The Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards
Facts and Trivia
The Best Supporting Actor award should actually be titled
"the best performance by an actor in a supporting role."
In 1936, the acting awards were expanded to start recognizing
supporting roles. Best Supporting Actor Oscars are traditionally given
to actors who stand out in small roles.
It is quite common that the Best Supporting Actor
winner is either an older, established performer, or a young, inexperienced
actor. Throughout Academy history, most of the winners in
this category usually have no previous Oscar wins.
The Top Best Supporting Actor Winner:
Within five years, Walter Brennan won three Best
Supporting Actor awards. He was the first and - to date - is
the only performer to win three supporting awards (and within the shortest
period of time - five years! And his three wins were in the category's
first five years). Therefore, he was also the first to win three acting Oscars and the first Best Supporting Actor Oscar recipient.
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The Top Best Supporting Actor
Oscar Winner |
Best Supporting Actor Wins
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Walter Brennan
4 career nominations
(4 B.S.A. noms),
3 wins |
Come and Get It (1936)
Kentucky (1938)
The Westerner (1940)
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Seven other actors have received two Best
Supporting Actor awards (among them is one performer who has won
a consecutive statuette,
Jason Robards).
The Most Best Supporting Actor Nominations (and Wins):
Four actors have received four Best Supporting Actor
nominations, although only two of them won subsequent awards. The
two actors with the most Best Supporting Actor nominations (with
no wins) include Arthur Kennedy, Claude Rains and Al Pacino.
Actors with the most Best Supporting
Actor nominations (in parentheses) include:
- Walter Brennan (4) - with three wins (Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938),
The Westerner (1940)); also nominated in 1941
- Jack Nicholson (4) - with one win (Terms of Endearment (1983)); also nominated for Easy Rider (1969), Reds (1981), A Few Good Men (1992)
- Arthur Kennedy (4) - no wins; nominated for Champion (1949), Trial (1955), Peyton Place (1957), Some Came Running (1958)
- Claude Rains (4) - no wins; nominated for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Casablanca (1943), Mr. Skeffington (1944), Notorious (1946)
- Robert Duvall (4) - no wins; nominated for The
Godfather (1972), Apocalypse
Now (1979), A Civil Action (1998), and The
Judge (2014)
- Jeff Bridges (4) - no wins; nominated for The
Last Picture Show (1971), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
(1974), The Contender (2000), and Hell or High Water
(2016)
- Al Pacino (4) - no wins; nominated for The
Godfather (1972), Dick Tracy (1990), Glengarry
Glen Ross (1992), and The Irishman (2019)
- Peter Ustinov (3) - with two wins for Spartacus (1960) and Topkapi (1964); also nominated for Quo Vadis (1951)
- Jason Robards (3) - with two wins for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977); also nominated for Melvin and Howard (1980)
- Charles Coburn (3) - with one win for The More the Merrier (1943); also nominated for The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) and The Green Years (1946)
- Gig Young (3) - with one win for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969); also nominated for Come Fill the Cup (1951) and Teacher's Pet (1958)
- Jack Palance (3) - with one win for City Slickers (1991); also nominated for Sudden Fear (1952) and Shane (1953)
- Gene Hackman (3) - with one win for Unforgiven (1992); also nominated for Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and I Never Sang For My Father (1970)
- Robert De Niro (3) - with one win for The
Godfather Part II (1974); also nominated for Silver Linings
Playbook (2012) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
- Martin Landau (3) - with one win for Ed Wood (1994); also nominated for Tucker: the Man and His Dream (1988) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
- Christopher Plummer (3) - with one win for Beginners
(2010); also nominated for The Last Station (2009) and All
the Money in the World (2017)
- Willem Dafoe (3) - no wins; nominated for Platoon
(1986), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), and The Florida
Project (2017)
- Charles Bickford (3) - no wins; nominated for The Song of Bernadette (1943), The Farmer's Daughter (1947), and Johnny Belinda (1948)
- Ed Harris (3) - no wins; nominated for Apollo 13 (1995), The Truman Show (1998), and The Hours (2002)
- Philip Seymour Hoffman (3) - no wins; nominated
for Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Doubt (2008), and
The Master (2012)
Consecutive Best Supporting Actor-Winning Performers:
There is only one actor who has received two consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscar statuette wins:
- Jason Robards for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977)
No Best Supporting Actress has won two Academy Awards in a row.
