Top 10: Oscar's All Time Favorite Leading Men
Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 12:45PM by Nathaniel R
I was shocked to realize that De Niro, Hanks, Penn, and Pacino -- none of them made the top ten!
Okay okay. Since we did Supporting Men and Supporting Women during the summer, I figured we should complete the set. Who are Oscar's 10 favorite leading men? We'll work the ranking like so: Nominations count most, with wins acting like half a nomination to help determine rank. The tiebreaker is the spread of time of nominations which can denote either long term fandom on the Academy's part or shortlived enthusiasms. If there's still a tie at that point, other Oscar statistics (like if they were nominated for producing or supporting or whatnot) break the tie.
Only 20 men throughout film history have scored 5 or more nominations for Best Lead Actor and though this year's currently pulsing competition for Best Actor is chalk full of previous nominees, none of them are regulars to that degree. Here are the ten runners up followed by the all-time top ten list...
20. Robert De Niro (76, 78, 80*, 90, 91)
19. Gregory Peck (45,46,47,49,62*)
18. Al Pacino (73, 74, 75, 79, 92*)
17. Jimmy Stewart (39,40*,46,50,59)
16. Paul Muni (29,33,36*,37,59)
15. Richard Burton (53,64,65,66,69,77)
14. Tom Hanks (88, 93*, 94*, 98, 00)
13. Sean Penn (95, 99, 01, 03*, 08*)
12. Gary Cooper (36,41*,42,43,52*) ...very recently booted from the top ten.
11. Fredric March (31,32*,37,46*,51) ... very recently booted from the top ten.
okay on to the top ten list...
The Ten Most Oscar-Lauded LEADING ACTORS
For the purposes of this super specific list, only "Best Leading Actor" stats counts though some of these men were also nominated a time or two in Supporting.
10 DENZEL WASHINGTON (6 nominations, 1 win, across a 26 year span)
New entry to the list in his sixtysomething years. He has doubled his previous lead nomination count in just the past six years with Flight, Fences, and Roman J Israel Esq ... and maybe he came close to a third Oscar and second win in lead with Fences? Who knows. At 63 he's still a box office draw so he might even be able to move up this list if he keeps mixing in the dramas with his more shoot-em-up fare.
09 JACK LEMMON (7 nominations, 1 win, across a 34 year span)
Lemmon won on his very first nomination (Supporting for Mister Roberts) and never returned to the supporting category again... though perhaps he should have though that's a topic for another post. Lemmon died in 2001 leaving behind a huge filmography with multiple classics including all-time greats Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. (He was an even bigger favorite at the Golden Globes with a jawdropping 22 nominations, 4 wins, and 2 special awards.)
08 DANIEL DAY LEWIS (6 nominations, 3 wins, across a 28 year span)
Like Denzel, a new entry to the list due to just the last six years with an historic third win (Lincoln) and sixth nomination (Phantom Thread). He has officially retired but he is only 61 (the youngest living person on this list) so maybe someone will coax him out of retirement in ten years or so for another Oscar go.
07 PETER O'TOOLE (8 nominations across a 44 year span)
He shared, with Richard Burton, the distinction of being both a hugely acclaimed British thespian and a bonafide movie star who was perpetually left at the altar by Oscar. O'Toole's best shot was arguably that first nomination for Lawrence of Arabia, but he had the bad luck to be up against Gregory Peck's career capper in To Kill a Mockingbird. O'Toole receive an Honorary Oscar in 2003 and then miraculously showed up again competitively afterwards (Venus). He died five years ago at 81, having worked non-stop since the mid '50s.
