Best facelift for thin male face?

Thank you for providing such a clear and self-aware description — this kind of detail helps significantly when evaluating facial aging and treatment goals.
What you're demonstrating by gently lifting near your temples is essentially the effect of a temporal (or temple) lift, which targets the upper lateral face and can create visible improvement in the midface, particularly around the nasolabial and oral commissure area.
You also mentioned seeing improvement when lying down, which suggests volume descent and projection loss in the cheek area, possibly due to underdeveloped or flattened zygomatic bones. This is common in naturally thin patients and can exaggerate facial hollowness or contour changes over time.
While mini or limited-scope lifts may sound appealing, they often don’t provide enough structural support in patients with significant skin laxity — which, as you noted, tends to be more prominent in leaner faces. For those looking for long-term, meaningful improvement and who are ready for a more involved surgery, a deep plane facelift may offer a much more effective and natural repositioning of tissue.
On the other hand, if you're looking to stay in a less invasive category, combining your surgery with a temple lift with volume restoration (fat grafting or implant to the cheek) might help refine the area of concern without going into deeper layers of dissection.
It all comes down to your goals, your timeline, and how much downtime you're willing to accept. Either path can be designed to look modest and natural — the key is matching the right technique to your unique anatomy and expectations.
Wishing you clarity and great care as you move forward.

Only on the basis of in person or teleconference consultation it would be possible to give you good advice regarding facial surgery. Good luck.

You are young at 45-years-old. Women do better with facelift as they can wear make-up to cover up the incisions. Males, of course, do not do that. You mentioned repeatedly the corners of the mouth. I recommend an eccentric lip lift. This does 4 things: shortens the distance between the upper lip and nose, increases the mucosa of the upper lip, increases the incisor show and pulls up the corners. This procedure takes 1 hour to perform under local anesthesia and costs $4,000.

Best Wishes,

Gary Horndeski, M.D.

Congratulations on your health journey and turning things around for yourself. That's very impressive! A facelift is certainly an option in your situation, but there are other options as well. Comprehensive fat grafting would help to restore your facial volume and may be sufficient to achieve the change in appearance you seek. Additionally, a few sessions of Sculptra may also restore enough volume to delay or obviate your current thoughts on undergoing a facelift. Explore these options with providers in your area. Fat grafting is often done concomitantly with lifting as well.

A deep plane facelift will move the deeper tissues and get you a healthier look overall along with a rejuvenation. Should last years and be a very good result.

Great question. A mini facelift combined with fat transfer would be one great option. A mini facelift can address the mild to moderate laxity around the midface and mouth, providing the type of lift you're seeing when gently pulling upward near the temples. This technique allows for subtle yet meaningful improvement with a more refined recovery process compared to a full facelift. You are younger and as such do not have extensive descent of facial tissues and as such, may not need a formal deep plane facelift. Given your naturally thin features with depressions at your cheek, subtle fat transfer can be especially beneficial to soften some of the hollow areas, restoring volume and improving skin texture. This combination approach often produces a refreshed look while maintaining natural facial expressions. Thanks!

Thank you for posting your question here!My answer will be based on the limited information and pictures provided, for a more detailed and personalized plan I would recommend consulting with your surgeon in person.
You don't seem to have much loose skin in your lower face, i am guessing that drooping cheeks and some of the hollowing of your lower cheeks is what is concerning to you , this tends to age people and if that is the concern then a combination of midface lift to reposition the cheeks and potentially fat grafting can give you a more youthful appearance. I would encourage you to discuss the options with your surgeons as plans can changed based on your physical exam.I hope this helps, best of luck!

A facelift primarily treats jowls of the jawline and neck laxity.
You don’t have either one to any significant degree.
I don’t think a facelift is going to do all that much for you, considering all the drawbacks of having the procedure, especially for men.
A facelift causes the bearded hair to be moved closer to your ear which is less than ideal so there are some significant drawbacks, especially for men having this procedure that needs to be weighed against the potential benefits.
It looks to me like facial volume restoration may be a better option for you.
Expect different plastic surgeons to have different recommendations.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom MD