Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Supporting Actress winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years’ Best Supporting Actor winners instead. In lieu of the traditional Oscar statuette, supporting acting recipients were given plaques up until the 16th Academy Awards,^[1] when statuettes were awarded to each category instead.^[2]

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
The 2025 recipient: Kieran Culkin
Awarded for	Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Country	United States
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)
First award	March 4, 1937; 88 years ago (1937-03-04) (for films released in 1936)
Most recent winner	Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (2024)
Most awards	Walter Brennan (3)
Most nominations	Walter Brennan, Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Claude Rains, and Mark Ruffalo (4)
Website	oscars.org

The Best Supporting Actor award has been presented a total of 89 times, to 80 actors. The first winner was Walter Brennan for his role in Come and Get It (1936). The most recent winner is Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain (2024).^[3] The record for most wins is three, held by Brennan–who won every other year within a succession of the first five years. Seven other actors have won twice. Brennan is also tied for receiving the most nominations in the category (with four altogether) along with Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Claude Rains, and Mark Ruffalo. For his performance in The Dark Knight (2008), Heath Ledger became the first actor to win posthumously in this category—and second overall. Christopher Plummer is the oldest actor to receive a nomination in any category at age 88, for All the Money in the World (2017).

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.^[4]

Walter Brennan was the inaugural winner, thrice over, for: Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938), and The Westerner (1940).

Joseph Schildkraut won for The Life of Émile Zola (1937).

Thomas Mitchell won for Stagecoach (1939); first male to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting".

Donald Crisp won for How Green Was My Valley (1941).

Van Heflin won for Johnny Eager (1942).

Charles Coburn won for The More the Merrier (1943).

Barry Fitzgerald won for Going My Way (1944); only actor nommed in both lead + supporting for the same performance.

James Dunn won for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945).

Harold Russell won for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); w/ an Honorary bonus, became only person to earn two Oscars for the same role.

Edmund Gwenn won for Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

Walter Huston won for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Dean Jagger won for Twelve O'Clock High (1949).

George Sanders won for All About Eve (1950).

Karl Malden won for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

Anthony Quinn won twice, for Viva Zapata! (1952) and Lust for Life (1956); first Latino to win in this category.

Frank Sinatra won for From Here to Eternity (1953).

Edmond O'Brien won for The Barefoot Contessa (1954).

Jack Lemmon won for Mister Roberts (1955).

Red Buttons won for Sayonara (1957).

Burl Ives won for The Big Country (1958).

Hugh Griffith won for Ben-Hur (1959).

Peter Ustinov won twice, for Spartacus (1960) and Topkapi (1964).

George Chakiris won for West Side Story (1961).

Ed Begley Sr. won for Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).

Melvyn Douglas won twice, for Hud (1963) and Being There (1979).

Martin Balsam won for A Thousand Clowns (1965).

Walter Matthau won for The Fortune Cookie (1966).

George Kennedy won for Cool Hand Luke (1967).

Jack Albertson won for The Subject Was Roses (1968).

Gig Young won for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969).

John Mills won for Ryan's Daughter (1970); first winner using BSL.

Ben Johnson won for The Last Picture Show (1971); this category's shortest winning performance, at 9m54s.

Joel Grey won for Cabaret (1972).

John Houseman won for The Paper Chase (1973).

Robert De Niro won for The Godfather Part II (1974); first non-English dialogue role (Italian) in this category to win.

George Burns won for The Sunshine Boys (1975).

Jason Robards Jr. won twice consecutively—for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977).

Christopher Walken won for The Deer Hunter (1978).

Timothy Hutton won for Ordinary People (1980); this category's youngest winner, at age 20.

John Gielgud won for Arthur (1981); first out LGBTQ+ winner in this category.

Louis Gossett Jr. won for An Officer and a Gentleman (1982); first black winner for this category.

Jack Nicholson won for Terms of Endearment (1983).

Haing S. Ngor won for The Killing Fields (1984); first Asian to win in the category.

Don Ameche won for Cocoon (1985).

Michael Caine won twice, for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and The Cider House Rules (1999).

Sean Connery won for The Untouchables (1987).

Kevin Kline won for A Fish Called Wanda (1988).

