Academy Award for Best Actor
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The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award was traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actress winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years' Best Actor winners instead.
The Best Actor award has been presented 98 times, to 87 actors. The first winner was German actor Emil Jannings for his roles in The Last Command (1928) and The Way of All Flesh (1927). The most recent winner is Michael B. Jordan for his dual role as twin brothers Elijah and Elias Moore in Sinners (2025). The record for most wins is three, held by Daniel Day-Lewis, and ten other actors have won twice. The record for most nominations is nine, held jointly by Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier. At the 5th Academy Awards in 1932, Fredric March finished one vote ahead of Wallace Beery; under the rules of the time this resulted in them sharing the award, the only time this has occurred.
Nominations process
Nominees are currently determined by single transferable vote within the actors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy.
In the first three years of the awards, actors and actresses were nominated as the best individuals in their categories. At that time, all of their work during the qualifying period (as many as three films, in some cases) was listed after the award. Despite this, at the 3rd Academy Awards, held in 1930, only one film was cited in each winner's award regardless of how many they were eligible to be considered for during that span. The current system, in which an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, was introduced for the 4th Academy Awards. Starting with the 9th Academy Awards, held in 1937, the category was limited to a maximum five nominations per year.
Winners and nominees
In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of film release in Los Angeles County; the ceremonies are always held the following year. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months, from August 1 to July 31. For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.
| ‡ | Indicates the winner |
| § | Indicates winner who refused the award |
| † | Indicates a posthumous winner |
| † | Indicates a posthumous nominee |
1920s
| Year | Actor | Role(s) | Film | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1927/28 (1st) | Emil Jannings ‡[A] | Grand Duke Sergius Alexander | The Last Command | |
| August Schilling | The Way of All Flesh | |||
| Richard Barthelmess | Nickie Elkins | The Noose | ||
| Patent Leather Kid | The Patent Leather Kid | |||
| Charlie Chaplin[B] | The Tramp | The Circus | ||
| 1928/29 (2nd) | Warner Baxter ‡ | The Cisco Kid | In Old Arizona | |
| George Bancroft | Thunderbolt Jim Lang | Thunderbolt | ||
| Chester Morris | Chick Williams | Alibi | ||
| Paul Muni | James Dyke | The Valiant | ||
| Lewis Stone | Count Pahlen | The Patriot |
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple awards and nominations
The following individuals won two or more Academy Awards for Best Actor:
| Wins | Actor | Nominations | Years won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Daniel Day-Lewis | 6 | 1989, 2007, 2012 |
| 2 | Spencer Tracy | 9 | 1937, 1938 |
| Jack Nicholson | 8 | 1975, 1997 | |
| Marlon Brando | 7 | 1954, 1972 | |
| Dustin Hoffman | 1979, 1988 | ||
| Gary Cooper | 5 | 1941, 1952 | |
| Tom Hanks | 1993, 1994 | ||
| Fredric March | 1931-32, 1946 | ||
| Sean Penn | 2003, 2008 | ||
| Anthony Hopkins | 4 | 1991, 2020 | |
| Adrien Brody | 2 | 2002, 2024 |
The following individuals received three or more Best Actor nominations:
Age superlatives
| Record | Actor | Film | Year | Age | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oldest Winner | Anthony Hopkins | The Father | 2020 | 83 | |
| Oldest Nominee | |||||
| Youngest Winner | Adrien Brody | The Pianist | 2002 | 29 | |
| Youngest Nominee | Jackie Cooper | Skippy | 1931 | 9 |
Films with multiple Leading Actor nominations
Winners are in bold.
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) – Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone
- Going My Way (1944) – Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald
- From Here to Eternity (1953) – Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster
- Giant (1956) – James Dean and Rock Hudson
- The Defiant Ones (1958) – Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier
- Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) – Maximilian Schell and Spencer Tracy
- Becket (1964) – Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole
- Midnight Cowboy (1969) – Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight
- Sleuth (1972) – Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier
- Network (1976) – Peter Finch and William Holden
- The Dresser (1983) – Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney
- Amadeus (1984) – F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce
Multiple character nominations
The following were nominated for their portrayals of the same fictional or non-fictional character in separate films (including variations of the original).
Winners are in bold.