Actors Winning at Least One Statuette in Both
the Lead and Supporting Categories:
Six actors have won acting awards in both the lead and
supporting categories:
- Jack Lemmon, Best Supporting Actor (Mister Roberts
(1955)), Best Actor (Save the Tiger (1973)) - the first!
- Robert De Niro, Best Supporting Actor (The
Godfather, Part 2 (1974)), Best Actor (Raging
Bull (1980))
- Jack Nicholson, Best Actor (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and As Good As It Gets (1997)), Best Supporting Actor (Terms of Endearment (1983))
- Gene Hackman, Best Actor (The French Connection (1971)), Best Supporting Actor (Unforgiven (1992))
- Kevin Spacey, Best Supporting Actor (The Usual Suspects (1995)), Best Actor (American Beauty (1999)) - his only two
career nominations (so far)
- Denzel Washington, Best Supporting Actor (Glory (1989)), Best Actor (Training Day (2001))
Victor McLaglen was the first performer to be
nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar (for
The Quiet Man (1952)) after having already won the Lead Performance
Oscar for The Informer (1935).
Posthumous Winner:
The only actor to win a posthumous acting Oscar in a supporting role was Australian actor Heath Ledger for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008). He was the second actor to win a posthumous acting Oscar - the first was Peter Finch, who won Best Actor for his role as Howard Beale in Network (1976).
Multiple Nominations For a Single Performer:
No single performer has ever won two performing awards in the
same year. There have been a total of eleven performers
who are double nominees - that means that they have received two acting nominations in the same year. Three were actors and eight were actresses (wins are
marked with *). (See the Best Supporting
Actress section for eight actresses who have duplicated the
feat.) Of the 11 performers (actors and actresses) who've been recognized with nods for two performances in the same year, seven of them ended up winning one of the trophies.
Double nominees usually win in one category (i.e., double nominees Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx won as
Best Actor, and Fitzgerald won as Best Supporting Actor - see below).
In only one case, an actor (Barry Fitzgerald) was simultaneously nominated in two performance categories for the same film. [The Academy would prevent this in future years by not allowing a double
nomination for the same performance.] He was the only actor simultaneously nominated in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories for the same film and performance:
- Barry Fitzgerald was nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting
Actor* for Going My Way (1944)
In a few instances, actors have been nominated for Best
Actor and Best Supporting Actor for different films in the same year. The two male actors who accomplished this feat were Al Pacino, and Jamie Foxx. Al Pacino was the first actor to be nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor in two different roles. And Jamie Foxx was the only African-American performer to have two Oscar nominations in one year:
- Al Pacino (Best Actor for Scent of a Woman (1992)*
and Best Supporting Actor for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992))
- Jamie Foxx (Best Actor for Ray (2004)* and
Best Supporting Actor for Collateral (2004))
Multiple Wins for the Same Character:
The only actor to win
two Academy Award Oscars for the same performance or role:
- Harold Russell received the Best Supporting
Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a double-amputee veteran returning
from WWII in
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) - his debut film
- Russell received an additional Special Honorary Oscar for the same performance "for
bringing hope and courage to fellow veterans"
The only time two actors have won Oscars playing the same character (Don Vito Corleone) in different films:
Consecutive Double-Nominations for Best Supporting Actor:
- (4 year consecutive streak): Brendan Gleeson and
Barry Keoghan double-nominated for The Banshees
of Inisherin (2022), Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee double-nominated
for The Power of the Dog (2021), Daniel Kaluuya
and Lakeith Stanfield double-nominated for Judas and the Black
Messiah (2020),
and Al Pacino and Joe Pesci double-nominated for The Irishman
(2019).
Refusal to Accept Nomination:
George C.
Scott in his third screen appearance in The Hustler (1961) received his second supporting nomination in 1962 - after his first nomination received in 1960 for Anatomy of a Murder (1959). (His first film was The Hanging Tree (1959).) He became the first actor to decline his Oscar nomination - in protest of fellow actors' practice of campaigning for awards, calling the awards demeaning and self-serving. When Scott received another Oscar nomination (and won) as Best Actor for Patton (1970), he declined to accept the nomination and the award, because he did not feel himself to be in any competition with other actors, calling it a "meat parade."
