Academy Award for Best Actor

Academy Award for Best Actor
Awarded for	Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Country	United States
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
First awarded	1929 (for performances in films released during the 1927/1928 film season)
Currently held by	Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln (2012)
Official website	www.oscars.org

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Prior to the 49th Academy Awards ceremony (1976), this award was simply known as the Academy Award of Merit for Performance by an Actor. Since its inception, however, the award has commonly been referred to as the Oscar for Best Actor. While actors are nominated for this award by Academy members who are actors and actresses themselves, winners are selected by the Academy membership as a whole.

History

Throughout the past 85 years, accounting for ties and repeat winners, AMPAS has presented a total of 86 Best Actor awards to 76 different actors. Winners of this Academy Award of Merit receive the familiar Oscar statuette, depicting a gold-plated knight holding a crusader's sword and standing on a reel of film. The first recipient was Emil Jannings, who was honored at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony (1929) for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. The most recent recipient was Daniel Day-Lewis, who was honored at the 85th Academy Awards ceremony (2012) for his performance in Lincoln.

In the first three years of the Academy Awards, individuals such as actors and directors were nominated as the best 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. However, during the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony (1930), only one of those films was cited in each winner's final award, even though each of the acting winners had had two films following their names on the ballots. For the 4th Academy Awards ceremony (1931), 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. Such nominations are limited to five per year. Until the 8th Academy Awards ceremony (1936), nominations for the Best Actor award were intended to include all actors, whether the performance was in either a leading or supporting role. At the 9th Academy Awards ceremony (1937), however, the Best Supporting Actor category was specifically introduced as a distinct award following complaints that the single Best Actor category necessarily favored leading performers with the most screen time. Nonetheless, Lionel Barrymore had received a Best Actor award (A Free Soul, 1931) and Franchot Tone a Best Actor nomination (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1936) for their performances in what were clearly supporting roles. Currently, Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role constitute the four Academy Awards of Merit for acting annually presented by AMPAS.

Other awards for acting

Actors have also received special awards, or Academy Honorary Awards, for acting in specific films (such as in the case of James Baskett, who received a special honorary award for Disney's Song of the South). Child actors have also been awarded the Academy Juvenile Award.

Superlatives

Superlative	Best Actor		Best Supporting Actor		Overall
Actor with most awards	Daniel Day-Lewis	3	Walter Brennan	3	Walter Brennan Jack Nicholson Daniel Day-Lewis	3
Actor with most nominations	Spencer Tracy Laurence Olivier	9	Jack Nicholson Claude Rains Arthur Kennedy Walter Brennan	4	Jack Nicholson	12
Actor with most nominations without ever winning	Peter O'Toole	8	Claude Rains Arthur Kennedy	4	Peter O'Toole	8
Film with most actor nominations	Mutiny on the Bounty	3	On the Waterfront The Godfather The Godfather Part II	3	On the Waterfront The Godfather The Godfather Part II	4
Oldest winner	Henry Fonda	76	Christopher Plummer	82	Christopher Plummer	82
Oldest nominee	Richard Farnsworth	79	Hal Holbrook	82	Hal Holbrook	82
Youngest winner	Adrien Brody	29	Timothy Hutton	20	Timothy Hutton	20
Youngest nominee	Jackie Cooper	9	Justin Henry	8	Justin Henry	8

Daniel Day-Lewis is the only three-time winner for the Best Actor award as well as the only non-American actor to have won more than one award. Eight other 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), Jack Nicholson (1975, 1997), and Sean Penn (2003, 2008). Tracy and Hanks were the only actors to win their awards in consecutive years. Furthermore, Tracy and Hanks were the same age at the time they received their Academy Awards: 37 for the first and 38 for the second.

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.

Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson and Walter Brennan are the only actors to have won three competitive acting Oscars. Nicholson has twice won Best Actor and once won Best Supporting Actor, while Brennan's three wins all came in the Best Supporting Actor category.

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

There has been only one announced tie in the history of this category. 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 current Academy rules, however, dual awards are given only for exact ties.

Peter Finch is the only posthumous winner of the Best Actor award, though he was alive when his nomination was announced. The only posthumously nominated performers in this category were James Dean, Spencer Tracy, and Massimo Troisi. James Dean is the only actor to be posthumously nominated twice for this category.

Life expectancy of winners

In 2001 Donald A. Redelmeier, MD, and Sheldon M. Singh, BSc published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine in which they found:

"Winning an Academy Award was associated with a large gain in life expectancy for actors and actresses...Winning an Academy Award can increase a performer’s stature and may add to their longevity. The absolute difference in life expectancy is about equal to the societal consequence of curing all cancers in all people for all time (22, 23). Moreover, film stars who have won multiple Academy Awards have a survival advantage of 6.0 years (CI, 0.7 to 11.3 years) over performers with multiple films but no victories. Formal education is not the only way to improve health, and strict poverty is not the only way to worsen health. The main implication is that higher status may be linked to lower mortality rates even at very impressive levels of achievement."