Denzel Washington won for Glory (1989).

Joe Pesci won for GoodFellas (1990).

Jack Palance won for City Slickers (1991).

Gene Hackman won for Unforgiven (1992).

Tommy Lee Jones won for The Fugitive (1993).

Martin Landau won for Ed Wood (1994).

Kevin Spacey won for The Usual Suspects (1995).

Cuba Gooding Jr. won for Jerry Maguire (1996).

Robin Williams won for Good Will Hunting (1997).

James Coburn won for Affliction (1998).

Benicio del Toro won for Traffic (2000); first Spanish-language performance to win.

Jim Broadbent won for Iris (2001).

Chris Cooper won for Adaptation. (2002).

Tim Robbins won for Mystic River (2003).

Morgan Freeman won for Million Dollar Baby (2004).

George Clooney won for Syriana (2005).

Alan Arkin won for Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Javier Bardem won for No Country for Old Men (2007).

Heath Ledger won for The Dark Knight (2008); category's first posthumous win, + the first ever for a comic book role.

Christoph Waltz won twice, for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012).

Christian Bale won for The Fighter (2010).

Christopher Plummer won for Beginners (2011); this category's oldest winner, at age 82.

Jared Leto won for Dallas Buyers Club (2013).

J. K. Simmons won for Whiplash (2014).

Mark Rylance won for Bridge of Spies (2015).

Mahershala Ali won twice, for Moonlight (2016) and Green Book (2018).

Sam Rockwell won for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).

Brad Pitt won for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

Daniel Kaluuya won for Judas and the Black Messiah (2021).

Troy Kotsur won for CODA (2021); first deaf male win.

Ke Huy Quan won for Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022).

Robert Downey Jr. won for Oppenheimer (2023).

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.^[5] For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months, from August 1 to July 31.^[6] For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933.^[6] Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.^[6]

Table key

‡	Indicates the winner
†	Indicates a posthumous winner
†	Indicates a posthumous nominee
§	Indicates actor who refused the nomination

1930s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
1936 (9th)	Walter Brennan ‡	Swan Bostrom	Come and Get It	[7]
	Mischa Auer	Carlo	My Man Godfrey
	Stuart Erwin	Amos Dodd	Pigskin Parade
	Basil Rathbone	Tybalt	Romeo and Juliet
	Akim Tamiroff	General Yang	The General Died at Dawn
1937 (10th)	Joseph Schildkraut ‡	Captain Alfred Dreyfus	The Life of Emile Zola	[8]
	Ralph Bellamy	Dan Leeson	The Awful Truth
	Thomas Mitchell	Dr. Kersaint	The Hurricane
	H. B. Warner	Chang	Lost Horizon
	Roland Young	Cosmo Topper	Topper
1938 (11th)	Walter Brennan ‡	Peter Goodwin	Kentucky	[9]
	John Garfield	Mickey Borden	Four Daughters
	Gene Lockhart	Regis	Algiers
	Robert Morley	King Louis XVI	Marie Antoinette
	Basil Rathbone	King Louis XI	If I Were King
1939 (12th)	Thomas Mitchell ‡	Dr. Josiah Boone	Stagecoach	[10]
	Brian Aherne	Emperor Maximilian von Habsburg	Juarez
	Harry Carey Sr.	President of the Senate	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
	Brian Donlevy	Sgt. Markoff	Beau Geste
	Claude Rains	Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