06 MARLON BRANDO (7 nominations, 2 wins, across a 23 year span)
One of the most influential actors of all time. He holds the distinction of being the youngest man with whom the Academy was ever fully obsessed; he had four nominations and a win before he even turned 31! Though younger men have been nominated and have won, none have ever excited Oscar that much that consistently before middle age (which is where Oscar voters love their men). Though Brando won two Best Actor Oscars (On the Waterfront and The Godfather) it's still a shame that he didn't win for A Streetcar Named Desire. If he had that would be the only film to have ever won all four acting awards and he'd still be the youngest man to have ever won Best Actor. He did hold that latter distinction for two decades until Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl, and then Adrien Brody in The Pianist took that title)
05 DUSTIN HOFFMAN (7 nominations, 2 wins, across a 31 year span)
Hoffman was, in his time, one of the most distinct movie stars to have ever emerged. There had never really been a leading man like him (consider that the original short list for the lead in The Graduate included both Robert Redford and Warren Beatty). For the first twenty years of his career or so Oscar just loved him. Hoffman's last nomination was for Wag the Dog twenty-one years ago and he's worked far less frequently since and mostly in supporting roles. Hoffman is currently 81 years old but since he still works will some enterprising young filmmaker seek him out for a plum role? You never know with the screen legends when one last important role might surface.
04 PAUL NEWMAN (8 nominations, 1 win, across a 36 year span)
Like many matinee idols, Oscar made Paul Newman wait forever for that golden statue. But at least they didn't ignore his incredible acting due to his extreme beauty. Though an Oscar win for any of his early iconic roles would have looked great in retrospect (particularly Hud) at least they finally found a way to reward him when he reprised his role from The Hustler in The Color of Money in the 1980s.
03 LAURENCE OLIVIER (9 nominations, 1 win across a 40 year span)
From our modern perspective Sir Laurence Olivier's intense fandom within the Academy is perhaps the hardest to figure (within the confines of this list). There's the problem of one of his nominations involving blackface (yikes) but the biggest issue is the absence of multiple iconic classics that people still watch (Hitchcock's Rebecca obviously still excluded). Though his Hamlet still holds up, Shakespeare on film never gets "definitive" versions since Hollywood keeps remaking them -- if not to the extent of how often they get do-overs on stage. Oliviers all caps ACTING belongs to an earlier era and also reflects his giant prestige as a stage actor. He's surely still the most famous Shakespeare on Film actor... so much so that Kenneth Branagh, is forever the Olivier 2.0 having attempted the same stage/screen both acting and directing triumphs (Henry V, Hamlet) and being regarded as something of a Ham.
02 JACK NICHOLSON (8 nominations, 2 wins, across a 33 year span)
This living legend, a major star since 1969's Easy Rider (supporting actor nomination), retired after the flop How Do You Know? in 2010 and is currently 81 years old. He was going to come out of retirement for the remake of Toni Erdmann but has since departed the project. If he changes his mind, it's not so hard to imagine him winning a 4th Oscar to tie Katharine Hepburn for 'most wins' and also become the oldest Best Actor winner ever (Henry Fonda has held that record for 36 years after winning for On Golden Pond when he was 76). Nicholson holds the unique distinction of being runner up for BOTH Oscar's Favorite Leading Actor and Oscar's Favorite Supporting Actor so in short, he's Oscar's favorite (male) actor, period.
01 SPENCER TRACY (9 nominations, 2 wins, across a 32 year span)
He was 36 when he received his first nomination (San Francisco) though Tracy often arguably read as older than he was on film, something that benefitted him in the long run. He was essentially an Oscar favorite from the very beginning of his career until the very end. His last nomination (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) was a posthumous nod, the star having died just seventeen days after filming wrapped and six months before the movie premiered. Making the final nomination even more meaningful was that it was in tandem with his love Katharine Hepburn. The pair, who never married (Tracy was married to another woman his whole life, though they were estranged), made 9 films together; this was the only one which brought them both nominations. Their first film together Woman of the Year (1942) did bring Hepburn a nomination, though. Tracy also holds the distinction of the being the first man in any category to win back-to-back Oscars (Boys Town in 1937 and Captains Courageous, 1938).
Who will join the list next?
Here are the only other living actors with 3 or more nominations in Best Actor in a Leading Role. (If they've been nominated this current decade --even in supporting-- they have an arrow by their name indicating that Oscar is still paying attention to them.)
DiCaprio, Caine, Freeman, Clooney. Who will be back soon?