The aforementioned authors did an update to 29 March 2006 in which they found 122 more individuals and 144 more deaths since their first publication. Their unadjusted analysis showed a smaller survival advantage of 3.6 years for winners compared to their fellow nominees and costars in the films in which their performance garnered them their award. However, in a 2006 published study by Marie-Pierre Sylvestre, MSc, Ella Huszti, MSc, and James A. Hanley, PhD, the authors found:

"The statistical method used to derive this statistically significant difference gave winners an unfair advantage because it credited an Oscar winner's years of life before winning toward survival subsequent to winning. When the authors of the current article reanalyzed the data using methods that avoided this "immortal time" bias, the survival advantage was closer to 1 year and was not statistically significant. The bias in Redelmeier and Singh's study is not limited to longevity comparisons of persons who reach different ranks within their profession."

Winners and nominees

Following the Academy's practice, the films below are listed by year of their Los Angeles qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) the film's year of release.

For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. For example, the 2nd Academy Awards presented on April 3, 1930, recognized films that were released between August 1, 1928 and July 31, 1929. Starting with the 7th Academy Awards, held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.

Winners are listed first in colored row, followed by the other nominees.

1920s

Year	Actor	Film	Role
1927/28 (1st)
	Emil Jannings	The Last Command The Way of All Flesh	Grand Duke Sergius Alexander August Schilling
	Richard Barthelmess	The Noose The Patent Leather Kid	Nickie Elkins Patent Leather Kid
1928/29
	Warner Baxter	In Old Arizona	The Cisco Kid
	George Bancroft	Thunderbolt	Thunderbolt Jim Lang
	Chester Morris	Alibi	Chick Williams (No. 1065)
	Paul Muni	The Valiant	James Dyke
	Lewis Stone	The Patriot	Count Pahlen

1930s

Year	Actor	Nationality	Film	Role
1929/30 (3rd)
	George Arliss		Disraeli	Benjamin Disraeli
	George Arliss		The Green Goddess	The Raja of Rukh
	Wallace Beery		The Big House	'Machine Gun' Butch Schmidt
	Maurice Chevalier		The Big Pond	Pierre Mirande
	Maurice Chevalier		The Love Parade	Count Alfred Renard
	Ronald Colman		Bulldog Drummond	Capt. Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond
	Ronald Colman		Condemned	Michel
	Lawrence Tibbett		The Rogue Song	Yegor
1930/31 (4th)
	Lionel Barrymore		A Free Soul	Stephen Ashe
	Adolphe Menjou		The Front Page	Walter Burns
	Jackie Cooper		Skippy	Skippy Skinner
	Richard Dix		Cimarron	Yancey Cravat
	Fredric March		The Royal Family of Broadway	Tony Cavendish
1931/32 (5th)
	Wallace Beery (tie)		The Champ	'Andy "Champ" Purcell
	Fredric March (tie)		Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'	Dr. Henry L. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde
	Alfred Lunt		The Guardsman	The Actor
1932/33 (6th)
	Charles Laughton		The Private Life of Henry VIII	King Henry VIII of England
	Leslie Howard		Berkeley Square	Peter Standish
	Paul Muni		I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang	James Allen
1934 (7th)
	Clark Gable		It Happened One Night	Peter Warner
	Frank Morgan		The Affairs of Cellini	Alessandro - Duke of Florence
	William Powell		The Thin Man	Nick Charles
1935 (8th)
	Victor McLaglen		The Informer	Gypo Nolan
	Clark Gable		Mutiny on the Bounty	Fletcher Christian
	Charles Laughton		Mutiny on the Bounty	William Bligh
	Franchot Tone		Mutiny on the Bounty	Roger Byam
	Paul Muni (write-in) (2nd)		Black Fury	Joe Radek
1936 (9th)
	Paul Muni		The Story of Louis Pasteur	Louis Pasteur
	Gary Cooper		Mr. Deeds Goes to Town	Longfellow Deeds
	Walter Huston		Dodsworth	Sam Dodsworth
	William Powell		My Man Godfrey	Godfrey Park
	Spencer Tracy		San Francisco	Father Tim Mullin
1937 (10th)
	Spencer Tracy		Captains Courageous	Manuel
	Charles Boyer		Conquest	Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte
	Fredric March		A Star Is Born	Norman Maine
	Robert Montgomery		Night Must Fall	Danny
	Paul Muni		The Life of Emile Zola	Émile Zola
1938 (11th)
	Spencer Tracy		Boys Town	Father Flanagan
	Charles Boyer		Algiers	Pepe le Moko
	James Cagney		Angels with Dirty Faces	Rocky Sullivan
	Robert Donat		The Citadel	Dr. Andrew Manson
	Leslie Howard		Pygmalion	Professor Henry Higgins
1939 (12th)
	Robert Donat		Goodbye, Mr. Chips	Charles Edward Chipping
	Clark Gable		Gone with the Wind	Rhett Butler
	Laurence Olivier		Wuthering Heights	Heathcliff
	Mickey Rooney		Babes in Arms	Mickey Moran
	James Stewart		Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	Jefferson Smith