1940s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
1940 (13th)	Walter Brennan ‡	Judge Roy Bean	The Westerner	[11]
	Albert Bassermann	Van Meer	Foreign Correspondent
	William Gargan	Joe	They Knew What They Wanted
	Jack Oakie	Benzino Napaloni (Dictator of Bacteria)	The Great Dictator
	James Stephenson	Howard Joyce	The Letter
1941 (14th)	Donald Crisp ‡	Gwilym Morgan	How Green Was My Valley	[12]
	Walter Brennan	Pastor Rosier Pile	Sergeant York
	Charles Coburn	John P. Merrick	The Devil and Miss Jones
	James Gleason	Max Corkle	Here Comes Mr. Jordan
	Sydney Greenstreet	Kasper Gutman	The Maltese Falcon
1942 (15th)	Van Heflin ‡	Jeff Hartnett	Johnny Eager	[13]
	William Bendix	Pvt. Aloysius "Smacksie" Randall	Wake Island
	Walter Huston	Jerry Cohan	Yankee Doodle Dandy
	Frank Morgan	The Pirate	Tortilla Flat
	Henry Travers	James Ballard	Mrs. Miniver
1943 (16th)	Charles Coburn ‡	Benjamin Dingle	The More the Merrier	[14]
	Charles Bickford	Father Peyramale	The Song of Bernadette
	J. Carrol Naish	Giuseppe	Sahara
	Claude Rains	Capt. Louis Renault	Casablanca
	Akim Tamiroff	Pablo	For Whom the Bell Tolls
1944 (17th)	Barry Fitzgerald ‡	Father Fitzgibbon	Going My Way[a]	[16]
	Hume Cronyn	Paul Roeder	The Seventh Cross
	Claude Rains	Job Skeffington	Mr. Skeffington
	Clifton Webb	Waldo Lydecker	Laura
	Monty Woolley	Colonel William G. Smollett	Since You Went Away
1945 (18th)	James Dunn ‡	Johnny Nolan	A Tree Grows in Brooklyn	[17]
	Michael Chekhov	Dr. Alexander "Alex" Brulov	Spellbound
	John Dall	Morgan Evans	The Corn Is Green
	Robert Mitchum	Lt. Capt. Bill Walker	The Story of G.I. Joe
	J. Carrol Naish	Charley Martin	A Medal for Benny
1946 (19th)	Harold Russell ‡	Homer Parrish	The Best Years of Our Lives	[18]
	Charles Coburn	Alexander Gow	The Green Years
	William Demarest	Steve Martin	The Jolson Story
	Claude Rains	Alexander Sebastian	Notorious
	Clifton Webb	Elliott Templeton	The Razor's Edge
1947 (20th)	Edmund Gwenn ‡	Kris Kringle	Miracle on 34th Street	[19]
	Charles Bickford	Joseph Clancy	The Farmer's Daughter
	Thomas Gomez	Pancho	Ride the Pink Horse
	Robert Ryan	Montgomery	Crossfire
	Richard Widmark	Tommy Udo	Kiss of Death
1948 (21st)	Walter Huston ‡	Howard	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	[20]
	Charles Bickford	Black McDonald	Johnny Belinda
	José Ferrer	The Dauphin – Charles VII, later King of France	Joan of Arc
	Oskar Homolka	Uncle Chris Halverson	I Remember Mama
	Cecil Kellaway	Horace (A Leprechaun)	The Luck of the Irish
1949 (22nd)	Dean Jagger ‡	Major Harvey Stovall	Twelve O'Clock High	[21]
	John Ireland	Jack Burden	All the King's Men
	Arthur Kennedy	Connie Kelly	Champion
	Ralph Richardson	Dr. Austin Sloper	The Heiress
	James Whitmore	Sgt. Kinnie	Battleground

