |
| 2009 (12th) | Alfred Molina | An Education | Jack Mellor |
| 2009 (12th) | Tom Hollander | In the Loop | Simon Foster |
| 2009 (12th) | Michael Fassbender | Fish Tank | Connor |
| 2009 (12th) | Jim Broadbent | The Damned United | Sam Longson |

### 2010s

| Year | Actor | Film | Character |
| 2010 (13th) | Geoffrey Rush | The King's Speech | Lionel Logue |
| 2010 (13th) | Kayvan Novak | Four Lions | Waj |
| 2010 (13th) | Bob Hoskins | Made in Dagenham | Albert Passingham |
| 2010 (13th) | Andrew Garfield | Never Let Me Go | Tommy D |
| 2010 (13th) | Guy Pearce | The King's Speech | King Edward VIII |
| 2011 (14th) | Michael Smiley | Kill List | Gal |
| 2011 (14th) | Benedict Cumberbatch | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy | Peter Guilliam |
| 2011 (14th) | Tom Hardy | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy | Ricki Tarr |
| 2011 (14th) | Eddie Marsan | Tyrannosaur | James |
| 2011 (14th) | Ezra Miller | We Need to Talk about Kevin | Kevin Khatchadourian |
| 2012 (15th) | Rory Kinnear | Broken | Bob Oswald |
| 2012 (15th) | Billy Connolly | Quartet | Wilfred "Wilf" Bond |
| 2012 (15th) | Cillian Murphy | Broken | Mike Kiernan |
| 2012 (15th) | Tom Wilkinson | The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel | Graham Dashwood |
| 2012 (15th) | Domhnall Gleeson | Shadow Dancer | Connor McVeigh |
| 2013 (16th) | Ben Mendelsohn | Starred Up | Neville Love |
| 2013 (16th) | John Arcilla | Metro Manila | Douglas Ong |
| 2013 (16th) | Rupert Friend | Starred Up | Oliver Baumer |
| 2013 (16th) | Jeff Goldblum | Le Week-End | Morgan |
| 2013 (16th) | Eddie Marsan | Filth | Clifford Blades |
| 2014 (17th) | Andrew Scott | Pride | Gethin Roberts |
| 2014 (17th) | Michael Fassbender | Frank | Frank |
| 2014 (17th) | Sean Harris | '71 | Captain Sandy Brown |
| 2014 (17th) | Ben Schnetzer | Pride | Mark Ashton |
| 2014 (17th) | Rafe Spall | X+Y | Martin Humphreys |
| 2015 (18th) | Brendan Gleeson | Suffragette | Arthur Steed |
| 2015 (18th) | Luke Evans | High-Rise | Richard Wilder |
| 2015 (18th) | Domhnall Gleeson | Brooklyn | Jim Farrell |
| 2015 (18th) | Sean Harris | Macbeth | Macduff |
| 2015 (18th) | Ben Whishaw | The Lobster | The Limping Man |
| 2016 (19th) | Brett Goldstein | Adult Life Skills | Brendan |
| 2016 (19th) | Jamie Dornan | Anthropoid | Jan Kubiš |
| 2016 (19th) | Sean Harris | Trespass Against Us | Gordon Bennett |
| 2016 (19th) | Arinze Kene | The Pass | Ade |
| 2016 (19th) | Christopher Lloyd | I Am Not a Serial Killer | Bill Crowley |
| 2017 (20th) | Simon Russell Beale | The Death of Stalin | Lavrentiy Beria |
| 2017 (20th) | Woody Harrelson | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | Bill Willoughby |
| 2017 (20th) | Sam Rockwell | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | Jason Dixon |
| 2017 (20th) | Ian Hart | God's Own Country | Martin Saxby |
| 2017 (20th) | Steve Buscemi | The Death of Stalin | Nikita Khrushchev |
| 2018 (21st) | Alessandro Nivola | Disobedience | Dovid Kuperman |
| 2018 (21st) | Steve Buscemi | Lean on Pete | Del Montgomery |
| 2018 (21st) | Barry Keoghan | American Animals | Spencer Reinhard |
| 2018 (21st) | Evan Peters | American Animals | Warren Lipka |
| 2018 (21st) | Dominic West | Colette | Henry Gauthier-Villars |
| 2019 (22nd) | Hugh Laurie | The Personal History of David Copperfield | Mr. Dick |
| 2019 (22nd) | Chiwetel Ejiofor | The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind | Trywell Kamkwamba |
| 2019 (22nd) | Edlison Manuel Olbera Núñez | Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story | Young Carlos Acosta |
| 2019 (22nd) | Peter Mullan | The Vanishing | Thomas Marshall |
| 2019 (22nd) | Bluey Robinson | Dirty God | Naz |

### 2020s

| Year | Actor | Film | Character |
| 2020 (23rd) | D'angelou Osei Kissiedu | Rocks | Emmanuel Omotoso |
| 2020 (23rd) | Barry Keoghan | Calm with Horses | Dymphna |
| 2020 (23rd) | Harris Dickinson | County Lines | Simon |
| 2020 (23rd) | Merab Ninidze | The Courier | Oleg Penkovsky |
| 2020 (23rd) | Alyy Khan | Mogul Mowgli | Bashir |
| 2021 (24th) | Talid Ariss | After Love | Solomon |
| 2021 (24th) | Richard Ayoade | The Souvenir Part II | Patrick |
| 2021 (24th) | Lucian River-Chauhan | Encounter | Jay Kahn |
| 2021 (24th) | Ciarán Hinds | Belfast | Pop |
| 2021 (24th) | Ray Panthaki | Boiling Point | Freeman |