Oscars 2023: Top 10 Black contenders

Jonathan Majors

Jonathan Majors might be nominated for best actor for his role in “Devotion”. Majors plays Jesse Brown, the first Black aviator to finish the Navy’s basic training course in Sony’s Devotion. J.D. Dillard, the film’s director, set the story in the months before the Korean War. The film also stars Glen Powell as Tom Hudner, a naval lieutenant assigned to be Brown’s wingman. The movie follows the duo as they practice for war and learn the difficult (and risky) skill of landing a jet on an aircraft carrier’s deck. Soon after they start working professionally, they develop a close connection that is so strong that they would risk their lives both on the ground and in the air to defend one another.

Majors does a superb job of capturing the pride, tenacity, and passion that must have driven Brown’s life. A highlight of his blossoming cinematic career was playing Brown, Majors once told reporters. While Majors claims that Brown, a real-life person, perfectly encapsulated the idea of Black excellence, he has appeared in revisionist period dramas such as The Harder They Fall and Lovecraft Country, the latter of which earned him an Emmy nomination.