Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
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Awarded for | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role |
Country | United States |
Presented by | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |
First awarded | 1937 (for performances in films released in 1936) |
Currently held by |
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash (2014) |
Official website |
oscars |
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.
History
Throughout the past 77 years AMPAS has presented a total of 77 Best Supporting Actor awards to 69 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 is J.K. Simmons, who was honored at the 87th Academy Awards (2014) for his performance in Whiplash.
Until the 8th Academy Awards ceremony (1935), nominations for the Best Actor award were intended to include all actors, whether the performance was in 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 supporting roles. Conversely, James Dunn received a Best Supporting Actor award for his leading actor role in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945). 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. 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
Superlative | Actor | |
---|---|---|
Actor with most awards | Walter Brennan | 3 |
Actor with most nominations | Walter Brennan Claude Rains Arthur Kennedy Jack Nicholson Robert Duvall |
4 |
Actor with most nominations (without ever winning) |
Claude Rains Arthur Kennedy Robert Duvall |
4 |
Oldest winner | Christopher Plummer | 82 |
Oldest nominee | Robert Duvall | 84 |
Youngest winner | Timothy Hutton | 20 |
Youngest nominee | 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). Jason Robards is the only person to win consecutive Best Supporting Actor awards, one for All the President's Men (1976), and the other for Julia (1977).
Claude Rains, Arthur Kennedy, and Robert Duvall share the greatest number of unsuccessful nominations, with four each, though Duvall has won an Oscar for Best Actor. The only other actors with four nominations are Walter Brennan (won three times) and Jack Nicholson (won once). Charles Bickford, Jeff Bridges, Ed Harris, and Al Pacino have each had three unsuccessful nominations, though Bridges, and Pacino all have won an Oscar for Best Actor, too.
Harold Russell was the first (and only) actor to receive two Academy Awards for the same performance when he won the Best Supporting Actor award and was also presented with an Academy Honorary Award for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Thanks to a voting quirk, 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, Academy bylaws preclude this from happening.)
The Godfather earned three nominations for Best Supporting Actor at the 45th Academy Awards, for Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, but all three lost to Joel Grey of Cabaret. Pacino himself boycotted the ceremony as he was insulted at being nominated for the Best Supporting Actor award, even though he had more screen time than costar and Best Leading Actor winner Marlon Brando—who was himself boycotting the awards.[1] The Godfather Part II received three Best Supporting Actor nominations with Robert De Niro winning, while The Godfather Part III's Andy García was nominated. On the Waterfront was the first movie to receive three Best Supporting Actor nominations: Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, and Karl Malden.
Heath Ledger is the only person to posthumously win an acting Oscar in a supporting role. He won the Best Supporting Actor award for his portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight, 2008.
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 the colored rows, 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). Winners are listed first in colored row, followed by the other nominees.