1940s

Year	Actor	Nationality	Film	Role(s)
1940 (13th)
	James Stewart		The Philadelphia Story	Macaulay "Mike" Connor
	Charlie Chaplin		The Great Dictator	Adenoid Hynkel (Dictator of Tomania) A Jewish Barber
	Henry Fonda		The Grapes of Wrath	Tom Joad
	Raymond Massey		Abe Lincoln in Illinois	Abraham Lincoln
	Laurence Olivier		Rebecca	'Maxim' de Winter
1941 (14th)
	Gary Cooper		Sergeant York	Alvin C. York
	Cary Grant		Penny Serenade	Roger Adams
	Walter Huston		The Devil and Daniel Webster	Mr. Scratch
	Robert Montgomery		Here Comes Mr. Jordan	Joe Pendleton
	Orson Welles		Citizen Kane	Charles Foster Kane
1942 (15th)
	James Cagney		Yankee Doodle Dandy	George M. Cohan
	Ronald Colman		Random Harvest	Charles Rainier
	Gary Cooper		The Pride of the Yankees	Lou Gehrig
	Walter Pidgeon		Mrs. Miniver	Clem Miniver
	Monty Woolley		The Pied Piper	Howard
1943 (16th)
	Paul Lukas		Watch on the Rhine	Kurt Muller
	Humphrey Bogart		Casablanca	Richard "Rick" Blaine
	Gary Cooper		For Whom the Bell Tolls	Robert Jordan
	Walter Pidgeon		Madame Curie	Pierre Curie
	Mickey Rooney		The Human Comedy	Homer Macauley
1944 (17th)
	Bing Crosby		Going My Way	Father Chuck O'Malley
	Charles Boyer		Gaslight	Gregory Anton
	Barry Fitzgerald		Going My Way	Father Fitzgibbon
	Cary Grant		None but the Lonely Heart	Ernie Mott
	Alexander Knox		Wilson	Woodrow Wilson
1945 (18th)
	Ray Milland		The Lost Weekend	Don Birnam
	Bing Crosby		The Bells of St. Mary's	Father Chuck O'Malley
	Gene Kelly		Anchors Aweigh	Joseph Brady
	Gregory Peck		The Keys of the Kingdom	Father Francis
	Cornel Wilde		A Song to Remember	Frédéric Chopin
1946 (19th)
	Fredric March		The Best Years of Our Lives	Al Stephenson
	Laurence Olivier		Henry V	King Henry V of England
	Larry Parks		The Jolson Story	Al Jolson
	Gregory Peck		The Yearling	Ezra "Penny" Baxter
	James Stewart		It's a Wonderful Life	George Bailey
1947 (20th)
	Ronald Colman		A Double Life	Anthony John
	John Garfield		Body and Soul	Charlie Davis
	Gregory Peck		Gentleman's Agreement	Philip Schuyler Green
	William Powell		Life with Father	Clarence Day, Sr.
	Michael Redgrave		Mourning Becomes Electra	Orin Mannon
1948 (21st)
	Laurence Olivier		Hamlet	Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
	Lew Ayres		Johnny Belinda	Dr. Robert Richardson
	Montgomery Clift		The Search	Ralph "Steve" Stevenson
	Dan Dailey		When My Baby Smiles at Me	"Skid" Johnson
	Clifton Webb		Sitting Pretty	Lynn Belvedere
1949 (22nd)
	Broderick Crawford		All the King's Men	Willie Stark
	Kirk Douglas		Champion	Michael "Midge" Kelly
	Gregory Peck		Twelve O'Clock High	General Savage
	Richard Todd		The Hasty Heart	Cpl. Lachlan "Lachie" MacLachlan
	John Wayne		Sands of Iwo Jima	Sergeant John M. Stryker