Film Debut Nominees/Winners of Best Supporting Actor Oscars:
Only three actors have won the Best Supporting Actor
Oscar for their debut performance (in a feature film), while others received a nomination
for a substantial role in a film debut (a sampling):
- John Garfield in Four Daughters (1938) (nomination)
- Robert Morley in Marie Antoinette (1938) (nomination)
- Sydney Greenstreet in
The Maltese Falcon (1941) (nomination)
- John Dall in The Corn is Green (1945) (nomination)
- (1) Harold Russell in
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) (win)
- Richard Widmark in Kiss
of Death (1947) (nomination)
- Jose Ferrer in Joan of Arc (1948) (nomination)
- Don Murray in Bus Stop (1956) (nomination)
- Jason Miller in The Exorcist (1973) (nomination)
- Mikhail Baryshnikov in The Turning Point (1977)
(nomination)
- (2) Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People (1980) (win)
- (3) Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields (1984) (win)
- John Malkovich in Places in the Heart (1984) (nomination)
- Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game (1992) (nomination)
- Edward Norton in Primal Fear (1996) (nomination)
- Barkhad Abdi in Captain Phillips (2013) (nomination)
Films With the Most Best Supporting Actor Nominees:
Three films have had three nominees for Best Supporting
Actor:
African-American (or Black) Notables:
There have been twenty-five nominations
for black (or non-white, or African-American) performers as Best
Supporting Actor (with only five winners), divided amongst 21 different
performers:
Only seventeen black performers have
won the Oscar in the supporting category (seven Best Supporting Actor,
ten Best Supporting Actress). Only six different black actors have
won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (Mahershala Ali was the only
one to win two supporting Oscars):
- Louis Gossett, Jr. for An Officer and a Gentleman
(1982)
- Denzel Washington for Glory (1989)
- Cuba Gooding, Jr. for Jerry Maguire (1996)
- Morgan Freeman for Million
Dollar Baby (2004)
- Mahershala Ali for Moonlight (2016)
- Mahershala Ali for Green Book (2018)
- Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah (2020)
Only twenty-three awards have been won
by African-Americans (or blacks) in both lead and supporting categories
(five Best Actor, one Best Actress, seven Best Supporting Actor,
and ten Best Supporting Actress).
2020 became a record year when two black actors were
competing in the same category (Best Supporting Actor): Daniel
Kaluuya and LaKeith (Keith) Stanfield for Judas and the Black
Messiah (2020), and Kaluuya won the Oscar. The double nomination
marked just the 11th time in Oscars history that two people from
the same film were nominated in the category. The year
2020 also marked the first time in Oscar's history that three
black actors (Daniel Kaluuya, Leslie Odom Jr. and LaKeith Stanfield)
were all competing in the same category.
Jamie Foxx also set a record for being
the first black to debut as a nominee in two categories in the
same year, lead and supporting, for Ray (2004) and Collateral
(2004). Morgan Freeman's Best Supporting Actor
win for Million
Dollar Baby (2004), paired with Foxx's Best Actor win for Ray
(2004), was the first time that African-American actors
won in their respective categories in the same year.