1950s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
1950 (23rd)	George Sanders ‡	Addison DeWitt	All About Eve	[22]
	Jeff Chandler	Cochise	Broken Arrow
	Edmund Gwenn	"Skipper" Miller	Mister 880
	Sam Jaffe	Dr. Erwin Riedenschneider	The Asphalt Jungle
	Erich von Stroheim	Max von Meyerling	Sunset Boulevard
1951 (24th)	Karl Malden ‡	Harold "Mitch" Mitchell	A Streetcar Named Desire	[23]
	Leo Genn	Petronius	Quo Vadis
	Kevin McCarthy	Biff Loman	Death of a Salesman
	Peter Ustinov	Nero	Quo Vadis
	Gig Young	Boyd Copeland	Come Fill the Cup
1952 (25th)	Anthony Quinn ‡	Eufemio Zapata	Viva Zapata!	[24]
	Richard Burton	Philip Ashley	My Cousin Rachel
	Arthur Hunnicutt	Zeb Calloway Narrator	The Big Sky
	Victor McLaglen	Will "Red" Danaher	The Quiet Man
	Jack Palance	Lester Blaine	Sudden Fear
1953 (26th)	Frank Sinatra ‡	Pvt. Angelo Maggio	From Here to Eternity	[25]
	Eddie Albert	Irving Radovich	Roman Holiday
	Brandon deWilde	Joey Starrett	Shane
	Jack Palance	Jack Wilson
	Robert Strauss	Sgt. Stanislas "Animal" Kasava	Stalag 17
1954 (27th)	Edmond O'Brien ‡	Oscar Muldoon	The Barefoot Contessa	[26]
	Lee J. Cobb	Johnny Friendly	On the Waterfront
	Karl Malden	Father Barry
	Rod Steiger	Charley "The Gent" Malloy
	Tom Tully	Commander DeVriess	The Caine Mutiny
1955 (28th)	Jack Lemmon ‡	Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver	Mister Roberts	[27]
	Arthur Kennedy	Barney Castle	Trial
	Joe Mantell	Angie	Marty
	Sal Mineo	John "Plato" Crawford	Rebel Without a Cause
	Arthur O'Connell	Howard Bevans	Picnic
1956 (29th)	Anthony Quinn ‡	Paul Gauguin	Lust for Life	[28]
	Don Murray	Beauregard "Bo" Decker	Bus Stop
	Anthony Perkins	Josh Birdwell	Friendly Persuasion
	Mickey Rooney	Dooley	The Bold and the Brave
	Robert Stack	Kyle Hadley	Written on the Wind
1957 (30th)	Red Buttons ‡	Airman Joe Kelly	Sayonara	[29]
	Vittorio De Sica	Major Alessandro Rinaldi	A Farewell to Arms
	Sessue Hayakawa	Colonel Saito	The Bridge on the River Kwai
	Arthur Kennedy	Lucas Cross	Peyton Place
	Russ Tamblyn	Norman Page
1958 (31st)	Burl Ives ‡	Rufus Hannassey	The Big Country	[30]
	Theodore Bikel	Sheriff Max Muller	The Defiant Ones
	Lee J. Cobb	Fyodor Karamazov	The Brothers Karamazov
	Arthur Kennedy	Frank Hirsh	Some Came Running
	Gig Young	Dr. Hugo Pine	Teacher's Pet
1959 (32nd)	Hugh Griffith ‡	Sheik Ilderim	Ben-Hur	[31]
	Arthur O'Connell	Parnell Emmett McCarthy	Anatomy of a Murder
	George C. Scott	Asst. State Atty. Gen. Claude Dancer
	Robert Vaughn	Chester "Chet" Gwynn	The Young Philadelphians
	Ed Wynn	Albert Dussell	The Diary of Anne Frank

