Everything about Academy Award For Best Supporting Actor totally explained
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the
Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize an
actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the
film industry. Since its inception, however, the award has commonly been referred to as the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. While actors are nominated for this award by Academy members who are actors and actresses themselves, winners are selected by the Academy membership as a whole. Under the system currently in place, an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, and such nominations are limited to five per year.
History
Throughout the past 72 years, accounting for ties and repeat winners, AMPAS has presented a total of 72 Best Supporting Actor awards to 65 different actors. Winners of this Academy Award of Merit receive the familiar Oscar statuette, depicting a gold-plated knight holding a crusader's sword and standing on a reel of film. Prior to the
16th Academy Awards ceremony (
1943), however, they received a plaque. The first recipient was
Walter Brennan, who was honored at the
9th Academy Awards ceremony (
1936) for his performance in
Come and Get It. The most recent recipient was
Javier Bardem, who was honored at the
80th Academy Awards ceremony (
2007) for his performance in
No Country for Old Men.
Until the
8th Academy Awards ceremony (
1935), nominations for the
Best Actor award were intended to include all actors, whether the performance was in either a leading or supporting role. At the
9th Academy Awards ceremony (
1936), however, the Best Supporting Actor category was specifically introduced as a distinct award following complaints that the single Best Actor category necessarily favored leading performers with the most screen time. Nonetheless,
Lionel Barrymore had received a Best Actor award (
A Free Soul,
1931) and
Franchot Tone a Best Actor nomination (
Mutiny on the Bounty,
1935) for their performances in clear supporting roles. Currently,
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role,
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role constitute the four Academy Awards of Merit for acting annually presented by AMPAS.
Superlatives
|
Best Actor |
Best Supporting Actor |
Overall |
| Actor with Most Awards |
Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gary Cooper,
Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks,
Jack Nicholson, and Daniel Day-Lewis |
2 |
Walter Brennan |
3 |
Walter Brennan and Jack Nicholson |
3 |
| Actor with Most Nominations |
Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier |
9 |
Walter Brennan, Claude Rains,
Arthur Kennedy, and Jack Nicholson |
4 |
Jack Nicholson |
12 |
Actor with Most Nominations
(without ever winning) |
Peter O'Toole |
8 |
Claude Rains and Arthur Kennedy |
4 |
Peter O'Toole |
8 |
| Film with Most Nominations |
Mutiny on the Bounty |
3 |
On the Waterfront, The Godfather,
and The Godfather Part II |
3 |
On the Waterfront, The Godfather,
and The Godfather Part II |
4 |
| Oldest Winner |
Henry Fonda |
76 |
George Burns |
80 |
George Burns |
80 |
| Oldest Nominee |
Richard Farnsworth |
79 |
Hal Holbrook |
82 |
Hal Holbrook |
82 |
| Youngest Winner |
Adrien Brody |
29 |
Timothy Hutton |
20 |
Timothy Hutton |
20 |
| Youngest Nominee |
Jackie Cooper |
9 |
Justin Henry |
8 |
Justin Henry |
8 |
Walter Brennan, the winner of the inaugural award in 1936, is the only actor to win the award three times (from four nominations). Five actors have won the award twice:
Anthony Quinn,
Melvyn Douglas,
Michael Caine,
Peter Ustinov and
Jason Robards. Robards was the only person to win consecutive Best Supporting Actor awards, for
All the President's Men (1976) and
Julia (1977).
Claude Rains and
Arthur Kennedy share the greatest number of unsuccessful nominations, four each. The only other actors with four nominations were Walter Brennan (won three times) and
Jack Nicholson (won once).
Charles Bickford,
Jeff Bridges,
Robert Duvall,
Ed Harris, and
Al Pacino have all had three unsuccessful nominations (no wins).
Harold Russell was the first (and only) actor to win two Academy Awards for the same performance when he won both Best Supporting Actor and the
Academy Honorary Award for
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Thanks to a quirk of voting, in 1944 Barry Fitzgerald in
Going My Way became the only actor nominated in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories for the same performance, winning the latter. (Today, studios designate in which category they want a performer to compete.)
Robert De Niro's 1974 win as the young Vito Corleone in
The Godfather Part II is unique as the only Supporting Oscar won for playing a part previously played by a Best Actor winner (
Marlon Brando in
The Godfather). De Niro and
Benicio del Toro (who won for
Traffic) are the only winners for a foreign-language performance in this category.
John Mills was the only actor (along with five actresses) ever to receive an Oscar nomination for a non-speaking role. Mills was nominated for, and won, Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a mute brain-damaged in
Ryan's Daughter (1970).
Winners and nominees
Following the Academy's practice, the films below are listed by year of their Los Angeles qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) the film's year of release. For example, the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor of 1999 was announced during the award ceremony held in 2000. Winners are listed first in
bold, followed by the other nominees. For a list sorted by actor names, please see
List of Best Supporting Actor nominees. For a list sorted by film titles, please see
List of Best Supporting Actor nominees (films).