5 nominations
- 🔺Robert De Niro (76, 78, 80*, 90, 91)
- Al Pacino (73, 74, 75, 79, 92*)
- Tom Hanks (88, 93*, 94*, 98, 00)
- Sean Penn (95, 99, 01, 03*, 08*)
4 nominations
- 🔺 Leonardo DiCaprio (2004, 2006, 2013, 2015*)
- Michael Caine (1966, 1972, 1983, 2002)
- Warren Beatty (1967, 1978, 1981, 1991)
- Albert Finney (1963, 1974, 1983, 1984)
3 nominations
- William Hurt (1985*, 1986, 1987)
- 🔺Jeff Bridges (1984, 2009*, 2010)
- 🔺Robert Duvall (1979, 1983*, 1997)
- Anthony Hopkins (1991*, 1993, 1995)
- Russell Crowe (1999, 2000*, 2001)
- Morgan Freeman (1989, 1994, 2009)
- Kirk Douglas (1949, 1952, 1956)
- 🔺George Clooney (2007, 2009, 2011)
- Johnny Depp (2003, 2004, 2007)
MIGHT BECOME A THREE-TIME NOMINEE FOR LEAD ACTOR THIS VERY YEAR...
- Viggo Mortensen (2007, 2016, ...and 2018 ???)
- Bradley Cooper (2012, 2014, ...and 2018 ???)
- Clint Eastwood (1992, 2004, ... and 2018 ???)
- Ryan Gosling (2006, 2016, ... and 2018 ???)
This is a LOT to discuss but have at it, please.
Reader Comments (53)
Four additional Best Actor nods don't seem improbable for Washington. However, if he wins on his next nod they'll likely pull the plug on his run. It almost feels like he's being nominated repeatedly to secure his status with the giants with three wins for acting.
I was surprised to see Tracy at the top of the list. I figured it would be Nicholson, who just feels like he should clearly be at the head of this - perhaps because of, as you noted, how frequently he was nominated in both Lead and Supporting. He just seems like Oscar's all-around top actor.
Also, while I know Oscar has its favored seasons with various actors, it seems remarkable that Pacino would be nominated 4 times in 7 years and then only once more in the succeeding ~40 years, even though he's kept working steadily throughout those decades.
I've never understood Spencer Tracy's big fat reputation. In my alternate Oscarverse, he would Never have won, with Bad Day at Black Rock being the only time he comes close. This is compounded by his not being nominated for some of his best performances - Adam's Rib, Pat and Mike, The Last Hurrah. Still I never seek out a movie just to watch him, unless it's a "Hepburn and ..." film - and certainly not the godawful Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
Peter O'Toole, who should have won at least 4 times, had the bad luck to go up against too many "sentimental comebacks" 1962 - 4 time loser and hometown idol Gregory Peck, 1969 - never-awarded John Wayne in a politically charged year, to boot, 1972 - comeback kid Marlon Brando. O'Toole should have won each time.
I don't share the negativity towards Laurence Olivier. His performance in Richard III is definitive. And being able to give a stunning performance in that campy dumpster fire Boys from Brazil, is some kind of achievement if there ever was one. As a side note, he could sing, too. In The Beggar's Opera. It's pretty obscure, but well worth seeking out.
Except for Tracy, a pretty good list.
Nathaniel, thank you for this exhaustive research! This category is utterly fascinating.
Albert Finney should have several more nominations--Saturday Night Sunday Morning, Two For the Road, and Shoot the Moon. I agree with ken s. that Spencer Tracy is overrated. Some of those nominations are just head scratchers. Michael Caine should also have several more nods, namely Youth from recent times. And I'm still saddened that Nicholson wasn't the first guy to win 3. I thought he had it for About Schmidt. Sigh.
Nit pic (sorry)--Gregory Peck's first nomination came in '44, for The Keys of the Kingdom.
I think Christian Bale could become the perennial nominee, just because there are a bunch of big name directors who like him and cast him in big time roles (Nolan, O. Russell, McKay, Malick, James Mangold, Scott Cooper). He's already in line for Best Actor nomination #2, and his fourth overall. Plus, he's only 44
it's amazing that Tom Hanks has been passed over these past couple of years for doing his best work.... CAPTAIN PHILLIPS was just devastating work... THE POST was fantastic.
They seem to have cooled on him big time for some reason.