1950s

Year	Actor	Nationality	Film	Role(s)
1950 (23rd)
	José Ferrer		Cyrano de Bergerac	Cyrano de Bergerac
	Louis Calhern		The Magnificent Yankee	Oliver Wendell Holmes
	William Holden		Sunset Boulevard	Joe Gillis
	James Stewart		Harvey	Elwood P. Dowd
	Spencer Tracy		Father of the Bride	Stanley T. Banks
1951 (24th)
	Humphrey Bogart		The African Queen	Charlie Allnut
	Marlon Brando		A Streetcar Named Desire	Stanley Kowalski
	Montgomery Clift		A Place in the Sun	George Eastman
	Arthur Kennedy		Bright Victory	Larry Nevins
	Fredric March		Death of a Salesman	Willy Loman
1952 (25th)
	Gary Cooper		High Noon	Marshal Will Kane
	Marlon Brando		Viva Zapata!	Emiliano Zapata
	Kirk Douglas		The Bad and the Beautiful	Jonathan Shields
	José Ferrer		Moulin Rouge	Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec The Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec
	Alec Guinness		The Lavender Hill Mob	Henry Holland
1953 (26th)
	William Holden		Stalag 17	Sgt. J.J. Sefton
	Marlon Brando		Julius Caesar	Mark Antony
	Richard Burton		The Robe	Marcellus Gallio
	Montgomery Clift		From Here to Eternity	Pvt. Robert E. Lee 'Prew' Prewitt
	Burt Lancaster		From Here to Eternity	1st Sgt. Milton Warden
1954 (27th)
	Marlon Brando		On the Waterfront	Terry Malloy
	Humphrey Bogart		The Caine Mutiny	Lt. Cmdr. Philip Francis Queeg
	Bing Crosby		The Country Girl	Frank Elgin
	James Mason		A Star Is Born	Norman Maine
	Dan O'Herlihy		Adventures of Robinson Crusoe	Robinson Crusoe
1955 (28th)
	Ernest Borgnine		Marty	Marty Piletti
	James Cagney		Love Me or Leave Me	Martin Snyder
	James Dean (posthumous nomination)		East of Eden	Cal Trask
	Frank Sinatra		The Man with the Golden Arm	Frankie Machine
	Spencer Tracy		Bad Day at Black Rock	John J. Macreedy
1956 (29th)
	Yul Brynner		The King and I	King Mongkut of Siam
	James Dean (posthumous nomination)		Giant	Jett Rink
	Kirk Douglas		Lust for Life	Vincent van Gogh
	Rock Hudson		Giant	Jordan "Bick" Benedict Jr.
	Laurence Olivier		Richard III	King Richard III of England
1957 (30th)
	Alec Guinness		The Bridge on the River Kwai	Colonel Nicholson
	Marlon Brando		Sayonara	Maj. Lloyd 'Ace' Gruver — USAF
	Anthony Franciosa		A Hatful of Rain	Polo Pope
	Charles Laughton		Witness for the Prosecution	Sir Wilfrid Robarts
	Anthony Quinn		Wild Is the Wind	Gino
1958 (31st)
	David Niven		Separate Tables	Major Angus Pollock
	Tony Curtis		The Defiant Ones	John 'Joker' Jackson
	Paul Newman		Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Brick Pollitt
	Sidney Poitier		The Defiant Ones	Noah Cullen
	Spencer Tracy		The Old Man and the Sea	The Old Man
1959 (32nd)
	Charlton Heston		Ben-Hur	Judah Ben-Hur
	Laurence Harvey		Room at the Top	Joe Lampton
	Jack Lemmon		Some Like It Hot	Jerry
	Paul Muni		The Last Angry Man	Dr. Sam Abelman
	James Stewart		Anatomy of a Murder	Paul Biegler

1960s

Year	Actor	Nationality	Film	Role(s)
1960 (33rd)
	Burt Lancaster		Elmer Gantry	Elmer Gantry
	Trevor Howard		Sons and Lovers	Walter Morel
	Jack Lemmon		The Apartment	C. C. "Bud" Baxter
	Laurence Olivier		The Entertainer	Archie Rice
	Spencer Tracy		Inherit the Wind	Henry Drummond
1961 (34th)
	Maximilian Schell		Judgment at Nuremberg	Hans Rolfe
	Charles Boyer		Fanny	Cesar
	Paul Newman		The Hustler	Eddie Felson
	Spencer Tracy		Judgment at Nuremberg	Chief Judge Dan Haywood
	Stuart Whitman		The Mark	Jim Fuller
1962 (35th)
	Gregory Peck		To Kill a Mockingbird	Atticus Finch
	Burt Lancaster		Birdman of Alcatraz	Robert Stroud
	Jack Lemmon		Days of Wine and Roses	Joe Clay
	Marcello Mastroianni		Divorce, Italian Style	Ferdinando Cefalù
	Peter O'Toole		Lawrence of Arabia	T. E. Lawrence
1963 (36th)
	Sidney Poitier		Lilies of the Field	Homer Smith
	Albert Finney		Tom Jones	Tom Jones
	Richard Harris		This Sporting Life	Frank Machin
	Rex Harrison		Cleopatra	Julius Caesar
	Paul Newman		Hud	Hud Bannon
1964 (37th)
	Rex Harrison		My Fair Lady	Professor Henry Higgins
	Richard Burton		Becket	Thomas Becket
	Peter O'Toole		Becket	King Henry II of England
	Anthony Quinn		Zorba the Greek	Alexis Zorba
	Peter Sellers		Dr. Strangelove	Group Captain Lionel Mandrake President Merkin Muffley Dr. Strangelove
1965 (38th)
	Lee Marvin		Cat Ballou	Kid Shelleen Tim Strawn
	Richard Burton		The Spy Who Came in from the Cold	Alec Leamas
	Laurence Olivier		Othello	Othello
	Rod Steiger		The Pawnbroker	Sol Nazerman
	Oskar Werner		Ship of Fools	Willie Schumann
1966 (39th)
	Paul Scofield		A Man for All Seasons	Sir Thomas More
	Alan Arkin		The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming	Lt. Rozanov
	Richard Burton		Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	George
	Michael Caine		Alfie	Alfie Elkins
	Steve McQueen		The Sand Pebbles	Jake Holman
1967 (40th)
	Rod Steiger		In the Heat of the Night	Police Chief Bill Gillespie
	Warren Beatty		Bonnie and Clyde	Clyde Barrow
	Dustin Hoffman		The Graduate	Benjamin Braddock
	Paul Newman		Cool Hand Luke	Lucas "Cool Hand Luke" Jackson
	Spencer Tracy (posthumous nomination)		Guess Who's Coming to Dinner	Matt Drayton
1968 (41st)
	Cliff Robertson		Charly	Charly Gordon
	Alan Arkin		The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter	John Singer
	Alan Bates		The Fixer	Yakov Bok
	Ron Moody		Oliver!	Fagin
	Peter O'Toole		The Lion in Winter	King Henry II of England
1969 (42nd)
	John Wayne		True Grit	Rooster Cogburn
	Richard Burton		Anne of the Thousand Days	King Henry VIII of England
	Dustin Hoffman		Midnight Cowboy	Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" "Rico" Rizzo
	Peter O'Toole		Goodbye, Mr. Chips	Arthur Chipping
	Jon Voight		Midnight Cowboy	Joe Buck

