Looking for Oscar: Who Still Hasn't Won Hollywood's Top Prize?

Barring a truly unexpected upset, Julianne Moore will likely win her first acting Oscar on Feb. 22 for her performance as an early onset Alzheimer’s victim in Still Alice. It’s a statue she’s been chasing for some time, with four previous nominations, but no victories. If she wins, that’s one overdue performer that Oscar voters can cross off their lists. Watch our video above about our favorite Oscar also-rans and then read our list of 20 actors, actresses and crew members who are still waiting for their trophy.

Amy Adams
Number of Nominations: 5
Everyone agrees that Adams deserves to win an Oscar one day, but that day keeps looking further and further away. Despite her widely-admired nominated turns in movies like 2005’s Junebug and 2013’s American Hustle, Adams seems stuck in that weird middle ground between being young enough for voters to assume that she’ll have more chances and being old enough to win a career legacy Oscar.

Annette Bening
Number of Nominations: 4
While Bening will undoubtedly take pleasure in watching her Kids Are All Right co-star Julianne Moore win her statue this year, the fact that she’s been passed over four times in the past probably still stings. She seems like the most likely candidate for the next career legacy Oscar.

Don Cheadle
Number of Nominations: 1
If we were handing out Oscars, Cheadle would have at least three by now, for his galvanizing work in Devil in a Blue Dress, Out of Sight and the under-seen, underrated Talk to Me. But apart from his 2005 Hotel Rwanda Best Actor nomination, the actor hasn’t been in Oscar contention. Here’s hoping his upcoming Miles Davis biopic, Miles Ahead, which he co-wrote, directed and stars in, changes that.

Glenn Close
Number of Nominations: 6
The veteran stage and screen star is a single “O” away from achieving EGOT status, but that final statue has proven elusive. Her first five nominations came and went in the ‘80s (her scorching star turn in 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons probably should have nabbed her the victory, but it’s hard to argue against Jodie Foster’s win for The Accused.) Close had to wait until 2012 for another nod for her passion project, Albert Nobbs, only to watch her contemporary, Meryl Streep, accept her third Oscar for The Iron Lady.

Roger Deakins
Number of Nominations: 11
The renowned cinematographer is the new Randy Newman, who endured 15 losses in the Best Original Song and Best Original Score categories, before finally winning an Oscar in 2002. Deakins is back in the hunt this year for his work on Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, and, if he wins, it would be one of the night’s most welcome surprises.

Leonardo DiCaprio
Number of Nominations: 4 
DiCaprio appears to be in the same boat as Adams: a respected, popular actor for whom nominations come easy — three Best Actor nods in the past ten years for The Aviator, Blood Diamond and The Wolf of Wall Street — but winning has proven harder. In hindsight, he probably should have triumphed for his first nod for his remarkable performance as a developmentally disabled teenager in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape back in 1994; had they named him Best Supporting Actor back then, voters wouldn’t have to worry about playing catch up now.

Mia Farrow
Number of Nominations: 0
Working with Woody Allen has been a clear path to an Oscar for numerous actresses…except Mia Farrow, whose decade-long creative collaboration with the writer/director yielded not a single statue or even a nomination. Even harder to accept is the fact that Farrow wasn’t nominated for her breakout performance in one of the all-time great horror movies, Rosemary’s Baby.  

Richard Gere
Number of Nominations: 0
He was one of the biggest stars of the ‘80s with classics like An Officer and a Gentleman and American Gigolo and has since aged into a grey-haired elder statesman of the American film industry. But Gere doesn’t seem to get Oscar voters’ hearts racing. Even his showy turn in Chicago (for which he won a Golden Globe) wasn’t included among that 2002 musical’s 13 nominations.

Ed Harris
Number of Nominations: 4
We still forget that Harris didn’t actually win for Apollo 13 back in 1996. (That statue went to Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects instead.) So is it okay with everyone if we just rewrite history to conform to our memory?

Steve James
Number of Nominations: 0
The exclusion of James’ Hoop Dreams from the 1995 Best Documentary race is an oversight that the Academy’s documentary branch still hasn’t lived down. His subsequent non-fiction work, including 2011’s The Interrupters and last year’s Life Itself (both of which were also ignored), confirm his status as one of the finest documentary filmmakers around, no matter what the Oscars say.  