Oh wow I thought Burt Lancaster would be here. Surprised he received so few nominations.
brookeboy
No Nathaniel is right. The nominees in 44 were Bing Crosby, Fitzgerald, Alexander Knox, Charles Boyer and Cary Grant
Peck was nominated in 45 with Gene Kelly, Ray Milland, Bing Crosby and Cornel Wilde
Love these posts! I definitely think Denzel will slide higher in the ranking in the next 10-20 years, as he deserves to in my opinion. I also expect DiCaprio to break into at least the top 20 soon. And going to agree with everyone that Tracy is lovable but hardly the most deserving of the number 1 spot here; but unless Nicholson comes out of retirement and delivers something memorable (seems unlikely since he dropped out of Toni Erdmann), it's going to be a while before anyone can knock him out of first place.
ken s. and Nathaniel--sorry about that. That movie is always cited as being made in 44. Always throws me off.
Re changing acting styles and our reception of them. I’m watching “The London Spy” with Ben Whishaw. His co-star, the wonderful Harriet Walter, said she watches the younger Whishaw’s truthfulness:
“And I constantly, still, need to learn from people like that. We always need to do a check on ourselves about truthfulness because every acting generation has a different conception of it.”
Infuriating at seeing Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Newman and Laurence Olivier on this list. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino have so much more quality in their nominated performances than those 3. They can still get more nominations (DeNiro had a very recent one in supporting).
I would add the tidbit of weird fascination looking back to Tracy along with Olivier. Not that they're bad, I for once think they're both really good at what they do but neither feels like ultimately the icons of film. Either with performances or films. Tracy arguably has only 4 major films in history, and none of them THAT big. I would say sadly none of his performances have that. That he won back to back for movies literally no one remembers now speaks leagues. Olivier lacks the films beyond Rebecca, but he has a few performances that are looked back quite fondly.
Even if as I said, I do like both a lot in their own fields. Nicholson (or Brando, Newman, Lemmon) feel like more appropriate names to own the crown, but since Nicholson is so high up in supporting too says a lot.
Denzel will probably go up. Not sure if with a win but at least a few more nods. So will DiCaprio. One would assume Hanks and Clooney but they've really cooled off.
Gosling I think gets there, but not anytime soon. He's finally entering those 'peak' years so he'll become much more of a regular than he was in the past 10 years.
The fact that Denzel was nominated last year for Roman J. Israel, Esq. with almost no fanfare for the performance and little support for the film itself leads me to believe there are more nominations in him with a likely third (and final) win.
Almost any of the younger actors mentioned (Cooper, DiCaprio, Gosling) could see themselves rise on the list, but sometimes it's hard to tell early on whether the Academy's love is impermanent or enduring. Who woulda thunk that Hanks would be stuck at five for the past 20 years?
I hope Hanks gets at least one more nomination - its weird how they have ignored him these last few times they had opportunities to reward him.
I can't believe that Tom Hanks' nominations only span 12 years.
Thank you for compiling all this, Nathaniel! Looking forward to the squabbles that arise from the Best Actress list. ;)
Well, Hanks is playing Mr. Rogers next... how can they say no to Mr. Rogers?
Does anyone think Nicholson will go back to acting,I think DDL will but not for a long time,I can see Joaquin Phoenix getting more nods in years to come,it's so infuriating to me that Clooney has 3 Lead Noms.
Nice! I totally did not expect Tracy to come out on top.
Woow Nathaniel! Such a great job!
I agree that Christian Bale will get more noms in the leading category. I think that Brad Pitt has one or two more noms in him in leading. Others:
Michael Fassbender: 2 noms (leading and supporting)
Benedict Cumberbatch: 1 nom in leading
Joaquin Phoenix: 3 noms ( 2 leading and 1 supporting)
Javier Bardem: 3 noms (2 leading and 1 win supporting)
Johnny Depp: 3 noms in leading
I believe that these guys will get nominated in the future
“Poor” Tom Hanks. I don’t think either of his Oscar wins have aged all that well, but do remember feeling quite moved by his first in particular. And his performance in Big, still his magnus opus, is frankly a miracle (ditto Cast Away): loose, charming, tricky, inventive, etc. he is, on par with Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday, insanely watchable when he wants to be; however, only Captain Phillips is a legitimate snub (Bridge of Spies, no; Saving Mr. Banks or The Post...er, no.)
