The 25 Oldest Men Ever Nominated for Best Actor

by Nathaniel R

John Wayne just misses the list. Denzel almost double dips. And Hopkins tops the list setting a new recordWe did a "Youngest Best Actor" list a few years back so we thought we should balance it out with their counterparts given the return of Sir Anthony Hopkins this year at 83 years of age with The Father. He makes history in the process as the oldest nominee ever in this category. As we all know Oscar likes some years on his men (as opposed to how he feels about women) but that doesn't mean the golden years. Oscar loves men to be in their late 30s through mid 50s (whereas with women they prefer late 20s through mid 40s) but ageism  works against men, too. Just not as severely as it does against women. The roles still dry up at a certain age... though perhaps that's more on filmmakers and studios than the Oscars themselves. 

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH MINOR CORRECTIONS. (04/02). And a surprising piece of trivia about this list. Only one of the top 25 oldest nominees in this category actually won the Oscar. Not a strong success rate for senior men. Oscar likes to bid them farewell but doesn't feel the need to send them off with the statue (or a second statue)...

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Almost There: Anthony Hopkins in "The Lion in Winter"

by Cláudio Alves

As the Oscar nomination morning approaches, it seems certain that Anthony Hopkins is about to receive his sixth nod. Seeing as he's considered a wizened old thespian of stage and screen, it may be difficult to recall the days when he, like so many others, was a young actor. In 1968, Hopkins was nearing his 30th birthday when his second ever feature premiered. Thanks to that film, he got the first brush with film awards and might have even come close to an Oscar nomination. In Anthony Harvey's adaptation of James Goldman's The Lion in Winter, Hopkins plays Richard, future king of England, son of Henry II…

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One Actor, One Character, Many Globes

by Cláudio Alves

This next Sunday, Sacha Baron Cohen is probably going to win at least one Golden Globe, whether for his Oscar-aiming turn in Trial of the Chicago 7 or his second go-around as Borat. I'm especially interested in that last potential victory since it would put him in a pretty exclusive club. To my knowledge, only one actor has managed to win more than one Globe for film by playing the same character multiple times. While franchises and sequels tend to dominate the box office, they don't generally score a lot of gold for their actors so it's notable when someone manages to buck the trend. Did they all deserve to? That's another story altogether.

By my count, 15 thespians have managed multiple nominations for the same character. Come discover who they are and what double victor Sacha Baron Cohen will join if he wins for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm… 

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Oscar Trivia: Longest gap between nods... and who might return next?

by Nathaniel R 

Tie a yellow ribbon round the ol' Oscar ceremony this year. There are a lot of "welcome back" nominations at the 92nd Academy Awards since the nominations skewed towards senior actors as it occassionally does. Seven previous winners are in play again -- Bates, Theron, Zellweger, Pacino, Pesci, Hanks, and Sir Anthony Hopkins... all of whom have been missing in Oscar action anywhere from 15 to 29 years!  Surprisingly none of them are close to the all time record for “longest gap between nominations”.

Still, two decades is a big long stretch of time since most actors of either gender have all of their Oscar activity in a relatively condensed period of time; when you’re hot, you’re hot. Gaps over 20 years are uncommon. Even Lee Grant and Ingrid Bergman, famously blacklisted or exiled for a spell before returning triumphantly to Oscar’s good graces, didn’t have to wait that long. So herewith a list of the only actors who returned to the mix after a 20 year absence. 

The 25 Longest Gaps Between Oscar Nominations (for Actors)

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1972: Soaked in Booze with "The Ruling Class"

TFE will be periodically looking back at the 1972 film year before we hit the Supporting Actress Smackdown at month's end. Here's Anna from Defiant Success

Adapted from the play of the same name by Peter Barnes (who also serves the film’s writer), Peter Medak’s The Ruling Class establishes its bizarre nature early on. The plot kicks off after Ralph Gurney, the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) accidentally hangs himself while performing autoerotic asphyxiation. Upon his death, his only surviving son Jack (Peter O’Toole) becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney. One problem with this new arrangement: Jack firmly believes that he’s Jesus Christ...

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