Latino, Asian and Other Ethnic-Minority
(Non-English) Performers:
There have only been a few Best Supporting
Actor Oscar wins by ethnic/other minority (non-English) performers, or by actors in foreign-language performances:
- Vietnamese-American Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar
Best Supporting Actor for Everything Everywhere All at Once
(2022) - he became the first person from an Asian background
to win the award
- Muslim and African-American Mahershala Ali became
the first Muslim to win the Oscar, Best Supporting Actor for Moonlight
(2016) and repeated his win for Green Book (2018)
- Austrian-born Christoph Waltz won his second Best
Supporting Actor Oscar for Django Unchained (2012)
- Austrian-born Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for Inglourious Basterds (2009) - his performance was in German and French as well as English
- Spanish-born actor Javier Bardem won Best
Supporting Actor for No Country for Old Men (2007)
- Puerto Rican Benicio Del Toro won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar
for Traffic (2000) - a primarily non-English (Spanish) language
role
- Cambodian native Haing S. Ngor won the Best Supporting
Actor Oscar for his role in The Killing Fields
(1984) - he was the first Asian performer to win this
Oscar
- Robert DeNiro won the Best Supporting Oscar for The Godfather, Part II (1974) in which
he spoke Sicilian
- Mexican-born Anthony Quinn won two Best Supporting
Actor Oscars - for Viva Zapata! (1952) and Lust for Life
(1956) - he was the first Mexican to win an Academy Award
Oscar
Notable ethnic/minority performance nominations for
Best Supporting Actor include:
- Britisher/Indian Dev Patel was nominated for Best
Supporting Actor for Lion (2016)
- Somali-born Barkhad Abdi was nominated
as Best Supporting Actor for his role in Captain
Phillips (2013) -
he became the first Somali actor to ever receive an Oscar nomination
- Djimon
Hounsou was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his role in Blood
Diamond (2006)
- Beninese-American Djimon Hounsou was nominated as
Best Supporting Actor for In America (2003) - he was one of
the first African-born actors nominated for an acting Oscar
- Puerto Rican-born Benicio Del Toro was nominated
as Best Supporting Actor for 21 Grams (2003)
- Japanese actor Ken Watanabe was nominated as Best
Supporting Actor for The Last Samurai (2003)
- Ben Kingsley was nominated as Best Supporting Actor
for Sexy Beast (2001)
- Australian actor Geoffrey Rush was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Shakespeare in Love (1998) and The King's Speech (2010)
- Ben Kingsley (with half-Indian (birth name Krishna
Bhanji) and half-English descent) was nominated as Best Supporting
Actor for Bugsy (1991)
- Cuban-born Andy Garcia was nominated as Best Supporting
Actor for The Godfather, Part III (1990)
- Native-American (Lakota Sioux) actor Graham Greene (from Canada)
was nominated for his Best Supporting Actor role in Dances With
Wolves (1990)
- Japanese actor Noriyuki "Pat" Morita was
nominated as Best Supporting Actor for The Karate Kid (1984)
- Native-American Chief Dan George was nominated as
Best Supporting Actor in Little Big Man (1970) - he was the
first Native-American to receive an Oscar nomination
- Japansese actor Makoto Iwamatsu was nominated as
Best Supporting Actor for The Sand Pebbles (1966)
- Egypt-born Arab-American Omar Sharif was nominated
for Best Supporting Actor for
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- Japanese native Sessue Hayakawa was nominated for
his Best Supporting Actor role as a Japanese POW camp commander in
The Bridge On the River Kwai (1957)
- White performer Jeff Chandler was nominated as Best
Supporting Actor for playing the role of Apache chief Cochise in Broken
Arrow (1950)
- South African-born Cecil Kellaway was nominated twice
for Best Supporting Actor: for Luck of the
Irish (1948) and for
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
- Puerto Rican-born Jose Ferrer was nominated as Best
Supporting Actor for Joan of Arc (1948)
Shortest and Other Oddities:
The shortest performance time to win a
Best Supporting Actor Oscar was for Anthony Quinn for about nine minutes
as Paul Gaugin in Lust for Life (1956). [The shortest performance
to win an Oscar ever was in the Best Supporting Actress category:
Beatrice Straight won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for less than
eight minutes of screen time in Network (1976),
with only 8 speaking parts (of approx. 260 words). (Runner up:
Judi Dench for about ten minutes of screen time as Queen Elizabeth in
Shakespeare in Love (1998), with 14 speaking parts (of approx.
446 words).)]
The only diminutive dwarf actor ever nominated for Best Supporting Actor:
- Michael Dunn was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Ship of Fools (1965)
The only Best Supporting Actor winner (and male actor) for a mute performance (in the sound era):
- John Mills for his performance as the town idiot Michael in Ryan's Daughter (1970)
The first and only Best Supporting Actor winner
(and male actor) for a deaf acting performance:
- Troy Kotsur for his performance as deaf fisherman
Frank Rossi in Coda
(2021)
[Note: He also co-starred in the film with
his off-screen wife, Marlee Matlin - they became the only two deaf
actors ever recognized by the Academy. Matlin was the first deaf performer
to be Oscar-nominated - and she won the Oscar for Children of a
Lesser God (1986).]
