Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit. It is presented each year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is to recognize an actor with an outstanding performance in a movie. Before 1976, this award was called the Academy Award of Merit for Performance by an Actor. Since the beginning the award has commonly been called the Oscar for Best Actor.
| Awarded for | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role |
|---|---|
| Most awards | Daniel Day-Lewis (3) |
| Most nominations | Laurence Olivier and Spencer Tracy (9) |
Actors are nominated for this award by Academy members who are actors and actresses themselves. The winner is selected by the Academy membership as a whole.
Winners and nominees
Winners are listed first in bold, followed by the other nominees.
1920s
| Year | Actor | Movie | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1927/28 (1st) | |||
| Emil Jannings | The Last Command | Grand Duke Sergius Alexander | |
| The Way of All Flesh | August Schilling | ||
| Richard Barthelmess | The Noose | Nickie Elkins | |
| The Patent Leather Kid | Patent Leather Kid | ||
| 1928/29 (2nd) | |||
| 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
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
| Year | Actor | Movie | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 (93rd) | |||
| Anthony Hopkins | The Father | Anthony | |
| Riz Ahmed | Sound of Metal | Ruben Stone | |
| Chadwick Boseman (posthumous nomination) | Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | Levee Green | |
| Gary Oldman | Mank | Herman J. Mankiewicz | |
| Steven Yeun | Minari | Jacob Yi | |
| 2021 (94th) | |||
| Will Smith | King Richard | Richard Williams | |
| Javier Bardem | Being the Ricardos | Desi Arnaz | |
| Benedict Cumberbatch | The Power of the Dog | Phil Burbank | |
| Andrew Garfield | Tick, Tick... Boom! | Jonathan Larson | |
| Denzel Washington | The Tragedy of Macbeth | Lord Macbeth | |
| 2022 (95th) | |||
| Brendan Fraser | Charlie | The Whale | |
| Austin Butler | Elvis Presley | Elvis | |
| Colin Farrell | Pádraic Súilleabháin | The Banshees of Inisherin | |
| Paul Mescal | Calum Paterson | Aftersun | |
| Bill Nighy | Rodney Williams | Living | |
| 2023 (96th) |
Bradley Cooper | Leonard Bernstein | Maestro |
| Colman Domingo | Bayard Rustin | Rustin | |
| Paul Giamatti | Paul Hunham | The Holdovers | |
| Cillian Murphy | J. Robert Oppenheimer | Oppenheimer | |
| Jeffrey Wright | Thelonious "Monk" Ellison | American Fiction |
Related pages
Other websites
- Oscars.org (official Academy site)