Daniel Day-Lewis may seem overrewarded, but the man makes so few films that his batting average (minus Nine) is amazing. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro have done so many paycheck movies, that they seriously have eroded their luster (De Niro’s especially). Pacino ought to have been nominated for Donnie Brasco, but at least he’s churning out good work — and winning semi-regular Emmys — on TV. Laurence Olivier can’t claim a sterling track record either (maybe in theatre, not on film), and, in fact, Lady Olivier, Vivien Leigh, is probably the best comparison to Day-Lewis in terms of an actress with a relatively short filmography who nevertheless earned every ounce of her legendary silver screen reputation.
If only Albert Finney could’ve won for Erin Brockovich! So deserving, too.
It seems so hard to compare acting from the past to the present. It seems like movie acting changed dramatically with Hoffman, Pacino, Nicholson, DeNiro, Streep, Denzel and Day-Lewis, arguably some of the most influential movie actors of the modern era (so everything after 1968). Their work does not resemble anything by Spencer Tracy or Laurence Olivier, and I can't say that I would actively seek out any work by Tracy or Olivier today. I could see Leo gaining in Oscar prestige if he can successfully transition into a great actor in his 40's and 50's, etc. but some modern actors like George Clooney and Sean Penn already seem done and disinterested.
Please come back Jack.
Nathaniel, give us a top 10 performances out of Oscar's top 10 leading men.
I'd argue he was snubbed for Sully also - they could've easily dropped Andrew Garfield from that line up (Jesus, Hacksaw Ridge was terrible). So, that's 2 recent snubs (Captain Phillips and Sully) and two from the 2000 era (Road to Perdition and Catch Me If You Can). I don't think he needed to be nominated for all of them, but at least 1 of them should've happened.
High on the list of performers unjustly ignored by Oscar: Dana Andrews. During his prime years (1943-50) he gave a series of sensational performances in a parade of high profile films. Yet the Academy repeatedly took his distinctive but understated excellence for granted. Not a single nomination. I'd have cited him 6 times:
1943 The Ox-Bow Incident(supporting)
1944 Laura
1945 A Walk in the Sun
1946 The Best Years of Lives(should have won)
1947 Daisy Kenyon (should have won- an okay Joan Crawford film but he's amazing in it
1950 Where the Sidewalk Ends
Three of these were helmed by Otto Preminger; clearly an actor/director collaboration that worked
Ken -- i love Dana Andrews too.
Polivamp == all the passing on Hanks lately leads me to believe that if he ever is nominated again, he could win a third.
Poli, I think Garfield was nommed for the wrong film that year. He should have been recognized for Silence, in which he's remarkable.
Nathaniel, please give us the Lemmon post you've just promised here. I love Lemmon!
Was there a top 10 leading Lady article that I missed?
Timothee Shalamay is terrific.
I didn't know that Jack dropped out of the Toni Erdmann remake. I'm against the remake, but the pairing of Jack and Kristen Wiig is too good to be ignored, as I can only see those exact people in the roles!
Jamie -- not yet
In reverse order of comments
a) Daisy Kenyon is an amazing move and Andrews, Crawford and Fonda are all magnificent in it.
b) Tom Hanks' wins haven't aged that well, it's true, but his missed nominations, particularly Captain Philips, still floored me. He's lead-acted in 3 best picture nominees this decade and didn't get any real discussion for two of them. Again, the guy has had an amazing career so it's hard to feel bad for him, but still.
c) Acting from various eras (and cultural idioms) defintiely requires different types of receptivity. I don't particularly care for Tracy, but I can name a half dozen Olivier performances I think are required viewing (plus he's a stone cold fox)
d) Two performers I wish were on this list: Montgomery Clift and Henry Fonda. It's hard to say Clift was overlooked too much and his career was heartbreakingly short (though I'd probably give him nominations for Freud and Wild River), but AMPAS just ripped Fonda off left/right and centre. He's someone who probably should be closer to double digits than the paltry two he got.
e) ken s, I love O'Toole as much as the next guy, but no, he should not have won for Goodbye Mr. Chips. That's crazy talk. The Lion in Winter? Okay, I'll go for that. Ideally..