1970s

Year	Actor	Nationality	Film	Role
1970 (43rd)
	George C. Scott (declined)		Patton	General George S. Patton, Jr.
	Melvyn Douglas		I Never Sang for My Father	Tom Garrison
	James Earl Jones		The Great White Hope	Jack Jefferson
	Jack Nicholson		Five Easy Pieces	Robert Eroica Dupea
	Ryan O'Neal		Love Story	Oliver Barrett IV
1971 (44th)
	Gene Hackman		The French Connection	Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle
	Peter Finch		Sunday Bloody Sunday	Dr. Daniel Hirsh
	Walter Matthau		Kotch	Joseph P. Kotcher
	George C. Scott		The Hospital	Dr. Herbert Bock
	Chaim Topol		Fiddler on the Roof	Tevye
1972 (45th)
	Marlon Brando (declined)		The Godfather	Vito Corleone
	Michael Caine		Sleuth	Milo Tindle
	Laurence Olivier		Sleuth	Andrew Wyke
	Peter O'Toole		The Ruling Class	Jack Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney
	Paul Winfield		Sounder	Nathan Lee Morgan
1973 (46th)
	Jack Lemmon		Save the Tiger	Harry Stoner
	Marlon Brando		Last Tango in Paris	Paul
	Jack Nicholson		The Last Detail	Signalman First Class Billy L. "Badass" Buddusky
	Al Pacino		Serpico	Frank "Paco" Serpico
	Robert Redford		The Sting	Johnny Hooker
1974 (47th)
	Art Carney		Harry and Tonto	Harry Coombes
	Albert Finney		Murder on the Orient Express	Hercule Poirot
	Dustin Hoffman		Lenny	Lenny Bruce
	Jack Nicholson		Chinatown	Jake "J.J." Gittes
	Al Pacino		The Godfather Part II	Michael Corleone
1975 (48th)
	Jack Nicholson		One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	Randle Patrick "Mac" McMurphy
	Walter Matthau		The Sunshine Boys	Willy Clark
	Al Pacino		Dog Day Afternoon	Sonny Wortzik
	Maximilian Schell		The Man in the Glass Booth	Arthur Goldman
	James Whitmore		Give 'em Hell, Harry!	Harry S. Truman
1976 (49th)
	Peter Finch (posthumous win)		Network	Howard Beale
	Robert De Niro		Taxi Driver	Travis Bickle
	Giancarlo Giannini		Seven Beauties	Pasqualino Frafuso
	William Holden		Network	Max Schumacher
	Sylvester Stallone		Rocky	Rocky Balboa
1977 (50th)
	Richard Dreyfuss		The Goodbye Girl	Elliot Garfield
	Woody Allen		Annie Hall	Alvy Singer
	Richard Burton		Equus	Martin Dysart
	Marcello Mastroianni		A Special Day	Gabriele
	John Travolta		Saturday Night Fever	Anthony "Tony" Manero
1978 (51st)
	Jon Voight		Coming Home	Luke Martin
	Warren Beatty		Heaven Can Wait	Joe Pendleton
	Gary Busey		The Buddy Holly Story	Buddy Holly
	Robert De Niro		The Deer Hunter	Michael Vronsky
	Laurence Olivier		The Boys from Brazil	Ezra Lieberman
1979 (52nd)
	Dustin Hoffman		Kramer vs. Kramer	Ted Kramer
	Jack Lemmon		The China Syndrome	Jack Godell
	Al Pacino		...And Justice for All	Arthur Kirkland
	Roy Scheider		All That Jazz	Joe Gideon
	Peter Sellers		Being There	Chauncey "Chance" Gardiner