Norman Jewison
Number of Nominations: 5
To be fair, Jewison does have one Academy statue on his mantle: the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which he received in 1999. Still, that only came after he failed to win after five nominations for Best Director, most notably in 1968 when his groundbreaking crime drama In the Heat of the Night otherwise picked up three big prizes, including Best Picture.  

Harvey Keitel
Number of Nominations: 1
Despite being a legendary New York actor, Robert De Niro’s contemporary and Martin Scorsese’s first muse in Mean Streets, Keitel’s sole shot at an Oscar came and went in 1992 for Bugsy. If he’s not going to get a little golden statue, he at least deserves an actual statue in his hometown for his contributions to cinema — like, you know, getting Quentin Tarantino’s debut, Reservoir Dogs, made.    

Spike Lee
Number of Nominations: 2
There’s not a lot of love lost between the Academy and Lee, who has always made his position quite clear on the Oscars’ mixed track record of recognizing the work of African-American filmmakers. Still, the quality of his finest work speaks for itself — Do the Right Thing (for which he received an Original Screenplay nod), Malcolm X and Inside Man crackle with Lee’s energy, verve and daring.

Melissa Mathison
Number of Nominations: 1 
The screenwriter of some of the finest family movies ever made — The Black Stallion and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the source of her lone nomination — Mathison is still one of the industry’s most highly-selective and highly sought-after scribes. Maybe she’ll finally get an overdue Oscar for her next script, an adaptation of The BFG that reunites her with her E.T. pal, Steven Spielberg.  

Ian McKellen
Number of Nominations: 2
Classically trained British actors of a certain age are just supposed to have Oscars, right? Not McKellen, who came close with his acclaimed portrayal of Frankenstein director James Whale in 1998’s Gods and Monsters, but lost out to Roberto Benigni’s chair-climbing antics. Just play King Lear onscreen already, Ian. That’s prime Oscar fodder right there.

Michelle Pfeiffer
Number of Nominations: 3
Pfeiffer works so infrequently these days, it’s hard to remember that she once was one of the biggest stars — and best actresses — in Hollywood. To see prime Pfeiffer, look no further than her Oscar-nominated turn in The Fabulous Baker Boys and her piano-top rendition of “Makin’ Whoopee,” the closest thing that exists to a live-action Jessica Rabbit performance.

Ridley Scott
Number of Nominations: 3
Granted, Scott’s recent output has been less than stirring, but films like Alien, Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise (for which he received the first of his three Oscar nods) speak to his prominence in contemporary American cinema. Gladiator seemed to be his moment, until voters gave Traffic’s Steven Soderbergh the green light instead.

Martin Sheen
Number of Nominations: 0
Sheen deserved an Oscar simply for surviving Francis Ford Coppola’s infamous Apocalypse Now shoot. Factor in his terrific work in Badlands, The Dead Zone, The American President and The Departed and it’s a crime that he’s never won or been nominated.  

Naomi Watts
Number of Nominations: 2
Maybe because she’s best buds with Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, folks tend to assume that Watts already has an Oscar herself. But in fact, the actress has never been in serious contention for a statue; nominated in 2004 for 21 Grams, Watts ran into the Charlize Theron Monster machine, while her 2013 nod for The Impossible was overshadowed by J. Law’s Silver Linings Playbook star turn. Even her trip down the biopic route proved unproductive: Her 2013’s Princess of Wales movie Diana was a critical and commercial bust.

Sigourney Weaver
Number of Nominations: 3
Weaver belongs to that small club of performers — which includes Moore, by the way — who scored double nominations in the same year: In 1989, she received a Best Actress nod for Gorillas in the Mist as well as Best Supporting Actress recognition for Working Girl. (Her earlier nomination came in 1987 for Aliens, which she absolutely should have won for. Sorry, Marlee Matlin.) But that distinction is her only bragging right…at least, so far.

That’s our list of the people who are still on the Oscar hunt: Who else are we missing? Let us know who makes your list of most deserving in the comments below.

Image credits: Suzanne Tenner/Focus Features, AP Photo/Ann Johansson, File, AP Photo/Paramount Pictures and Red Granite Pictures, Mary Cybulsk, Everett Collection, Universal Pictures, Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images, AP Photo, File, AP Photo/Richard Drew, P Photo/Francois Mori, Photo by Amy Graves/WireImage