- Cyrano de Bergerac from Cyrano de Bergerac (José Ferrer, 1950) and Cyrano de Bergerac (Gérard Depardieu, 1990)
- Eddie "Fast Eddie" Felson from The Hustler (Paul Newman, 1961) and The Color of Money (Paul Newman, 1986)
- Father Chuck O'Malley from Going My Way (Bing Crosby, 1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (Bing Crosby, 1945)
- Joe Pendleton from Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Robert Montgomery, 1941) and Heaven Can Wait (Warren Beatty, 1978)
- King Henry II from Becket (Peter O'Toole, 1964) and The Lion in Winter (Peter O'Toole, 1968)
- King Henry V from Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1946) and Henry V (Kenneth Branagh, 1989)
- King Henry VIII from The Private Life of Henry VIII (Charles Laughton, 1933) and Anne of the Thousand Days (Richard Burton, 1969)
- Mr. Chipping from Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Robert Donat, 1939) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Peter O'Toole, 1969)
- Norman Maine (néHinkle/néErnest (Sidney) Gubbins) from A Star Is Born (Fredric March, 1937) and A Star Is Born (James Mason, 1954) Jackson "Jack" Maine from A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018)
- President Abraham Lincoln from Abe Lincoln in Illinois (Raymond Massey, 1940) and Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis, 2012)
- President Richard Nixon from Nixon (Anthony Hopkins, 1995) and Frost/Nixon (Frank Langella, 2008)
- Professor Henry Higgins from Pygmalion (Leslie Howard, 1938) and My Fair Lady (Rex Harrison, 1964)
- Rooster Cogburn from True Grit (John Wayne, 1969) and True Grit (Jeff Bridges, 2010)
- Vincent van Gogh from Lust for Life (Kirk Douglas, 1956) and At Eternity's Gate (Willem Dafoe, 2018)
See also
- Academy Award for Best Actress
- Actor Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
- BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
- Best Actor
- César Award for Best Actor
- Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor
- Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
- Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
- Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Performance
- Lists of acting awards
- List of actors with Academy Award nominations
- List of actors with more than one Academy Award nomination in the acting categories
- List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
- List of film awards for lead actor
Notes
A^: According to longstanding Hollywood legend, reported by Susan Orlean, Rin Tin Tin actually received the most Best Actor votes, but the Academy (not wishing to give the first award to a dog) refactored the votes to ensure that Jannings won.
B^:The Circus originally received three nominations: Best Director (Comedy Picture), Best Actor, and Best Writing (Original Story) – for Charles Chaplin. However, the Academy subsequently decided to remove Chaplin's name from the competitive award categories and instead to confer upon him a Special Award "for acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus".
C1 2 3 : Rules at the time of the first three ceremonies allowed for a performer to receive a single nomination which could honor his or her work in more than one film. George Arliss, Maurice Chevalier, and Ronald Colman were all nominated for two different roles in the same category. Current Academy rules forbid this from happening. No official reason was ever given as to why Arliss won the award for only one of the two films he was listed for.
D1 2 : 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. Currently, Academy rules stipulate that a tie must result from exactly the same number of votes.
E^: As in the previous year when the Academy relaxed the rules to allow write-in votes following the outcry over Bette Davis's snub for Of Human Bondage, the Academy permitted write-in votes for that year as well. Thus, Paul Muni received a write-in nomination for his performance in Black Fury and actually finished second in the votes. Although as with Davis the previous year, the Academy did not recognize these two as "official nominees", they are nevertheless listed on the official website amongst their respective years' nominations for posterity's sake.
F^: Due to category confusion, Barry Fitzgerald received nominations (each for the same performance as Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way) in both the leading and supporting actor categories for 1944, winning the Oscar for the latter. As a result of this confusion, the Academy amended its rules so that if any actor or actress received enough votes to qualify as one of the final five nominees for both again, the performer would only receive the nomination for the category in which he or she obtained the larger percentage of the votes.
Bibliography
- Crouse, Richard (2005). . Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press. ISBN978-1-55002-574-3.
- Levy, Emanuel (2003), All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards, New York, United States: Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN978-0-82641-452-6
- Orlean, Susan (2011). Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. New York, United States: Simon & Schuster. ISBN978-1-43919-015-9.
- Osborne, Robert (2013). 85 Years of the Oscar: The Complete History of the Academy Awards. New York, United States: Abbeville Publishing Group. ISBN978-078921-142-2.
- Thise, Mark (2008), , New York, United States: Limelight Editions, ISBN978-0-87910-351-4
- Wiley, Mason; Bona, Damien (1996), Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards (5ed.), New York, United States: Ballantine Books, ISBN978-0-34540-053-6, OCLC
External links
- January 22, 2009, at theWayback Machine (official Academy site)
- (official site)
- September 9, 2014, at theWayback Machine (official ceremony promotional site)