Academy Award For Best Actor Article Index for
Academy Award
Website Links For
Academy
 

Information About

Academy Award For Best Actor




In the first three years of the Academy Awards, individuals such as actors, directors, and cinematographers were nominated as the best in their categories. Then all of their work during the qualifying period (as many as three films in some cases) was listed after the award. However, for the 1929/30 awards, though each of the acting winners had had two films following their names on the ballots, only one of those films was cited in each winner's final award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film. Until 1936, nominations for this award were intended to include any actor, whether the performance was in a leading role or a supporting role. In 1936, however, the supporting categories were specifically added as distinct awards following complaints that the single Best Actor and Best Actress awards necessarily favored leading performers with the most screen time. Nonetheless, Best Actor had gone to at least one performer in a clear supporting role ( Lionel Barrymore in '' A Free Soul ''). Still other supporting players, such as Franchot Tone in '' Mutiny On The Bounty '' and May Robson in '' Lady For A Day '', had been nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively.

Seven men have won the Best Actor award twice. In chronological order, they are: Spencer Tracy (1937, 1938), Fredric March (1932, 1946), Gary Cooper (1941, 1952), Marlon Brando (1954, 1972), Dustin Hoffman (1979, 1988), Tom Hanks (1993, 1994), and Jack Nicholson (1975, 1997). Tracy and Hanks are the only actors to win their awards in consecutive years.

The actors with the most nominations in this category are Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier , with nine each. Paul Newman , Jack Nicholson , and Peter O'Toole tie for third place with eight nominations each. Nicholson won his awards a record 22 years apart. O'Toole holds the record for the longest time span between his first and last nominations (44 years), and he also holds the record for the greatest number of nominations without ever winning the award (eight).

Six actors have won both the Best Actor and the , Robert De Niro , Jack Nicholson , Gene Hackman , Kevin Spacey , and Denzel Washington .

There has only been one tie in the history of this category, and it wasn't an exact tie. In 1932, Fredric March received one more vote than Wallace Beery . Academy rules at that time considered such a close margin to be a tie, so both March and Beery received the award. Under the current Academy rules, however, dual awards are only given for exact ties. While that has never happened for the Best Actor award, it did happen for the Best Actress award in 1968.

Peter Finch is the only posthumous winner, and James Dean , Spencer Tracy , and Massimo Troisi are the only other posthumously nominated performers in this category.

Three actors have been nominated for Best Actor more than once for the same character: Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in '' Going My Way '' and '' The Bells Of St. Mary's ''; Peter O'Toole as King Henry II in '' Becket '' and '' The Lion In Winter ''; and Paul Newman as "Fast Eddie" Felson in '' The Hustler '' and '' The Color Of Money ''. ( Al Pacino was nominated in 1974 for a role for which he had previously been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Michael Corleone in '' The Godfather Part II ''.)

Several pairs of actors have been nominated for playing the same character or historical figure: Fredric March and James Mason as Norman Maine in '' A Star Is Born '', Robert Donat and Peter O'Toole as Chipping in '' Goodbye, Mr. Chips '', Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh as Henry V , Charles Laughton and Richard Burton as Henry VIII , Leslie Howard and Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins in '' Pygmalion '' and '' My Fair Lady '', and José Ferrer and Gerard Depardieu as Cyrano De Bergerac . Robert De Niro won Best Supporting Actor for playing Vito Corleone in '' The Godfather Part II '', the role for which Marlon Brando had previously won Best Actor.

Robert Downey Jr. is the only actor nominated for playing a previous nominee, Charles Chaplin , in '' Chaplin ''.

Two actors directed their own Oscar-winning performances: Laurence Olivier in '' Hamlet '' and Roberto Benigni in '' Life Is Beautiful ''. To date, however, no individual has won both Best Actor and Best Director.

Two winners have declined the award: George C. Scott , who won for '' Patton '' in 1970 (he had also declined his 1961 nomination for Best Supporting Actor for '' The Hustler ''); and Marlon Brando , upon winning his second Oscar for '' The Godfather '' in 1972.

A few early winning and nominated performances have subsequently been lost, including Emil Jannings in '' The Way Of All Flesh '' (1928), Lewis Stone in '' The Patriot '' (1928) (also starring Jannings), and Lawrence Tibbett in '' The Rogue Song '' (1930), of which only a short fragment and the soundtrack survives.

Following the Academy's practice, the films below are listed by the years of their Los Angeles qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) in the year of release. For example, the Oscar for "Best Actor in 1999" was announced during the award ceremony held in 2000. Winners are listed first in bold, followed by the other nominees.


SUPERLATIVES



1920S




1930S












1940S












1950S












1960S












1970S












1980S












1990S












2000S









SEE ALSO