1960s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
1960 (33rd)	Peter Ustinov ‡	Lentulus Batiatus	Spartacus	[32]
	Peter Falk	Abe "Kid Twist" Reles	Murder, Inc.
	Jack Kruschen	Dr. David Dreyfuss	The Apartment
	Sal Mineo	Dov Landau	Exodus
	Chill Wills	Beekeeper	The Alamo
1961 (34th)	George Chakiris ‡	Bernardo Nuñez	West Side Story	[33]
	Montgomery Clift	Rudolph Petersen	Judgment at Nuremberg
	Peter Falk	Joy Boy	Pocketful of Miracles
	Jackie Gleason	Minnesota Fats	The Hustler
	George C. Scott[b] §	Bert Gordon
1962 (35th)	Ed Begley ‡	Tom "Boss" Finley	Sweet Bird of Youth	[35]
	Victor Buono	Edwin Flagg	What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
	Telly Savalas	Feto Gomez	Birdman of Alcatraz
	Omar Sharif	Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish	Lawrence of Arabia
	Terence Stamp	Billy Budd	Billy Budd
1963 (36th)	Melvyn Douglas ‡	Homer Bannon	Hud	[36]
	Nick Adams	Ben Brown	Twilight of Honor
	Bobby Darin	Corporal Jim Tompkins	Captain Newman, M.D.
	Hugh Griffith	Squire Western	Tom Jones
	John Huston	Cardinal Glennon	The Cardinal
1964 (37th)	Peter Ustinov ‡	Arthur Simon Simpson	Topkapi	[37]
	John Gielgud	King Louis VII	Becket
	Stanley Holloway	Alfred Doolittle	My Fair Lady
	Edmond O'Brien	Senator Raymond Clark	Seven Days in May
	Lee Tracy	President Art Hockstader	The Best Man
1965 (38th)	Martin Balsam ‡	Arnold Burns	A Thousand Clowns	[38]
	Ian Bannen	"Ratbags" Crow	The Flight of the Phoenix
	Tom Courtenay	Pavel "Pasha" Antipov / Strelnikov	Doctor Zhivago
	Michael Dunn	Carl Glocken	Ship of Fools
	Frank Finlay	Iago	Othello
1966 (39th)	Walter Matthau ‡	"Whiplash Willie" Gingrich	The Fortune Cookie	[39]
	Mako	Po-han	The Sand Pebbles
	James Mason	James Leamington	Georgy Girl
	George Segal	Nick	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
	Robert Shaw	King Henry VIII	A Man for All Seasons
1967 (40th)	George Kennedy ‡	Dragline	Cool Hand Luke	[40]
	John Cassavetes	Victor R. Franko	The Dirty Dozen
	Gene Hackman	Buck Barrow	Bonnie and Clyde
	Cecil Kellaway	Monsignor Mike Ryan	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
	Michael J. Pollard	C.W. Moss	Bonnie and Clyde
1968 (41st)	Jack Albertson ‡	John Cleary	The Subject Was Roses	[41]
	Seymour Cassel	Chet	Faces
	Daniel Massey	Noël Coward	Star!
	Jack Wild	The Artful Dodger	Oliver!
	Gene Wilder	Leo Bloom	The Producers
1969 (42nd)	Gig Young ‡	Rocky Graver	They Shoot Horses, Don't They?	[42]
	Rupert Crosse	Ned McCaslin	The Reivers
	Elliott Gould	Ted Henderson	Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
	Jack Nicholson	George Hanson	Easy Rider
	Anthony Quayle	Cardinal Thomas Wolsey	Anne of the Thousand Days

1970s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
1970 (43rd)	John Mills ‡	Michael	Ryan's Daughter	[43]
	Richard S. Castellano	Frank Vecchio	Lovers and Other Strangers
	Chief Dan George	Old Lodge Skins	Little Big Man
	Gene Hackman	Gene Garrison	I Never Sang for My Father
	John Marley	Phil Cavalleri	Love Story
1971 (44th)	Ben Johnson ‡	Sam the Lion	The Last Picture Show	[44]
	Jeff Bridges	Duane Jackson	The Last Picture Show
	Leonard Frey	Motel Kamzoil	Fiddler on the Roof
	Richard Jaeckel	Joe Ben Stamper	Sometimes a Great Notion
	Roy Scheider	Buddy "Cloudy" Russo	The French Connection
1972 (45th)	Joel Grey ‡	The Master of Ceremonies	Cabaret	[45]
	Eddie Albert	Mr. Corcoran	The Heartbreak Kid
	James Caan	Santino "Sonny" Corleone	The Godfather
	Robert Duvall	Tom Hagen
	Al Pacino	Michael Corleone
1973 (46th)	John Houseman ‡	Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.	The Paper Chase	[46]
	Vincent Gardenia	Dutch Schnell	Bang the Drum Slowly
	Jack Gilford	Phil Greene	Save the Tiger
	Jason Miller	Father Damien Karras	The Exorcist
	Randy Quaid	Larry Meadows	The Last Detail
1974 (47th)	Robert De Niro ‡	Vito Corleone	The Godfather Part II	[47]
	Fred Astaire	Harlee Claiborne	The Towering Inferno
	Jeff Bridges	Lightfoot	Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
	Michael V. Gazzo	Frank Pentangeli	The Godfather Part II
	Lee Strasberg	Hyman Roth
1975 (48th)	George Burns ‡	Al Lewis	The Sunshine Boys	[48]
	Brad Dourif	Billy Bibbit	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
	Burgess Meredith	Harry Greener	The Day of the Locust
	Chris Sarandon	Leon Shermer	Dog Day Afternoon
	Jack Warden	Lester Karpf	Shampoo
1976 (49th)	Jason Robards ‡	Ben Bradlee	All the President's Men	[49]
	Ned Beatty	Arthur Jensen	Network
	Burgess Meredith	Mickey Goldmill	Rocky
	Laurence Olivier	Dr. Christian Szell	Marathon Man
	Burt Young	Paulie Pennino	Rocky
1977 (50th)	Jason Robards ‡	Dashiell Hammett	Julia	[50]
	Mikhail Baryshnikov	Yuri Kopeikine	The Turning Point
	Peter Firth	Alan Strang	Equus
	Alec Guinness	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Star Wars
	Maximilian Schell	Johann	Julia
1978 (51st)	Christopher Walken ‡	Nikanor "Nick" Chevotarevich	The Deer Hunter	[51]
	Bruce Dern	Captain Bob Hyde	Coming Home
	Richard Farnsworth	Dodger	Comes a Horseman
	John Hurt	Max	Midnight Express
	Jack Warden	Max Corkle	Heaven Can Wait
1979 (52nd)	Melvyn Douglas ‡	Benjamin Rand	Being There	[52]
	Robert Duvall	Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore	Apocalypse Now
	Frederic Forrest	Houston Dyer	The Rose
	Justin Henry	Billy Kramer	Kramer vs. Kramer
	Mickey Rooney	Henry Dailey	The Black Stallion