1930s
1937 Joseph Schildkraut - The Life of Emile Zola as Capt. Alfred Dreyfus
1938 Walter Brennan - Kentucky as Peter Goodwin
1939 Thomas Mitchell - Stagecoach as Doc Boone
1940s
1940 Walter Brennan - The Westerner as Judge Roy Bean
1941 Donald Crisp - How Green Was My Valley as Mr. Morgan
1942 Van Heflin - Johnny Eager as Jeff Hartnett
Beginning with the 1943 awards, winners in the supporting acting categories were awarded Oscar statuettes similar to those awarded to winners in all other categories, including the leading acting categories. Prior to this, however, winners in the supporting acting categories were awarded plaques.
1943 Charles Coburn - The More the Merrier as Benjamin Dingle
1944 Barry Fitzgerald - Going My Way as Father Fitzgibbon
1945 James Dunn - A Tree Grows In Brooklyn as Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush
1946 Harold Russell - The Best Years of Our Lives as Homer Parrish
1947 Edmund Gwenn - Miracle on 34th Street as Kris Kringle
1948 Walter Huston - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre as Howard
1949 Dean Jagger - Twelve O'Clock High as Major Stovall
1950s
1950 George Sanders - All About Eve as Addison De Witt
1951 Karl Malden - A Streetcar Named Desire as Harold 'Mitch' Mitchell
1952 Anthony Quinn - Viva Zapata! as Eufemio Zapata
1953 Frank Sinatra - From Here to Eternity as Pvt. Angelo Maggio
1954 Edmond O'Brien - The Barefoot Contessa as Oscar Muldoon
1955 Jack Lemmon - Mister Roberts as Ens. Frank Thurlowe Pulver
1956 Anthony Quinn - Lust for Life as Paul Gauguin
1957 Red Buttons - Sayonara as Airman Joe Kelly
1958 Burl Ives - The Big Country as Rufus Hannassey
1959 Hugh Griffith - Ben-Hur as Sheik Ilderim
1960s
1960 Peter Ustinov - Spartacus as Lentulus Batiatus
1961 George Chakiris - West Side Story as Bernardo
1962 Ed Begley - Sweet Bird of Youth as Tom 'Boss' Finley
1963 Melvyn Douglas - Hud as Homer Bannon
1964 Peter Ustinov - Topkapi Arthur Simon Simpson
1965 Martin Balsam - A Thousand Clowns as Arnold Burns
1966 Walter Matthau - The Fortune Cookie as Willie Gingrich
1967 George Kennedy - Cool Hand Luke as Dragline
1968 Jack Albertson - The Subject Was Roses as John Cleary
1969 Gig Young - They Shoot Horses, Don't They? as Rocky
1970s
1970 John Mills - Ryan's Daughter as Michael
1971 Ben Johnson - The Last Picture Show as Sam the Lion
1972 Joel Grey - Cabaret as Master of Ceremonies
1973 John Houseman - The Paper Chase as Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.
1974 Robert De Niro - The Godfather Part II as Vito Corleone
1975 George Burns - The Sunshine Boys as Al Lewis
1976 Jason Robards - All the President's Men as Ben Bradlee
1977 Jason Robards - Julia as Dashiell Hammett
1978 Christopher Walken - The Deer Hunter as Nikonar 'Nick' Chevotarevich
1979 Melvyn Douglas - Being There as Benjamin Turnbull Rand
1980s
1980 Timothy Hutton - Ordinary People as Conrad Jarrett
1981 John Gielgud - Arthur as Hobson
1982 Louis Gossett, Jr. - An Officer and A Gentleman as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley
1983 Jack Nicholson - Terms of Endearment as Garrett Breedlove
1984 Haing S. Ngor - The Killing Fields as Dith Pran
1985 Don Ameche - Cocoon as Arthur Selwyn
1986 Michael Caine - Hannah and Her Sisters as Elliot
1987 Sean Connery - The Untouchables as Jim Malone
1988 Kevin Kline - A Fish Called Wanda as Otto West
1989 Denzel Washington - Glory as Pvt. Trip
1990s
1990 Joe Pesci - Goodfellas as Tommy DeVito
1991 Jack Palance - City Slickers as Curly Washburn
1992 Gene Hackman - Unforgiven as Little Bill Daggett
1993 Tommy Lee Jones - The Fugitive as Marshall Samuel Gerard
1994 Martin Landau - Ed Wood as Bela Lugosi
1995 Kevin Spacey - The Usual Suspects as Roger 'Verbal' Kint
1996 Cuba Gooding, Jr. - Jerry Maguire as Rod Tidwell
1997 Robin Williams - Good Will Hunting as Sean Maguire
1998 James Coburn - Affliction as Glen Whitehouse
1999 Michael Caine - The Cider House Rules as Dr. Wilbur Larch
2000s
2000 Benicio del Toro - Traffic as Javier Rodriguez
2001 Jim Broadbent - Iris as John Bayley
2002 Chris Cooper - Adaptation. as John Laroche
2003 Tim Robbins - Mystic River as Dave Boyle
2004 Morgan Freeman - Million Dollar Baby as Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris
2005 George Clooney - Syriana as Bob Barnes
2006 Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine as Edwin Hoover
2007 Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men as Anton Chigurh
International presence
As the Academy Awards are based in the United States and are centered on the Hollywood film industry, the majority of Academy Award winners have been Americans. Nonetheless, there's significant international presence at the awards, as evidenced by the following list of winners of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Cambodia: Haing S. Ngor
Mexico: 