Gig Young (with real-name Byron Barr) was the only Oscar winner, Best Supporting Actor for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), who adopted his screen name from the role he played in The Gay Sisters (1942) as "Gig Young".
Jason Robards has the record for the most
Oscar-nominated roles as historical personages:
- Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in All
The President's Men (1976)
- Author Dashiell Hammett in Julia (1977)
- Howard Hughes in Melvin and Howard (1980)
Related Oscar Winners and Nominees:
Siblings
The first - and only - brother and sister
to win acting Oscars were:
- Lionel Barrymore, who won the Best
Actor award for A Free Soul (1930/31), and Ethel
Barrymore who won the Best Supporting Actress award for None
But the Lonely Heart (1944)
(Note:
Famous brother John Barrymore was never nominated, nor has descendant
Drew Barrymore (yet).)
Other brother-sister acting nominees include:
- Jane Fonda (nominated seven times with
two Best Actress wins), and Peter Fonda as Best Actor for Ulee's
Gold (1997)
- Eric Roberts
as Best Supporting Actor for Runaway Train (1985), and Julia
Roberts (nominated three times with one Best Actress win)
- Warren Beatty (nominated four times
for Best Actor with no wins), and Shirley MacLaine (nominated five
times with one Best Actress win)
- Jake Gyllenhaal as Best Supporting
Actor for Brokeback Mountain (2005),
and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Best Supporting Actress for Crazy Heart
(2009)
The only brothers nominated for acting
Oscars were:
- River Phoenix as Best Supporting Actor for Running
on Empty (1988), and Joaquin Phoenix
as Best Supporting Actor for Gladiator (2000)
Two pairs of sisters have competed against
each other (when nominated simultaneously) for the same Best Actress
award:
- Joan Fontaine in Suspicion (1941) defeated
sister Olivia de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn (1941);
de Havilland later won two Best Actress Oscars for her roles in To
Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949)
- Vanessa Redgrave for Morgan (1966) vs. Lynn
Redgrave in Georgy Girl (1966) - both lost to Elizabeth
Taylor
The only other sisters to have received acting Oscar
nominations (supporting in this case):
- Meg Tilly for Agnes of God (1985) and Jennifer
Tilly for Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Three Generations:
1948's Oscar-winning director John Huston
directed both his father (Walter Huston) to a Best Supporting Actor
Oscar and his daughter (Anjelica) to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar
in respectively,
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Prizzi's Honor
(1985) 37 years later. [Huston won two Oscars for writing and directing
the 1948 film.] This remarkable feat made the Hustons the first
family with three generations of Oscar winners - Huston became the only
director to have directed both his father and daughter to Oscar victories.
Since Huston also received an acting nomination (supporting) for The
Cardinal (1963), the Hustons are the only grandfather-father-daughter
acting nominees in Oscar history.
In addition, this made the Hustons the only grandfather-granddaughter ever to win Academy Awards:
- Walter Huston, Best Supporting Actor winner for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) (directed by his son John Huston)
- Anjelica Huston, Best Supporting Actress winner for Prizzi's Honor (1985) (directed by her father John Huston)
A win for Sofia Coppola for Best Original
Screenplay for Lost in Translation (2003) made her part of the
second family of three-generation Oscar winners (her father is
a five-time winner and her grandfather, Carmine Coppola, won for musical
score on The Godfather Part II (1974)). Further connections can be made for the Coppolas - the only father-daughter-nephew grouping to win Oscars:
- Francis Ford Coppola, Best Director winner for The Godfather Part II (1974)
- Sofia Coppola, Best Original Screenplay winner for Lost in Translation (2003)
- Nicolas Cage, Best Actor winner for Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Cast Nominations:
Sixteen films
have received nominations in all four acting categories. With his
two films in 2012 and 2013, director David O. Russell was the first director
to helm two movies (back to back too) that both achieved
this feat:
Three films have had the entire cast nominated
for awards:
- Sleuth (1972), with Best Actor nominations
for Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier
- Give 'Em Hell, Harry! (1975), with a Best
Actor nomination for James Whitmore
-
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), with various nominations
for all four cast members, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George
Segal, and Sandy Dennis
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