1980s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
1980 (53rd)	Timothy Hutton ‡	Conrad Jarrett	Ordinary People	[53]
	Judd Hirsch	Dr. Tyrone C. Berger	Ordinary People
	Michael O'Keefe	Ben Meechum	The Great Santini
	Joe Pesci	Joey LaMotta	Raging Bull
	Jason Robards	Howard Hughes	Melvin and Howard
1981 (54th)	John Gielgud ‡	Hobson	Arthur	[54]
	James Coco	Jimmy Perrino	Only When I Laugh
	Ian Holm	Sam Mussabini	Chariots of Fire
	Jack Nicholson	Eugene O'Neill	Reds
	Howard Rollins	Coalhouse Walker Jr.	Ragtime
1982 (55th)	Louis Gossett Jr. ‡	Gunnery Sgt. Emil Foley	An Officer and a Gentleman	[55]
	Charles Durning	The Governor of Texas	The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
	John Lithgow	Roberta Muldoon	The World According to Garp
	James Mason	Ed Concannon	The Verdict
	Robert Preston	Carroll 'Toddy' Todd	Victor/Victoria
1983 (56th)	Jack Nicholson ‡	Garrett Breedlove	Terms of Endearment	[56]
	Charles Durning	Colonel Erhardt	To Be or Not to Be
	John Lithgow	Sam Burns	Terms of Endearment
	Sam Shepard	Chuck Yeager	The Right Stuff
	Rip Torn	Marsh Turner	Cross Creek
1984 (57th)	Haing S. Ngor ‡	Dith Pran	The Killing Fields	[57]
	Adolph Caesar	Sgt. Vernon Waters	A Soldier's Story
	John Malkovich	Mr. Will	Places in the Heart
	Pat Morita	Mr. Miyagi	The Karate Kid
	Ralph Richardson †	The Sixth Earl of Greystoke	Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
1985 (58th)	Don Ameche ‡	Arthur Selwyn	Cocoon	[58]
	Klaus Maria Brandauer	Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke and Baron Hans von Blixen-Finecke	Out of Africa
	William Hickey	Don Corrado Prizzi	Prizzi's Honor
	Robert Loggia	Sam Ransom	Jagged Edge
	Eric Roberts	Buck McGeehy	Runaway Train
1986 (59th)	Michael Caine ‡	Elliott Daniels	Hannah and Her Sisters	[59]
	Tom Berenger	Sgt. Bob Barnes	Platoon
	Willem Dafoe	Sgt. Elias Grodin
	Denholm Elliott	Mr. Emerson	A Room with a View
	Dennis Hopper	Wilbur "Shooter" Flatch	Hoosiers
1987 (60th)	Sean Connery ‡	Jimmy Malone	The Untouchables	[60]
	Albert Brooks	Aaron Altman	Broadcast News
	Morgan Freeman	Leo "Fast Black" Smalls Jr.	Street Smart
	Vincent Gardenia	Cosmo Castorini	Moonstruck
	Denzel Washington	Steve Biko	Cry Freedom
1988 (61st)	Kevin Kline ‡	Otto West	A Fish Called Wanda	[61]
	Alec Guinness	William Dorrit	Little Dorrit
	Martin Landau	Abe Karatz	Tucker: The Man and His Dream
	River Phoenix	Danny Pope	Running on Empty
	Dean Stockwell	Tony "The Tiger" Russo	Married to the Mob
1989 (62nd)	Denzel Washington ‡	Pvt. Silas Trip	Glory	[62]
	Danny Aiello	Sal Frangione	Do the Right Thing
	Dan Aykroyd	Boolie Werthan	Driving Miss Daisy
	Marlon Brando	Ian Mackenzie	A Dry White Season
	Martin Landau	Judah Rosenthal	Crimes and Misdemeanors

