Academy Award For Best Actor In A Supporting Role
The Best Supporting Actor award has been presented a total of 88 times, to 79 actors. The first winner was Walter Brennan for his role in Come and Get It. The most recent winner is Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer. The record for most wins is three, held by Brennan–who won every other year within a succession of the first five years. Seven other actors have won twice. Brennan is also tied for receiving the most nominations in the category (with four altogether) along with Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Claude Rains, and Mark Ruffalo.
Nominations process
Nominees are currently determined by single transferable vote within the actors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy.
In the first three years of the awards, actors and actresses were nominated as the best individuals in their categories, along with all qualifying cumulative work. The current system, in which an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, was introduced for the 4th Academy Awards, in the lead acting categories. Simultaneously, along with the introduction of the supporting acting categories, all four acting categories were limited to a maximum five nominations per year.
Winners and nominees
In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of film release in Los Angeles County; the ceremonies are always held the following year. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months, from August 1 to July 31. For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.
‡ | Indicates the winner |
---|---|
† | Indicates a posthumous winner |
† | Indicates a posthumous nominee |
§ | Indicates actor who refused the nomination |
1930s
Year | Actor | Role(s) | Film | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1936 (9th) |
Walter Brennan ‡ | Swan Bostrom | Come and Get It | |
Mischa Auer | Carlo | My Man Godfrey | ||
Stuart Erwin | Amos Dodd | Pigskin Parade | ||
Basil Rathbone | Tybalt | Romeo and Juliet | ||
Akim Tamiroff | General Yang | The General Died at Dawn | ||
1937 (10th) |
Joseph Schildkraut ‡ | Captain Alfred Dreyfus | The Life of Emile Zola | |
Ralph Bellamy | Dan Leeson | The Awful Truth | ||
Thomas Mitchell | Dr. Kersaint | The Hurricane | ||
H. B. Warner | Chang | Lost Horizon | ||
Roland Young | Cosmo Topper | Topper | ||
1938 (11th) |
Walter Brennan ‡ | Peter Goodwin | Kentucky | |
John Garfield | Mickey Borden | Four Daughters | ||
Gene Lockhart | Regis | Algiers | ||
Robert Morley | King Louis XVI | Marie Antoinette | ||
Basil Rathbone | King Louis XI | If I Were King | ||
1939 (12th) |
Thomas Mitchell ‡ | Dr. Josiah Boone | Stagecoach | |
Brian Aherne | Emperor Maximilian von Habsburg | Juarez | ||
Harry Carey Sr. | President of the Senate | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | ||
Brian Donlevy | Sgt. Markoff | Beau Geste | ||
Claude Rains | Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington |
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple wins and nominations
The following individuals received two or more Best Supporting Actor awards:
Wins | Actor |
---|---|
3 | Walter Brennan |
2 | Mahershala Ali |
Michael Caine | |
Melvyn Douglas | |
Anthony Quinn | |
Jason Robards | |
Peter Ustinov | |
Christoph Waltz |
The following individuals received three or more Best Supporting Actor nominations:
Age superlatives
Record | Actor | Film | Age (in years) | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Oldest winner | Christopher Plummer | Beginners | 82 | |
Oldest nominee | All the Money in the World | 88 | ||
Youngest winner | Timothy Hutton | Ordinary People | 20 | |
Youngest nominee | Justin Henry | Kramer vs. Kramer | 8 |
Films with multiple Supporting Actor nominations
There have been 22 instances in which films have produced more than one nominee within this category. All resulted in two nominations, with the exceptions of On the Waterfront (1954); The Godfather (1972); and The Godfather Part II (1974), which each obtained three.
Winners are in bold.
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) -- Harry Carey Sr. and Claude Rains
- Quo Vadis (1951) -- Leo Genn and Peter Ustinov
- Shane (1953) -- Brandon deWilde and Jack Palance
- On the Waterfront (1954) -- Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger
- Peyton Place (1957) -- Arthur Kennedy and Russ Tamblyn
- Anatomy of a Murder (1959)-- Arthur O'Connell and George C. Scott
- The Hustler (1961) -- Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott
- Bonnie and Clyde (1967) -- Gene Hackman and Michael J. Pollard
- The Last Picture Show (1971) -- Jeff Bridges and Ben Johnson
- The Godfather (1972) -- James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino
- The Godfather Part II (1974) -- Robert De Niro, Michael V. Gazzo, and Lee Strasberg
- Rocky (1976) -- Burgess Meredith and Burt Young
- Julia (1977) -- Jason Robards and Maximilian Schell
- Ordinary People (1980) -- Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton
- Terms of Endearment (1983) -- John Lithgow and Jack Nicholson
- Platoon (1986) -- Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe
- Bugsy (1991) -- Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) -- Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell
- The Irishman (2019) -- Al Pacino and Joe Pesci
- Judas and the Black Messiah (2020) -- Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield
- The Power of the Dog (2021) -- Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee
- The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) -- Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan
Multiple character nominations
- Max "Pop" Corkle from Here Comes Mr. Jordan (James Gleason, 1941) & Heaven Can Wait (Jack Warden, 1978)
Thus far, this is the only instance of the same character producing two nominated performances within this particular same category.
See also
- All Academy Award acting nominees
- List of awards for supporting actor
- List of Academy Award–nominated films
- Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
- Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
- BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
- Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress