Every Academy Award for Best Actor Winner in History

The Academy Award for Best Actor is one of the most prestigious honors in entertainment. This page lists every winner in history, from 1929 to 2026, organized by decade, with links to our full guides where available.

1920s

• 1929 The Last Command
• 1929 Emil Jannings
• 1929 The Way of All Flesh

1930s

• 1930 George Arliss
• 1930 Warner Baxter
• 1930 Disraeli
• 1930 In Old Arizona
• 1931 Lionel Barrymore
• 1931 A Free Soul
• 1932 Fredric March
• 1932 Wallace Beery
• 1932 The Champ
• 1932 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• 1934 The Private Life of Henry VIII
• 1934 Charles Laughton
• 1935 It Happened One Night
• 1935 Clark Gable
• 1936 Victor McLaglen
• 1936 The Informer
• 1937 The Story of Louis Pasteur
• 1937 Paul Muni
• 1938 Captains Courageous
• 1938 Spencer Tracy
• 1939 Spencer Tracy
• 1939 Boys Town

1940s

• 1940 Robert Donat
• 1940 Goodbye, Mr. Chips
• 1941 James Stewart
• 1941 The Philadelphia Story
• 1942 Sergeant York
• 1942 Gary Cooper
• 1943 Yankee Doodle Dandy
• 1943 James Cagney
• 1944 Paul Lukas
• 1944 Watch on the Rhine
• 1945 Going My Way
• 1945 Bing Crosby
• 1946 Ray Milland
• 1946 The Lost Weekend
• 1947 Fredric March
• 1947 The Best Years of Our Lives
• 1948 A Double Life
• 1948 Ronald Colman
• 1949 Hamlet
• 1949 Laurence Olivier

1950s

• 1950 Broderick Crawford
• 1950 All the King's Men
• 1951 José Ferrer
• 1951 Cyrano de Bergerac
• 1952 Humphrey Bogart
• 1952 The African Queen
• 1953 High Noon
• 1953 Gary Cooper
• 1954 Stalag 17
• 1954 William Holden
• 1955 On the Waterfront
• 1955 Marlon Brando
• 1956 Ernest Borgnine
• 1956 Marty
• 1957 Yul Brynner
• 1957 The King and I
• 1958 Alec Guinness
• 1958 The Bridge on the River Kwai
• 1959 Separate Tables
• 1959 David Niven

1960s

• 1960 Ben-Hur
• 1960 Charlton Heston
• 1961 Elmer Gantry
• 1961 Burt Lancaster
• 1962 Maximilian Schell
• 1962 Judgment at Nuremberg
• 1963 Gregory Peck
• 1963 To Kill a Mockingbird
• 1964 Sidney Poitier
• 1964 Lilies of the Field
• 1965 Rex Harrison
• 1965 My Fair Lady
• 1966 Cat Ballou
• 1966 Lee Marvin
• 1967 A Man for All Seasons
• 1967 Paul Scofield
• 1968 Rod Steiger
• 1968 In the Heat of the Night
• 1969 Charly
• 1969 Cliff Robertson

1970s

• 1970 John Wayne
• 1970 True Grit
• 1971 George C. Scott
• 1971 Patton
• 1972 Gene Hackman
• 1972 The French Connection
• 1973 Marlon Brando
• 1973 The Godfather
• 1974 Save the Tiger
• 1974 Jack Lemmon
• 1975 Harry and Tonto
• 1975 Art Carney
• 1976 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• 1976 Jack Nicholson
• 1977 Peter Finch
• 1977 Network
• 1978 Richard Dreyfuss
• 1978 The Goodbye Girl
• 1979 Coming Home
• 1979 Jon Voight

1980s

• 1980 Kramer vs. Kramer
• 1980 Dustin Hoffman
• 1981 Raging Bull
• 1981 Robert De Niro
• 1982 Henry Fonda
• 1982 On Golden Pond
• 1983 Ben Kingsley
• 1983 Gandhi
• 1984 Tender Mercies
• 1984 Robert Duvall
• 1985 F. Murray Abraham
• 1985 Amadeus
• 1986 William Hurt
• 1986 Kiss of the Spider Woman
• 1987 Paul Newman
• 1987 The Color of Money
• 1988 Michael Douglas
• 1988 Wall Street
• 1989 Rain Man
• 1989 Dustin Hoffman

1990s

• 1990 Daniel Day-Lewis
• 1990 My Left Foot
• 1991 Reversal of Fortune
• 1991 Jeremy Irons
• 1992 The Silence of the Lambs
• 1992 Anthony Hopkins
• 1993 Scent of a Woman
• 1993 Al Pacino
• 1994 Philadelphia
• 1994 Tom Hanks
• 1995 Tom Hanks
• 1996 Leaving Las Vegas
• 1996 Nicolas Cage
• 1997 Geoffrey Rush
• 1997 Shine
• 1998 As Good as It Gets
• 1998 Jack Nicholson
• 1999 Life Is Beautiful
• 1999 Roberto Benigni

2000s

• 2000 American Beauty
• 2000 Kevin Spacey
• 2001 Gladiator
• 2001 Russell Crowe
• 2002 Training Day
• 2002 Denzel Washington
• 2003 Adrien Brody
• 2003 The Pianist
• 2004 Mystic River
• 2004 Sean Penn
• 2005 Jamie Foxx
• 2005 Ray
• 2006 Philip Seymour Hoffman
• 2006 Capote
• 2007 The Last King of Scotland
• 2007 Forest Whitaker
• 2008 Daniel Day-Lewis
• 2008 There Will Be Blood
• 2009 Milk
• 2009 Sean Penn

2010s

• 2010 Crazy Heart
• 2010 Jeff Bridges
• 2011 The King's Speech
• 2011 Colin Firth
• 2012 The Artist
• 2012 Jean Dujardin
• 2013 Daniel Day-Lewis
• 2013 Lincoln
• 2014 Matthew McConaughey
• 2014 Dallas Buyers Club
• 2015 The Theory of Everything
• 2015 Eddie Redmayne
• 2016 The Revenant
• 2016 Leonardo DiCaprio
• 2017 Manchester by the Sea
• 2017 Casey Affleck
• 2018 Darkest Hour
• 2018 Gary Oldman
• 2019 Bohemian Rhapsody
• 2019 Rami Malek

2020s

• 2020 Joaquin Phoenix
• 2020 Joker
• 2021 The Father
• 2021 Anthony Hopkins
• 2022 Will Smith
• 2023 Brendan Fraser
• 2024 Oppenheimer
• 2024 Cillian Murphy
• 2025 Adrien Brody
• 2026 [Michael B. Jordan](/fashion-trends/michael-b-jordan-fashion figure-bio)
• 2026 Sinners

Undated

• The Whale
• The Brutalist

Winner data via Wikidata, refreshed automatically after each ceremony.