1990s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
1990 (63rd)	Joe Pesci ‡	Tommy DeVito	GoodFellas	[63]
	Bruce Davison	David	Longtime Companion
	Andy García	Vincent Mancini	The Godfather Part III
	Graham Greene	Kicking Bird	Dances With Wolves
	Al Pacino	Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice	Dick Tracy
1991 (64th)	Jack Palance ‡	Curly Washburn	City Slickers	[64]
	Tommy Lee Jones	Clay Shaw	JFK
	Harvey Keitel	Mickey Cohen	Bugsy
	Ben Kingsley	Meyer Lansky
	Michael Lerner	Jack Lipnick	Barton Fink
1992 (65th)	Gene Hackman ‡	"Little" Bill Daggett	Unforgiven	[65]
	Jaye Davidson	Dil	The Crying Game
	Jack Nicholson	Col. Nathan R. Jessep	A Few Good Men
	Al Pacino	Richard "Ricky" Roma	Glengarry Glen Ross
	David Paymer	Stan Young	Mr. Saturday Night
1993 (66th)	Tommy Lee Jones ‡	U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard	The Fugitive	[66]
	Leonardo DiCaprio	Arnold "Arnie" Grape	What's Eating Gilbert Grape
	Ralph Fiennes	Amon Göth	Schindler's List
	John Malkovich	Mitch Leary	In the Line of Fire
	Pete Postlethwaite	Giuseppe Conlon	In the Name of the Father
1994 (67th)	Martin Landau ‡	Béla Lugosi	Ed Wood	[67]
	Samuel L. Jackson	Jules Winnfield	Pulp Fiction
	Chazz Palminteri	Cheech	Bullets Over Broadway
	Paul Scofield	Mark Van Doren	Quiz Show
	Gary Sinise	Lt. Dan Taylor	Forrest Gump
1995 (68th)	Kevin Spacey ‡	Roger "Verbal" Kint	The Usual Suspects	[68]
	James Cromwell	Arthur Hoggett	Babe
	Ed Harris	Gene Kranz	Apollo 13
	Brad Pitt	Jeffrey Goines	12 Monkeys
	Tim Roth	Archibald Cunningham	Rob Roy
1996 (69th)	Cuba Gooding Jr. ‡	Rod Tidwell	Jerry Maguire	[69]
	William H. Macy	Jerry Lundegaard	Fargo
	Armin Mueller-Stahl	Peter Helfgott	Shine
	Edward Norton	Aaron Stampler	Primal Fear
	James Woods	Byron De La Beckwith	Ghosts of Mississippi
1997 (70th)	Robin Williams ‡	Sean Maguire	Good Will Hunting	[70]
	Robert Forster	Max Cherry	Jackie Brown
	Anthony Hopkins	John Quincy Adams	Amistad
	Greg Kinnear	Simon Bishop	As Good as It Gets
	Burt Reynolds	Jack Horner	Boogie Nights
1998 (71st)	James Coburn ‡	Glen Whitehouse	Affliction	[71]
	Robert Duvall	Jerome Facher	A Civil Action
	Ed Harris	Christof	The Truman Show
	Geoffrey Rush	Philip Henslowe	Shakespeare in Love
	Billy Bob Thornton	Jacob Mitchell	A Simple Plan
1999 (72nd)	Michael Caine ‡	Dr. Wilbur Larch	The Cider House Rules	[72]
	Tom Cruise	Frank T.J. Mackey	Magnolia
	Michael Clarke Duncan	John Coffey	The Green Mile
	Jude Law	Dickie Greenleaf	The Talented Mr. Ripley
	Haley Joel Osment	Cole Sear	The Sixth Sense

