Since the inception of the Academy Awards, the U.S.-based organization behind them has always strived to honor worldwide film achievements. Their extensive roster of competitive acting winners alone consists of artists from 30 unique countries, three of which first gained representation during the 2020s. The last full decade’s worth of triumphant performers hail from eight countries, while 42.1% of the individual actors nominated during that time originate from outside of America.
The academy’s history of recognizing acting talent on a global scale dates all the way back to the inaugural Oscars ceremony in 1929, when Swiss-born Emil Jannings (who was of German and American parentage) won Best Actor for his work in both “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Over the next three years, the Best Actress prize was exclusively awarded to Canadians: Mary Pickford (“Coquette”), Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”), and Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill...
The academy’s history of recognizing acting talent on a global scale dates all the way back to the inaugural Oscars ceremony in 1929, when Swiss-born Emil Jannings (who was of German and American parentage) won Best Actor for his work in both “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Over the next three years, the Best Actress prize was exclusively awarded to Canadians: Mary Pickford (“Coquette”), Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”), and Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill...
- 3/18/2024
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
Of the 272 films that have earned lone acting Oscar nominations – meaning they were each recognized in one performance category and nowhere else – a whopping 101 (or 37.1%) accomplished the feat thanks to lead actresses. Whereas just 60 examples have occurred in the Best Actor category, the corresponding female one reached that benchmark in 1991 and is on track to double it less than two decades from now. Its triple digit total has now been intact for one full year, having directly resulted from the simultaneous nominations of Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) and Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”).
Although an Oscar bid was generally expected to follow de Armas’s 2023 BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award nominations, Riseborough very memorably came out of nowhere, having defied precedent by benefiting from an enthusiastic grassroots campaign. While most of the earlier lone Best Actress contenders belong in de Armas’s camp, many align with Riseborough in having pulled off major surprises.
Although an Oscar bid was generally expected to follow de Armas’s 2023 BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award nominations, Riseborough very memorably came out of nowhere, having defied precedent by benefiting from an enthusiastic grassroots campaign. While most of the earlier lone Best Actress contenders belong in de Armas’s camp, many align with Riseborough in having pulled off major surprises.
- 1/22/2024
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
The motion picture academy has handed out Oscars for leading performances since the first ceremony in 1929. While the Best Actor prize is typically taken by a veteran, the Best Actress Oscar has tended to go to an ingenue. However, those age biases could be changing. While a whopping 32 of the 95 Best Actress champs have been in their 20s when they picked up their Oscars, the last four women to win were Frances McDormand, 45-year-old Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”), 50-year-old Renee Zellweger (“Judy”) and 45-year old Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”). Chastain’s closest rival last year were Colman, now 48, for “The Lost Daughter” and 47-year-old Penelope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers”. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2023 Oscars Best Actress predictions.)
Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015, and theater veteran Shirley Booth,...
Besides Zellweger, the only other Best Actress champs in their 50s were both 54 when they won: Julianne Moore, who finally prevailed after four losses for “Still Alice” in 2015, and theater veteran Shirley Booth,...
- 2/6/2023
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
This year’s quartet of Oscar acting winners is one for the ages. With an average age of 56.5, 59-year-old Gary Oldman (“Darkest Hour”), 60-year-old Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), 49-year-old Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards”) and 58-year-old Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”) are the second oldest foursome to take home Oscars.
They only trail the Class of 1981, which featured three septuagenarians — 76-year-old Best Actor Henry Fonda (“On Golden Pond”), 74-year-old Best Actress Katharine Hepburn (“On Golden Pond”) and 77-year-old Best Supporting Actor John Gielgud (“Arthur”) — and 56-year-old Maureen Stapleton (“Reds”) for an average age of 70.75, which may never be surpassed. Since the supporting races weren’t added until the ninth ceremony, Oldman, McDormand, Rockwell and Janney aren’t the second oldest set of winners overall; that belongs to then-53-year-old Lionel Barrymore (“A Free Soul”) and then-63-year-old Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill”), whose average age was 58 at the fourth Oscars.
They only trail the Class of 1981, which featured three septuagenarians — 76-year-old Best Actor Henry Fonda (“On Golden Pond”), 74-year-old Best Actress Katharine Hepburn (“On Golden Pond”) and 77-year-old Best Supporting Actor John Gielgud (“Arthur”) — and 56-year-old Maureen Stapleton (“Reds”) for an average age of 70.75, which may never be surpassed. Since the supporting races weren’t added until the ninth ceremony, Oldman, McDormand, Rockwell and Janney aren’t the second oldest set of winners overall; that belongs to then-53-year-old Lionel Barrymore (“A Free Soul”) and then-63-year-old Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill”), whose average age was 58 at the fourth Oscars.
- 3/5/2018
- by Joyce Eng
- Gold Derby
There have been 342 Oscars given out to actors, but only one of them has won on their birthday. Jennifer Jones scored Best Actress for “The Song of Bernadette” on her 25th birthday at the 16th ceremony on March 2, 1944.
Jones received the award from reigning champ Greer Garson (“Mrs. Miniver”), which you can watch in the academy’s recap video above. It was the actress’ only win from five nominations, but none of the other ceremonies fell on her birthday.
See Oscar Best Actress gallery: See every winner in history
Several people have won close to their birthdays: Marie Dressler (1930’s “Min and Bill”), Peter Ustinov (1960’s “Spartacus”), Holly Hunter (1993’s “The Piano”) and Lupita Nyong’o (2013’s “12 Years a Slave”) all got a belated birthday gift from the academy the next day. Dianne Wiest (1994’s “Bullets Over Broadway”) received an early birthday present, winning her second Best Supporting Actress...