1930s
Year | Actor | Film | Role(s) |
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1936 (9th) | |||
Walter Brennan | Come and Get It | Swan Bostrom | |
Mischa Auer | My Man Godfrey | Carlo | |
Stuart Erwin | Pigskin Parade | Amos Dodd | |
Basil Rathbone | Romeo and Juliet | Tybalt – Nephew to Lady Capulet | |
Akim Tamiroff | The General Died at Dawn | General Yang | |
1937 (10th) | |||
Joseph Schildkraut | The Life of Emile Zola | Capt. Alfred Dreyfus | |
Ralph Bellamy | The Awful Truth | Dan Leeson | |
Thomas Mitchell | The Hurricane | Dr. Kersaint | |
H. B. Warner | Lost Horizon | Chang | |
Roland Young | Topper | Cosmo Topper | |
1938 (11th) | |||
Walter Brennan | Kentucky | Peter Goodwin | |
John Garfield | Four Daughters | Mickey Borden | |
Gene Lockhart | Algiers | Regis | |
Robert Morley | Marie Antoinette | King Louis XVI | |
Basil Rathbone | If I Were King | King Louis XI | |
1939 (12th) | |||
Thomas Mitchell | Stagecoach | Dr. Josiah Boone | |
Brian Aherne | Juarez | Emperor Maximilian von Habsburg | |
Harry Carey | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | President of the Senate | |
Brian Donlevy | Beau Geste | Sgt. Markoff | |
Claude Rains | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine |
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
Multiple awards for Best Supporting Actor
- 3 awards
- Walter Brennan
- 2 awards
- Michael Caine
- Melvyn Douglas
- Anthony Quinn
- Jason Robards
- Peter Ustinov
- Christoph Waltz
Multiple nominations for Best Supporting Actor
- 4 nominations
- Walter Brennan
- Robert Duvall
- Arthur Kennedy
- Jack Nicholson
- Claude Rains
- 3 nominations
- Charles Bickford
- Jeff Bridges
- Charles Coburn
- Gene Hackman
- Ed Harris
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
- Tommy Lee Jones
- Martin Landau
- Al Pacino
- Jack Palance
- Jason Robards
- Peter Ustinov
- Gig Young
- 2 nominations
- Eddie Albert
- Alan Arkin
- Michael Caine
- Lee J. Cobb
- Willem Dafoe
- Benicio del Toro
- Robert De Niro
- Melvyn Douglas
- Charles Durning
- Peter Falk
- Morgan Freeman
- Vincent Gardenia
- John Gielgud
- Hugh Griffith
- Alec Guinness
- Edmund Gwenn
- Ethan Hawke
- Jonah Hill
- Djimon Hounsou
- Walter Huston
- Cecil Kellaway
- Ben Kingsley
- John Lithgow
- Karl Malden
- John Malkovich
- James Mason
- Burgess Meredith
- Sal Mineo
- Thomas Mitchell
- Edward Norton
- Edmond O'Brien
- Arthur O'Connell
- Joe Pesci
- Christopher Plummer
- Anthony Quinn
- Basil Rathbone
- Ralph Richardson
- Mickey Rooney
- Mark Ruffalo
- Geoffrey Rush
- George C. Scott
- Akim Tamiroff
- Christopher Walken
- Christoph Waltz
- Jack Warden
- Denzel Washington
- Clifton Webb
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 is significant international presence at the awards, as evidenced by the following list of winners for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
- Australia: Heath Ledger
- Austria: Joseph Schildkraut, Christoph Waltz (born in Austria, Austrian citizenship since 2010, German since birth)
- Cambodia: Haing S. Ngor
- Canada: Christopher Plummer
- Germany: Christoph Waltz
- Ireland: Barry Fitzgerald
- Spain: Javier Bardem
- United Kingdom: Christian Bale, Jim Broadbent, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Donald Crisp, John Gielgud, Hugh Griffith, Edmund Gwenn, John Mills, George Sanders, Peter Ustinov
Anthony Quinn was born in Mexico but was an American citizen when he won his Oscars. Benicio del Toro, an American citizen, was born in Puerto Rico and won his Oscar for a primarily Spanish-speaking role.
There have been two years in which all four of the top acting Academy Awards were presented to non-Americans.
- At the 37th Academy Awards (1964), the winners were Rex Harrison (British), Julie Andrews (British), Peter Ustinov (British), and Lila Kedrova (Russian).
- At the 80th Academy Awards (2007), the winners were Daniel Day-Lewis (British and Irish), Marion Cotillard (French), Javier Bardem (Spanish), and Tilda Swinton (British).
See also
- BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
- Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
- Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
- Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
- List of Best Supporting Actor winners by age
- List of superlative Academy Award winners and nominees
- List of actors nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
- List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
- List of nominees for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (by actor)
- List of nominees for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (by film title)
- List of actors nominated for Academy Awards for foreign language performances
- List of actors who won the Academy, BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award for a single performance
References
- ↑ Grobel; p. xxi
- ↑ 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.
External links
- Oscars.org (official Academy site)
- Oscar.com (official ceremony promotional site)
- The Academy Awards Database (official site)
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