1980s

Year	Actor	Nationality	Film	Role
1980 (53rd)
	Robert De Niro		Raging Bull	Jake LaMotta
	Robert Duvall		The Great Santini	Lieutenant Colonel Wilbur "Bull" Meechum
	John Hurt		The Elephant Man	John Merrick
	Jack Lemmon		Tribute	Scottie Templeton
	Peter O'Toole		The Stunt Man	Eli Cross
1981 (54th)
	Henry Fonda		On Golden Pond	Norman Thayer, Jr.
	Warren Beatty		Reds	John Silas "Jack" Reed
	Burt Lancaster		Atlantic City	Lou Pascal
	Dudley Moore		Arthur	Arthur Bach
	Paul Newman		Absence of Malice	Michael Colin Gallagher
1982 (55th)
	Ben Kingsley		Gandhi	Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
	Dustin Hoffman		Tootsie	Michael Dorsey, aka Dorothy Michaels
	Jack Lemmon		Missing	Ed Horman
	Paul Newman		The Verdict	Frank Galvin
	Peter O'Toole		My Favorite Year	Alan Swann
1983 (56th)
	Robert Duvall		Tender Mercies	Mac Sledge
	Michael Caine		Educating Rita	Dr. Frank Bryant
	Tom Conti		Reuben, Reuben	Gowan McGland
	Tom Courtenay		The Dresser	Norman
	Albert Finney		The Dresser	Sir
1984 (57th)
	F. Murray Abraham		Amadeus	Antonio Salieri
	Jeff Bridges		Starman	Starman
	Albert Finney		Under the Volcano	Geoffrey Firmin
	Tom Hulce		Amadeus	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
	Sam Waterston		The Killing Fields	Sydney Schanberg
1985 (58th)
	William Hurt		Kiss of the Spider Woman	Luis Molina
	Harrison Ford		Witness	Detective Captain John Book
	James Garner		Murphy's Romance	Murphy Jones
	Jack Nicholson		Prizzi's Honor	Charley Partanna
	Jon Voight		Runaway Train	Oscar "Manny" Manheim
1986 (59th)
	Paul Newman		The Color of Money	Fast Eddie Felson
	Dexter Gordon		Round Midnight	Dale Turner
	Bob Hoskins		Mona Lisa	George
	William Hurt		Children of a Lesser God	James Leeds
	James Woods		Salvador	Richard Boyle
1987 (60th)
	Michael Douglas		Wall Street	Gordon Gekko
	William Hurt		Broadcast News	Tom Grunick
	Marcello Mastroianni		Dark Eyes	Romano
	Jack Nicholson		Ironweed	Francis Phelan
	Robin Williams		Good Morning, Vietnam	Adrian Cronauer
1988 (61st)
	Dustin Hoffman		Rain Man	Raymond Babbitt, aka Rain Man
	Gene Hackman		Mississippi Burning	Agent Rupert Anderson
	Tom Hanks		Big	Josh Baskin
	Edward James Olmos		Stand and Deliver	Jaime Escalante
	Max von Sydow		Pelle the Conqueror	Lassefar
1989 (62nd)
	Daniel Day-Lewis		My Left Foot	Christy Brown
	Kenneth Branagh		Henry V	King Henry V of England
	Tom Cruise		Born on the Fourth of July	Ron Kovic
	Morgan Freeman		Driving Miss Daisy	Hoke Colburn
	Robin Williams		Dead Poets Society	John Charles "Keats" Keating

1990s

Year	Actor	Film	Role
1990 (63rd)
	Jeremy Irons	Reversal of Fortune	Claus von Bülow
	Kevin Costner	Dances with Wolves	Lieutenant John J. Dunbar
	Robert De Niro	Awakenings	Leonard Lowe
	Gérard Depardieu	Cyrano de Bergerac	Cyrano de Bergerac
	Richard Harris	The Field	"Bull" McCabe
1991 (64th)
	Anthony Hopkins	The Silence of the Lambs	Dr. Hannibal Lecter
	Warren Beatty	Bugsy	Bugsy Siegel
	Robert De Niro	Cape Fear	Maximilian "Max" Cady
	Nick Nolte	The Prince of Tides	Tom Wingo
	Robin Williams	The Fisher King	Henry "Parry" Sagan
1992 (65th)
	Al Pacino	Scent of a Woman	Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade
	Robert Downey, Jr.	Chaplin	Charlie Chaplin
	Clint Eastwood	Unforgiven	William Munny
	Stephen Rea	The Crying Game	Fergus
	Denzel Washington	Malcolm X	Malcolm X
1993 (66th)
	Tom Hanks	Philadelphia	Andrew Beckett
	Daniel Day-Lewis	In the Name of the Father	Gerry Conlon
	Laurence Fishburne	What's Love Got to Do with It	Ike Turner
	Anthony Hopkins	The Remains of the Day	James Stevens
	Liam Neeson	Schindler's List	Oskar Schindler
1994 (67th)
	Tom Hanks	Forrest Gump	Forrest Gump
	Morgan Freeman	The Shawshank Redemption	Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding
	Nigel Hawthorne	The Madness of King George	King George III of the United Kingdom
	Paul Newman	Nobody's Fool	Donald "Sully" Sullivan
	John Travolta	Pulp Fiction	Vincent Vega
1995 (68th)
	Nicolas Cage	Leaving Las Vegas	Ben Sanderson
	Richard Dreyfuss	Mr. Holland's Opus	Glenn Holland
	Anthony Hopkins	Nixon	Richard Nixon
	Sean Penn	Dead Man Walking	Matthew Poncelet
	Massimo Troisi (posthumous nomination)	Il Postino	Mario Ruoppolo
1996 (69th)
	Geoffrey Rush	Shine	David Helfgott
	Tom Cruise	Jerry Maguire	Jerry Maguire
	Ralph Fiennes	The English Patient	Count Laszlo de Almásy
	Woody Harrelson	The People vs. Larry Flynt	Larry Flynt
	Billy Bob Thornton	Sling Blade	Karl Childers
1997 (70th)
	Jack Nicholson	As Good as It Gets	Melvin Udall
	Matt Damon	Good Will Hunting	Will Hunting
	Robert Duvall	The Apostle	Euliss "Sonny" Dewey — The Apostle E.F.
	Peter Fonda	Ulee's Gold	Ulysses "Ulee" Jackson
	Dustin Hoffman	Wag the Dog	Stanley Motss
1998 (71st)
	Roberto Benigni	Life Is Beautiful	Guido Orefice
	Tom Hanks	Saving Private Ryan	Captain John Miller
	Ian McKellen	Gods and Monsters	James Whale
	Nick Nolte	Affliction	Wade Whitehouse
	Edward Norton	American History X	Derek Vinyard
1999 (72nd)
	Kevin Spacey	American Beauty	Lester Burnham
	Russell Crowe	The Insider	Jeffrey Wigand
	Richard Farnsworth	The Straight Story	Alvin Straight
	Sean Penn	Sweet and Lowdown	Emmet Ray
	Denzel Washington	The Hurricane	Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter

