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[link]

Throughout the past 84 years, accounting for ties and repeat winners, AMPAS has presented a total of 85 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 Jean Dujardin, who was honored at the 84th Academy Awards ceremony (2011) for his performance in The Artist.

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 clear 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[link]

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[link]

Nine 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), Daniel Day-Lewis (1989, 2007), and Sean Penn (2003, 2008). Of these, all were Americans except for Daniel Day-Lewis. 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 periods between wins by the two-time winners are Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks (1 year), Sean Penn (5 years), Dustin Hoffman (9 years), Gary Cooper (11 years), Fredric March (14 years), Marlon Brando (18 years), Daniel Day-Lewis (18 years), and Jack Nicholson (22 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 Best Supporting Actor awards: Jack Lemmon, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey, and Denzel Washington.

Two actors have won an Academy Award (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor) for portraying the same character, that of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, respectively. The actors were Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.

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. While that has never happened for the Best Actor award, it did happen for the Best Actress award in 1968 when Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand both won, Hepburn for her role as Eleanor of Aquitane in The Lion in Winter and Streisand for her portrayal of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. It was the second consecutive Oscar for Hepburn, who had won the award solo in 1967 for her star turn opposite Spencer Tracy in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.

Peter Finch is the only posthumous winner of the Best Actor award, though he was alive when his nomination was announced (the only other posthumous winner in any acting category was another Australian, Heath Ledger, who won the Best Supporting Actor award in 2009). 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.

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 1975 for a role for which he had previously been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Michael Corleone, in The Godfather Part II.)

Michael Douglas (1988, Wall Street) and Laurence Olivier (1949, Hamlet) are the only two actors to win the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Picture (Douglas as a producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1976, and Olivier as producer of Hamlet). Olivier is also the only actor to win for acting and producing in the same year. Other Oscar nominees for Best Actor and Best Picture are: Clint Eastwood (acting nominations for Unforgiven, 1993, and Million Dollar Baby, 2005, winner for both in the Best Picture category); Kevin Costner, Best Actor nominee for Dances with Wolves and winning producer for the same film, in 1991; Paul Newman, Best Actor winner for The Color of Money and a Best Picture nominee for Rachel, Rachel in 1969; John Wayne, Best Actor winner for True Grit and a Best Picture nominee for The Alamo in 1961; Robert Redford, Best Actor nominee for The Sting and Best Picture nominee for Quiz Show; and Henry Fonda, Best Actor winner for On Golden Pond and a Best Picture nominee for 12 Angry Men in 1958. Warren Beatty has received Best Actor and Best Picture nominations for Bonnie and Clyde, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, and Bugsy, with no wins in either category.

Barry Fitzgerald is the only actor to be nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same character in the same year (as Father Fitzgibbon for Going My Way). The rules were later changed to prevent a recurrence of this.

Four African-American actors have won the award: Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx and Forest Whitaker.

Several pairs of actors have been nominated for playing the same character or historical figure: Fredric March and James Mason as Norman Maine in 1937's A Star Is Born and the 1954 version, Robert Donat and Peter O'Toole as Chipping in 1939's Goodbye, Mr. Chips and the 1969 version, Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh as Henry V in 1944's Henry V and the 1989 version (both of which were directed by their stars), Charles Laughton and Richard Burton as Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII and Anne of the Thousand Days, Leslie Howard and Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, José Ferrer and Gérard Depardieu as Cyrano de Bergerac in 1950's Cyrano de Bergerac and the 1990 version, Robert Montgomery and Warren Beatty as Joe Pendleton in Here Comes Mr. Jordan and Heaven Can Wait, Anthony Hopkins and Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Nixon and Frost/Nixon, and John Wayne and Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn in the 1969's True Grit and 2010 version. 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.

Laurence Olivier is the only actor to have won an Oscar for a Shakespearean performance: Best Actor for Hamlet (1948). Olivier also received an Academy Honorary Award for Henry V (1944).

Robert Downey, Jr. is the only actor nominated for playing a previous nominee, Charlie Chaplin, in Chaplin. As of 2012, the only other actor to have been nominated for playing a previous nominee is Kenneth Branagh for portraying Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn, though Branagh was nominated in the Supporting Actor category.

Jeff Bridges is one of the oldest actors ever to win an Academy Award; he was also one of the youngest actors ever to be nominated. In 2010, he won his Oscar for Crazy Heart at the age of 60; in 1972, he was nominated for The Last Picture Show at age 22.

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 1971 (he had also declined his 1962 nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Hustler); and Marlon Brando, upon winning his second Oscar for The Godfather in 1973.

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), and Lawrence Tibbett in The Rogue Song (1930), of which only a short fragment and the soundtrack survives.

The earliest nominee in this category who is still alive is Mickey Rooney (1939), followed by Kirk Douglas (1949). The earliest winner in this category who is still alive is Ernest Borgnine (1955), followed by Maximilian Schell (1961)—both won over Spencer Tracy The few remaining living nominees from the 1940s–50s Hollywood era include Kirk Douglas (3 nominations). Sidney Poitier also received his first nomination in 1958. Ernest Borgnine is the oldest Best Actor still alive, as well as the only best actor winner to have ever reached the age of 90. He is also one of the oldest actors who still works in Hollywood.

The earliest Oscars where all 5 Best Actor nominees are still alive is the 56th Academy Awards (1983), while the most recent where all 5 have died is the 38th Academy Awards (1965).

As of 2011 the earliest Oscars where all 4 acting winners are alive is the 34th Academy Awards (1961), while the most recent where all 4 have died is the 54th Academy Awards (1981).

The earliest Oscars where both lead acting winning are alive is at the 34th Academy Awards. The most recent where both have died is at the 54th Academy Awards

The earliest Oscars where all 20 acting nominations are alive is at the 56th Academy Awards (1983), the most recent all 20 have died is at the 15th Academy Awards (1942).

Life expectancy of winners[link]

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."^[1]

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.^[2] 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."^[3]

Winners and nominees[link]

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

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.

1920s[link]

1930s[link]

1940s[link]

1950s[link]

1960s[link]