Gregory Peck wins for To Kill a Mockingbird; Peter Sellers wins for Dr. Strangelove; Richard Burton for Virginia Woolf; O'Toole for Lion; Pacino for literally any of his nominations besides Scent of a Woman...
f) Christian Bale strikes me as someone who will be a little too idiosyncratic to really rack up the nominations; he'll flit between lead and support fairly fluidly a la Jeff Bridges.
Albert Finney was robbed of a nomination (and, really, a win) for "Shoot the Moon" in 1982. It's really a shame he never won.
I love these lists. Always Amazing Work, Nathaniel and Company!!!
I'm surprised that 1980s leading men like Jeremy Irons was nominated for Best Actor only once while Kevin Kline didn't get nominated as Best Actor at all, and I think William Hurt is a three time Best Actor nominee from 1986-1988.
If you add other category nominations and wins , the Top 20 will be completely different again. Laurence Olivier was nominated for Best Director and several of them also got nominated and won in the Supporting Actor category eg. Jack Lemmon, Jack Nicholson etc.
Thanks for this list, Nathaniel. I love these stats and rankings!
Interesting comments on this thread about how fashions in acting styles change over the years.
Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier are the champs of the leading category, but when I think of Oscar's most-rewarded male actor overall, Jack Nicholson is of course the one - certainly in terms of acting nominations, as everyone knows. Other actors such as Warren Beatty and Woody Allen have more nominations overall, but fewer of theirs were in the acting categories.
Hey Nat - Based on your rules: "Nominations count most, with wins acting like half a nomination to help determine rank. The tiebreaker is the spread of time of nominations.."
If this is the case then Olivier should be ranked higher than Nicholson:
Olivier - 9 noms + 0.5 points for one win = 9.5 points
Nicholson - 8 noms + 1 point for two wins = 9.0 points
The order of the Top 10 will also change based on these rules (i.e. O'Toole will rank higher than Brando and Hoffman, each with 8 points but O'Toole has the longest spread of time of the three).
How about Russel Crowe winning the Oscar without winning the Globe, SAG or BAFTA. Always an interesting case when his Oscar history is brought up.
You left out the fact that Newman won the year after his Honorary Oscar and then got another leading nomination (and a supporting one). Strange, considering you did mention O’Toole’s final nomination came years after his Honorary win, but Newman’s back to back “wins” are more impressive.
No mention of Olivier being the first actor (and only one of two) to direct himself to an Oscar win? Especially in a year like 2018 where we’re on the verge of seeing it happen again?
And Hanks was only snubbed forr Captain Phillips. This idea that he’s been snubbed multiple times needs to stop.
Gus: Also, Denzel Washington achieved that the year after Crowe (when Crowe won those three other awards for A Beautiful Mind). And then Adrien Bridy achieved it the year after that. An odd run (though not an unwelcome one by any means!).
BD (the real one): Good point about Newman. Henry Fonda also won his the year after having picked up an Honorary.
Sorry - Brody!
@BD (the real one):
Another actor to receive an Oscar the year after he was given an Honorary one was Henry Fonda. That was the Honorary one in 1980 and On Golden Pond in 1981.
Regarding Tom Hanks: starting in 2013, there were 5 films for which he could have theoretically been nominated. Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies and The Post got Oscar love in acting categories. And Saving Mr. Banks and Sully "almost" did. His upcoming films, Greyhound and the Mr. Rogers project, could put an end to the situation. And he might be looking at a thrid win now that he has replaced Jack Nicholson as Ove in the American remake of the Swedish film A Man Called Ove.
beccause why not -- i meant the wins count as 1/2 a nomination. But then they also count that after the fact. So it's like Nicholson has ten nomination "points" and then two wins so another point =11
everyone -- i worry about Nicholson's health if he has been attached to two things to come out of retirement and then left both (yikes)
Nathaniel R--Did you forget William Hurt name as a three time Best Actor nominee?
I seem to remember seeing an article about Jack's memory issues. I think that's why he dropped those movies.