Should Leading vs. Supporting be objectively defined?

60% is a bit much. By that standard, I don't think Russell Crowe would be considered the lead in Gladiator and he's pretty much unanimously considered lead. I think if you were to make objective rulings (which I don't think are practical), then it should be around 40% with requests of exceptions having to go through a specially selected committee that is screened the film in question to vote on where they define category placements. Billing shouldn't matter, that has as much if not more to do with marketing and actor egos than whether or not the performance is leading (otherwise we'd have Marlon Brando as the lead in Superman).

Screentime has nothing to do with being lead. It's who the story is structured around. There are times where the character with the most screentime is not the lead character.

Billing is also silly because A. It has more to do with who the biggest star is than anything else (was Brando the lead in Superman and Apocalypse Now?) B. More and more movies are doing it alphabetically now, so it would almost be a moot point C. What about co-leads?

Ultimately it's subjective and trying to come up with objective standards for it is inherently silly. Personally I don't really have a huge problem with category fraud either. If you have two great performances in lead and a bunch of just good ones in supporting, why not move one of the great performances to the other category to award both great performances? Makes sense to me.

I like this idea. The writers branch already does this in cases where something being original or adapted isn't clear. 

billing aint a criteria. brad ain't a lead in babel for one.

for a perf to be considered lead, it must be determined who the story is about, or by whose pov it is being told. freeman would be supporting in shawshank easily if the movie wasn't from his pov, and robbins wont be a lead in the same movie if the storys not about him. if a character doesnt satisfy either criteria, he/she is supporting. ezpz

Seconding what Stephen said: there's no objective criterion you can blindly apply to all films in order to determine category placement. Not only will you get countless exceptions to each rule (with billing in particular being a very flawed metric, since it's far less about character prominence than about star power and contractual negotiation), that's all subjective anyway. There are borderline cases like Waltz in Django Unchained, for whom you can make a case in both categories, and others for which every metric is unreliable. For example, most of the board seemed to agree that Gyllenhaal was a lead in Nocturnal Animals (and his screentime certainly points in that direction), but I still see him as undoubtedly supporting. The manuscript storyline makes up for around 70% of the novel Ford's film is based on, but it's still 100% about Adams's character, even the segments in which she's not the direct focus. And yet most objective criteria would indicate that Gyllenhaal should get the leading treatment -- and some might actually lead one to believe that it's Adams who's supporting.

Same goes for Comedy/Drama placements at the Globes, by the way. I will never understand why The Martian's placement was so controversial (especially considering that the likes of Her, Before Midnight and Inside Llewyn Davis were all ruled comedies just two years before with little to no outrage), but others will defend that it's a drama with the same vehemence that I do that it's a comedy. Others such as, you know, the man who directed it. It's subjective.

With that said, I wouldn't be opposed to the Academy stipulating a given screentime percentage above which a performance is automatically classified as leading and one below which it is automatically ruled supporting, with an appeals board to judge individual cases. That wouldn't be infallible either, but it'd be a start.

Apples and oranges. Mary Alice, who played 'Rose' in the original 1987 Broadway production, won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, their version of supporting. Davis was nominated in the lead category for the 2010 revival for various reasons. For one, she already was a big name by that point, having already scored a Tony win (King Hedley II) and Oscar nomination (Doubt) and been in some high-profile films. Plus, her name was listed on the marquee (alongside Denzel's) which automatically makes you lead, in the eyes of the Committee, regardless of the size of your role. Likewise, if you have a sizable part but are not credited above the title, you are deemed featured.

However, you can appeal to the Committee. For example, in 1975, A Chorus Line was made up largely of unknowns, so none of them got marquee billing. Naturally, they all would be considered for featured actor/actress. Plus, it's a truly ensemble piece. But Donna McKechnie (who played 'Cassie') and the ACL producers petitioned for her to be put in lead, because they already had Priscilla Lopez ('Diana') and Kelly Bishop ('Sheila') vying for featured actress. They won their case and both McKechnie and Bishop won their respective categories.