Oscars: Every Best Actor Winner In The Past 90-Plus Years

David Morgan
·3 min read
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The Best Actor Oscar has been the pinnacle for leading men since the first Academy Awards in 1929 when the film industry started honoring its best and brightest.

Candidates for 2023 are many, including Hugh Jackman (The Son), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Austin Butler (Elvis) and Christian Bale (Amsterdam), to mention but a few. Only time will tell who gets the next Best Actor Oscar, but time has told who the winners have been throughout history, and we have them all here for you.

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The first winner was Emil Jannings, who was recognized for two films The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. The latter film, directed by Victor Fleming, is considered a lost film. Only two fragments survive, both from the end, making Jannings’ Academy Award-winning performance the only one of which there is no complete copy. That first year is also the only time that Oscars were awarded for multiple performances.

Enjoy the stroll down memory lane with stills of every Best Actor winner of all time with an emphasis on some of the classics. There is Fredric March’s ghoulish role in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1932, for which he tied with Wallace Berry in The Champ, the only Best Actor tie. Spencer Tracy won back-to-back Oscars for Captains Courageous in 1937 and for Boys Town in 1938. Gary Cooper won two Oscars 11 years apart, for Sergeant York in 1941 and for High Noon in 1952. The list goes on.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and for two actors, the Oscar was a piece of hardware they didn’t want. George C. Scott was the first Best Actor winner to turn down the statuette for Patton in 1970. Scott said that he disagreed, in principle, with actors being put in competition with each other for an award.

In 1972, Marlon Brando refused to accept his Academy Award for The Godfather, instead sending Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather who delivered the message that the actor “very regretfully” could not accept the award because he was protesting Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans in film. Littlefeather read part of a lengthy statement in which Brando writes, “The motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing his as savage, hostile and evil.” It should be noted that Brando did accept his Oscar in 1954 for On the Waterfront.

Some other highlights: Daniel Day-Lewis is the only three-time winner, for My Left Foot (1989), There Will Be Blood (2007) and Lincoln (2012). The oldest winner was Anthony Hopkin, who won for The Father in 2020 at 83. Adrien Brody was a mere 29 years old when he became the youngest winner for The Pianist in 2002. Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were the most-nominated with nine each, while Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman and Peter O’Toole had 8 each.

Launch Gallery: Oscars: Every Best Actor Oscar Winner Back To 1927

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