Academy Award for Best Actor
The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actress winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years' Best Actor winners instead.
The Best Actor award has been presented 97 times, to 86 actors. The first winner was German actor Emil Jannings for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. The most recent winner is Adrien Brody for The Brutalist ; he previously won the award for The Pianist at the age of 29, making him the category's youngest winner. The record for most wins is three, held by Daniel Day-Lewis, and ten other actors have won twice. The record for most nominations is nine, held jointly by Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier. At the 5th Academy Awards in 1932, Fredric March finished one vote ahead of Wallace Beery; under the rules of the time this resulted in them sharing the award, the only time this has occurred.
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. At that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. Despite this, at the 3rd Academy Awards, held in 1930, only one film was cited in each winner's award regardless of how many they were eligible to be considered for during that span. The current system, in which an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, was introduced for the 4th Academy Awards. Starting with the 9th Academy Awards, held in 1937, the category was 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 winner who refused the award |
| † | Indicates a posthumous winner |
| † | Indicates a posthumous nominee |
1920s
| Year | Actor | Role | Film | |
| 1927/28 | ' | ' | ||
| 1927/28 | ' | ' | ||
| 1927/28 | ||||
| 1927/28 | Patent Leather Kid | |||
| 1927/28 | ||||
| 1928/29 | ' | In Old Arizona' | ||
| 1928/29 | Thunderbolt | |||
| 1928/29 | Alibi | |||
| 1928/29 | ||||
| 1928/29 |
1930s
| Year | Actor | Role | Film | |
| 1929/30 | ' | Disraeli | ||
| 1929/30 | ||||
| 1929/30 | ||||
| 1929/30 | ||||
| 1929/30 | ||||
| 1929/30 | Bulldog Drummond | |||
| 1929/30 | Michel | Condemned | ||
| 1929/30 | Yegor | |||
| 1930/31 | ' | ' | ||
| 1930/31 | Skippy | |||
| 1930/31 | Cimarron | |||
| 1930/31 | ||||
| 1930/31 | ||||
| 1931/32 | ' | ' | ||
| 1931/32 | ' | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | ||
| 1931/32 | ||||
| 1932/33 | ' | ' | ||
| 1932/33 | Berkeley Square | |||
| 1932/33 | I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang | |||
| 1934 | ' | It Happened One Night | ||
| 1934 | Alessandro, Duke of Florence | |||
| 1934 | ||||
| 1935 | ' | ' | ||
| 1935 | Mutiny on the Bounty | |||
| 1935 | Mutiny on the Bounty | |||
| 1935 | Black Fury | |||
| 1935 | Mutiny on the Bounty | |||
| 1936 | ' | ' | ||
| 1936 | Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | |||
| 1936 | Dodsworth | |||
| 1936 | My Man Godfrey | |||
| 1936 | San Francisco | |||
| 1937 | ' | Captains Courageous | ||
| 1937 | Conquest | |||
| 1937 | ||||
| 1937 | Danny | Night Must Fall | ||
| 1937 | ||||
| 1938 | ' | Boys Town | ||
| 1938 | Algiers | |||
| 1938 | Angels with Dirty Faces | |||
| 1938 | ||||
| 1938 | Pygmalion | |||
| 1939 | ' | Goodbye, Mr. Chips | ||
| 1939 | Gone with the Wind | |||
| 1939 | Heathcliff | Wuthering Heights | ||
| 1939 | Babes in Arms | |||
| 1939 | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington |
1940s
| Year | Actor | Role | Film | |
| 1940 | ' | ' | ||
| 1940 | & The Barber | |||
| 1940 | ||||
| 1940 | Abe Lincoln in Illinois | |||
| 1940 | Rebecca | |||
| 1941 | ' | Sergeant York | ||
| 1941 | Penny Serenade | |||
| 1941 | ' | |||
| 1941 | Here Comes Mr. Jordan | |||
| 1941 | Citizen Kane | |||
| 1942 | ' | ' | Yankee Doodle Dandy | |
| 1942 | Random Harvest | |||
| 1942 | ||||
| 1942 | Mrs. Miniver | |||
| 1942 | Howard | |||
| 1943 | ' | Watch on the Rhine | ||
| 1943 | Casablanca | |||
| 1943 | For Whom the Bell Tolls | |||
| 1943 | Madame Curie | |||
| 1943 | ||||
| 1944 | ' | Going My Way | ||
| 1944 | Gaslight | |||
| 1944 | Going My Way | |||
| 1944 | None but the Lonely Heart | |||
| 1944 | Wilson | |||
| 1945 | ' | ' | ||
| 1945 | ||||
| 1945 | Anchors Aweigh | |||
| 1945 | ||||
| 1945 | ||||
| 1946 | ' | ' | ||
| 1946 | Henry V | |||
| 1946 | ||||
| 1946 | ||||
| 1946 | It's a Wonderful Life | |||
| 1947 | ' | ' | ||
| 1947 | Body and Soul | |||
| 1947 | Gentleman's Agreement | |||
| 1947 | Life with Father | |||
| 1947 | Mourning Becomes Electra | |||
| 1948 | Hamlet, Prince of Denmark | Hamlet | ||
| 1948 | Johnny Belinda | |||
| 1948 | ||||
| 1948 | When My Baby Smiles at Me | |||
| 1948 | Sitting Pretty | |||
| 1949 | ' | All the King's Men''' | ||
| 1949 | Champion | |||
| 1949 | Twelve O'Clock High | |||
| 1949 | ||||
| 1949 | Sands of Iwo Jima |