Jones received the award from reigning champ Greer Garson (“Mrs. Miniver”), which you can watch in the academy’s recap video above. It was the actress’ only win from five nominations, but none of the other ceremonies fell on her birthday.
See Oscar Best Actress gallery: See every winner in history
Several people have won close to their birthdays: Marie Dressler (1930’s “Min and Bill”), Peter Ustinov (1960’s “Spartacus”), Holly Hunter (1993’s “The Piano”) and Lupita Nyong’o (2013’s “12 Years a Slave”) all got a belated birthday gift from the academy the next day. Dianne Wiest (1994’s “Bullets Over Broadway”) received an early birthday present, winning her second Best Supporting Actress...
- 3/2/2018
- by Joyce Eng
- Gold Derby
Isabelle Huppert in ‘Elle’ (Courtesy: Sbs Productions)
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
With the 89th Academy Awards right around the corner, it seems that the best actress category contains one of the tightest races with Emma Stone going head to head against Isabelle Huppert. While the La La Land ingénue is considered the favorite to take home the trophy, it’s the esteemed legend from Elle who would be the one making history. At 63 years of age — just shy of her 64th birthday — the French thespian would become the category’s third-oldest winner at the Oscars.
Come the night of the ceremony — this Sunday, February 26 — Huppert will be exactly 63 years, 11 months, and 10 days old. When looking at the history of the best actress category, there are only two other women who were older than this hypothetical outcome when they took home their statuettes: Katharine Hepburn and Jessica Tandy. Hepburn won...
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
With the 89th Academy Awards right around the corner, it seems that the best actress category contains one of the tightest races with Emma Stone going head to head against Isabelle Huppert. While the La La Land ingénue is considered the favorite to take home the trophy, it’s the esteemed legend from Elle who would be the one making history. At 63 years of age — just shy of her 64th birthday — the French thespian would become the category’s third-oldest winner at the Oscars.
Come the night of the ceremony — this Sunday, February 26 — Huppert will be exactly 63 years, 11 months, and 10 days old. When looking at the history of the best actress category, there are only two other women who were older than this hypothetical outcome when they took home their statuettes: Katharine Hepburn and Jessica Tandy. Hepburn won...
- 2/24/2017
- by Carson Blackwelder
- Scott Feinberg
Wallace Beery from Pancho Villa to Long John Silver: TCM schedule (Pt) on August 17, 2013 (photo: Fay Wray, Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa in ‘Viva Villa!’) See previous post: “Wallace Beery: Best Actor Oscar Winner — and Runner-Up.” 3:00 Am The Last Of The Mohicans (1920). Director: Maurice Tourneur. Cast: Barbara Bedford, Albert Roscoe, Wallace Beery, Lillian Hall, Henry Woodward, James Gordon, George Hackathorne, Nelson McDowell, Harry Lorraine, Theodore Lorch, Jack McDonald, Sydney Deane, Boris Karloff. Bw-76 mins. 4:30 Am The Big House (1930). Director: George W. Hill. Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, George F. Marion, J.C. Nugent, DeWitt Jennings, Matthew Betz, Claire McDowell, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Tom Wilson, Eddie Foyer, Roscoe Ates, Fletcher Norton, Noah Beery Jr, Chris-Pin Martin, Eddie Lambert, Harry Wilson. Bw-87 mins. 6:00 Am Bad Man Of Brimstone (1937). Director: J. Walter Ruben. Cast: Wallace Beery, Virginia Bruce, Dennis O’Keefe. Bw-89 mins.
- 8/17/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Wallace Beery: Best Actor Academy Award winner and Best Actor Academy Award runner-up in the same year (photo: Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery in ‘The Champ’) (See previous post: “Wallace Beery Movies: Anomalous Hollywood Star.”) In the Academy’s 1931-32 season, Wallace Beery took home the Best Actor Academy Award — I mean, one of them. In the King Vidor-directed melodrama The Champ (1931), Beery plays a down-on-his-luck boxer and caring Dad to tearduct-challenged Jackie Cooper, while veteran Irene Rich is Beery’s cool former wife and Cooper’s mother. Will daddy and son remain together forever and ever? Audiences the world over were drowned in tears — theirs and Jackie Cooper’s. Now, regarding Wallace Beery’s Best Actor Academy Award, he was actually a runner-up: Fredric March, initially announced as the sole winner for his performance in Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, turned out to have...
- 8/17/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Wallace Beery movies: TCM offers a glimpse into Beery’s extensive filmography (photo: Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery in ‘Min and Bill’) According to the IMDb, the Wallace Beery Filmography features nearly 240 movie titles, including shorts and features, spanning more than three decades, from 1913 to 1949 — the year of his death at age 64. You’ll be able to catch about a dozen of these Wallace Beery movies on Saturday, August 17, 2013, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" series. (See “TCM movie schedule: Wallace Beery from Pancho Villa to Long John Silver.”) Wallace Beery, much like fellow veteran Marie Dressler, with whom he co-starred in Min and Bill and its sequel, Tugboat Annie, was a Hollywood anomaly. At age 45, the ugly, coarse-looking actor became a top box-office draw in the United States after languishing in supporting roles, usually playing villains, throughout most of the silent era. Beery and Dressler,...
- 8/17/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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