2000s

Year	Actor	Film	Role(s)
2000 (73rd)
	Russell Crowe	Gladiator	Maximus Decimus Meridius
	Javier Bardem	Before Night Falls	Reinaldo Arenas
	Tom Hanks	Cast Away	Chuck Noland
	Ed Harris	Pollock	Jackson Pollock
	Geoffrey Rush	Quills	The Marquis de Sade
2001 (74th)
	Denzel Washington	Training Day	Detective Alonzo Harris
	Russell Crowe	A Beautiful Mind	John Nash
	Sean Penn	I Am Sam	Sam Dawson
	Will Smith	Ali	Muhammad Ali
	Tom Wilkinson	In the Bedroom	Dr. Matthew Fowler
2002 (75th)
	Adrien Brody	The Pianist	Władysław Szpilman
	Nicolas Cage	Adaptation.	Charlie Kaufman Donald Kaufman
	Michael Caine	The Quiet American	Thomas Fowler
	Daniel Day-Lewis	Gangs of New York	William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting
	Jack Nicholson	About Schmidt	Warren R. Schmidt
2003 (76th)
	Sean Penn	Mystic River	Jimmy Markum
	Johnny Depp	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	Captain Jack Sparrow
	Ben Kingsley	House of Sand and Fog	Massoud Amir Behrani
	Jude Law	Cold Mountain	Inman
	Bill Murray	Lost in Translation	Bob Harris
2004 (77th)
	Jamie Foxx	Ray	Ray Charles
	Don Cheadle	Hotel Rwanda	Paul Rusesabagina
	Johnny Depp	Finding Neverland	Sir J. M. Barrie
	Leonardo DiCaprio	The Aviator	Howard Hughes
	Clint Eastwood	Million Dollar Baby	Frankie Dunn
2005 (78th)
	Philip Seymour Hoffman	Capote	Truman Capote
	Terrence Howard	Hustle & Flow	Djay
	Heath Ledger	Brokeback Mountain	Ennis Del Mar
	Joaquin Phoenix	Walk the Line	Johnny Cash
	David Strathairn	Good Night, and Good Luck	Edward R. Murrow
2006 (79th)
	Forest Whitaker	The Last King of Scotland	Idi Amin
	Leonardo DiCaprio	Blood Diamond	Danny Archer
	Ryan Gosling	Half Nelson	Dan Dunne
	Peter O'Toole	Venus	Maurice
	Will Smith	The Pursuit of Happyness	Chris Gardner
2007 (80th)
	Daniel Day-Lewis	There Will Be Blood	Daniel Plainview
	George Clooney	Michael Clayton	Michael Clayton
	Johnny Depp	Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	Benjamin Barker, aka Sweeney Todd
	Tommy Lee Jones	In the Valley of Elah	Hank Deerfield
	Viggo Mortensen	Eastern Promises	Nikolai Luzhin
2008 (81st)
	Sean Penn	Milk	Harvey Milk
	Richard Jenkins	The Visitor	Walter Vale
	Frank Langella	Frost/Nixon	Richard Nixon
	Brad Pitt	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	Benjamin Button
	Mickey Rourke	The Wrestler	Randy "The Ram" Robinson
2009 (82nd)
	Jeff Bridges	Crazy Heart	Otis "Bad" Blake
	George Clooney	Up in the Air	Ryan Bingham
	Colin Firth	A Single Man	George Falconer
	Morgan Freeman	Invictus	Nelson Mandela
	Jeremy Renner	The Hurt Locker	Sergeant First Class William James

2010s

Year	Actor	Film	Role
2010 (83rd)
	Colin Firth	The King's Speech	King George VI
	Javier Bardem	Biutiful	Uxbal
	Jeff Bridges	True Grit	Rooster Cogburn
	Jesse Eisenberg	The Social Network	Mark Zuckerberg
	James Franco	127 Hours	Aron Ralston
2011 (84th)
	Jean Dujardin	The Artist	George Valentin
	Demián Bichir	A Better Life	Carlos Galindo
	George Clooney	The Descendants	Matt King
	Gary Oldman	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	George Smiley
	Brad Pitt	Moneyball	Billy Beane
2012 (85th)
	Daniel Day-Lewis	Lincoln	Abraham Lincoln
	Bradley Cooper	Silver Linings Playbook	Patrick "Pat" Solitano, Jr.
	Hugh Jackman	Les Misérables	Jean Valjean
	Joaquin Phoenix	The Master	Freddie Quell
	Denzel Washington	Flight	Captain William "Whip" Whitaker

