Watch a Supercut of Every Best Actor Oscar Winner
Here’s a fun fact: During the first three years of the Academy Awards, actors could be nominated for their performances in different films. That’s why the first Best Actor winner to show up in our supercut, German actor Emil Jannings, has two credits under his name for the Oscar he received in 1929. It was an interesting but confusing system, and by 1931, the Academy voting rules specified that nominations should be restricted to a single film a year per actor per category — as is the case today. In this video, Yahoo Movies takes a tour through every Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance in history, from Jannings to Leonardo DiCaprio, who took home the trophy last year for The Revenant. Watch the compilation above.
These days, the Best Actor award goes almost exclusively to performances in dramas, but as this video shows, that wasn’t always the case. Some of the earliest winners included Fredric March for his title role in the horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931/1932), Clark Gable for the romantic comedy It Happened One Night (1934), and Spencer Tracy for the action-adventure film Captains Courageous (1937).
As the list goes on, we get glimpses of some of the most memorable performances in Hollywood history. Examples are Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954), Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Robert De Niro in Raging Bull (1980), and of course, Daniel Day-Lewis, who holds the record for the most Best Actor awards, with three — for My Left Foot (1989), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Lincoln (2012).
This year’s Academy Awards will take place on Feb. 26. Nominees competing for Best Actor will be Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea), Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge), Ryan Gosling (La La Land), Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic), and Denzel Washington (Fences).
Watch a Supercut of Every Best Actress Oscar Winner:
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