When I first started thinking and writing about Kristen Stewart around ’04 or thereabouts, I thought she had something exceptional brewing inside. I thought she might eventually become the new Montgomery Clift or some facsimile thereof. I’m not so sure that’s in the cards but at least one can say that after a few starts and stops Stewart finally stepped up the plate three times in 2014. Camp X-Ray, in which she lent palpable weariness and inner conflict to Amy Cole, the green Guantanamo recruit, was the first indication when it played Sundance. Then came her subtly-drawn performance as Valentine, the personal assistant to Juliette Binoche in Clouds of Sils Maria, which everyone saw in Cannes. I haven’t seen Still Alice, in which Stewart plays Julianne Moore‘s daughter, but I read somewhere that she nails this one also. This is all to say that Stewart deserves a Best Supporting Actress nomination as much as Birdman‘s Emma Stone, Boyhood‘s Patricia Arquette and Foxcatcher‘s Vanessa Redgrave.

Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart in the little-seen Still Alice.

Clouds of Sils Maria

Camp X-Ray.