Multiple awards for Best Actor

3 awards

• Daniel Day-Lewis

2 awards

• Marlon Brando
• Gary Cooper
• Tom Hanks
• Dustin Hoffman
• Fredric March
• Jack Nicholson
• Sean Penn
• Spencer Tracy

Multiple nominations for Best Actor

9 nominations

• Laurence Olivier
• Spencer Tracy

8 nominations

• Paul Newman
• Jack Nicholson
• Peter O'Toole

7 nominations

• Marlon Brando
• Dustin Hoffman
• Jack Lemmon

6 nominations

• Richard Burton

5 nominations

• Gary Cooper
• Daniel Day-Lewis
• Robert De Niro
• Tom Hanks
• Fredric March
• Paul Muni
• Al Pacino
• Gregory Peck
• Sean Penn
• James Stewart

4 nominations

• Warren Beatty
• Charles Boyer
• Michael Caine
• Albert Finney
• Burt Lancaster
• Denzel Washington

3 nominations

• Humphrey Bogart
• Jeff Bridges
• James Cagney
• Montgomery Clift
• George Clooney
• Ronald Colman
• Bing Crosby
• Russell Crowe
• Johnny Depp
• Kirk Douglas
• Robert Duvall
• Morgan Freeman
• Clark Gable
• William Holden
• Anthony Hopkins
• William Hurt
• Charles Laughton
• Marcello Mastroianni
• Jon Voight
• Robin Williams

2 nominations

• Alan Arkin
• Javier Bardem
• Nicolas Cage
• Tom Cruise
• James Dean
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Richard Dreyfuss
• Clint Eastwood
• José Ferrer
• Peter Finch
• Colin Firth
• Henry Fonda
• Cary Grant
• Alec Guinness
• Gene Hackman
• Richard Harris
• Rex Harrison
• Leslie Howard
• Walter Huston
• Ben Kingsley
• Walter Matthau
• Robert Montgomery
• Nick Nolte
• Joaquin Phoenix
• Walter Pidgeon
• Brad Pitt
• Sidney Poitier
• Anthony Quinn
• Mickey Rooney
• Geoffrey Rush
• Maximilian Schell
• George C. Scott
• Peter Sellers
• Will Smith
• Rod Steiger
• John Travolta
• John Wayne

Multiple awards for Best Actor & Best Supporting Actor combined

3 awards

• Walter Brennan
• Daniel Day-Lewis
• Jack Nicholson

2 awards

• Marlon Brando
• Michael Caine
• Gary Cooper
• Robert De Niro
• Melvyn Douglas
• Gene Hackman
• Tom Hanks
• Dustin Hoffman
• Jack Lemmon
• Fredic March
• Sean Penn
• Anthony Quinn
• Jason Robards
• Kevin Spacey
• Spencer Tracy
• Peter Ustinov
• Christoph Waltz
• Denzel Washington

International presence

The awards are overwhelmingly American, though the following non-US actors have won an Academy Award for Best Actor:

• Australia: Peter Finch (born in the United Kingdom), Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe (born in New Zealand)
• Austria: Paul Muni
• The Bahamas: Sidney Poitier (born in the United States to Bahamian parents and spent his childhood in the Bahamas)
• France: Jean Dujardin
• Germany: Emil Jannings (a Swiss-born German who adopted Austrian citizenship two years before he died)
• Hungary: Paul Lukas
• Italy: Roberto Benigni
• Puerto Rico: José Ferrer
• Russia: Yul Brynner
• Switzerland: Maximilian Schell (a Swiss citizen born in Austria)
• United Kingdom: George Arliss, Charles Laughton, Victor McLaglen, Robert Donat, Ray Milland, Ronald Colman, Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Rex Harrison, Paul Scofield, Ben Kingsley, Daniel Day-Lewis (3 awards), Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, Colin Firth

There have been two years in which all four of the top acting Academy Awards were presented to non-Americans.

• At the 37th Academy Awards (1964), the winners were Rex Harrison (British), Julie Andrews (British), Peter Ustinov (British), and Lila Kedrova (Russian-born French).
• At the 80th Academy Awards (2007), the winners were Daniel Day-Lewis (British), Marion Cotillard (French), Javier Bardem (Spanish), and Tilda Swinton (British).

See also

• List of Best Actor winners by age
• List of nominees for the Academy Award for Best Actor (by actor)
• List of actors nominated for Academy Awards for foreign language performances
• List of actors nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
• List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
• List of actors who have won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, a SAG, and a Critic's Choice Award for a single performance
• List of Big Five Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of superlative Academy Award winners and nominees
• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
• Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
• Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
• Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
• BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

External links

• Oscars.org (official Academy site)
• Oscar.com (official ceremony promotional site)
• The Academy Awards Database (official site)
• Complete Downloadable List of Academy Award Nominees