2000s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
2000 (73rd)	Benicio del Toro ‡	Javier Rodriguez	Traffic	[73]
	Jeff Bridges	Jackson Evans	The Contender
	Willem Dafoe	Max Schreck	Shadow of the Vampire
	Albert Finney	Edward L. Masry	Erin Brockovich
	Joaquin Phoenix	Emperor Commodus	Gladiator
2001 (74th)	Jim Broadbent ‡	John Bayley	Iris	[74]
	Ethan Hawke	Jake Hoyt	Training Day
	Ben Kingsley	Don Logan	Sexy Beast
	Ian McKellen	Gandalf the Grey	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
	Jon Voight	Howard Cosell	Ali
2002 (75th)	Chris Cooper ‡	John Laroche	Adaptation	[75]
	Ed Harris	Richard "Richie" Brown	The Hours
	Paul Newman	John Rooney	Road to Perdition
	John C. Reilly	Amos Hart	Chicago
	Christopher Walken	Frank Abagnale Sr.	Catch Me If You Can
2003 (76th)	Tim Robbins ‡	Dave Boyle	Mystic River	[76]
	Alec Baldwin	Shelly Kaplow	The Cooler
	Benicio del Toro	Jack Jordan	21 Grams
	Djimon Hounsou	Mateo	In America
	Ken Watanabe	Lord Moritsugu Katsumoto	The Last Samurai
2004 (77th)	Morgan Freeman ‡	Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris	Million Dollar Baby	[77]
	Alan Alda	Owen Brewster	The Aviator
	Thomas Haden Church	Jack Cole	Sideways
	Jamie Foxx	Max Durocher	Collateral
	Clive Owen	Larry Gray	Closer
2005 (78th)	George Clooney ‡	Bob Barnes	Syriana	[78]
	Matt Dillon	John Ryan	Crash
	Paul Giamatti	Joe Gould	Cinderella Man
	Jake Gyllenhaal	Jack Twist	Brokeback Mountain
	William Hurt	Richie Cusack	A History of Violence
2006 (79th)	Alan Arkin ‡	Edwin Hoover	Little Miss Sunshine	[79]
	Jackie Earle Haley	Ronald James McGorvey	Little Children
	Djimon Hounsou	Solomon Vandy	Blood Diamond
	Eddie Murphy	James "Thunder" Early	Dreamgirls
	Mark Wahlberg	Staff Sergeant Sean Dignam	The Departed
2007 (80th)	Javier Bardem ‡	Anton Chigurh	No Country for Old Men	[80]
	Casey Affleck	Robert Ford	The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
	Philip Seymour Hoffman	Gust Avrakotos	Charlie Wilson's War
	Hal Holbrook	Ron Franz	Into the Wild
	Tom Wilkinson	Arthur Edens	Michael Clayton
2008 (81st)	Heath Ledger †	The Joker	The Dark Knight	[81]
	Josh Brolin	Dan White	Milk
	Robert Downey Jr.	Kirk Lazarus	Tropic Thunder
	Philip Seymour Hoffman	Father Brendan Flynn	Doubt
	Michael Shannon	John Givings Jr.	Revolutionary Road
2009 (82nd)	Christoph Waltz ‡	SS Colonel Hans Landa	Inglourious Basterds	[82]
	Matt Damon	Francois Pienaar	Invictus
	Woody Harrelson	Captain Tony Stone	The Messenger
	Christopher Plummer	Leo Tolstoy	The Last Station
	Stanley Tucci	George Harvey	The Lovely Bones

2010s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
2010 (83rd)	Christian Bale ‡	Dicky Eklund	The Fighter	[83]
	John Hawkes	Teardrop Dolly	Winter's Bone
	Jeremy Renner	James "Jem" Coughlin	The Town
	Mark Ruffalo	Paul Hatfield	The Kids Are All Right
	Geoffrey Rush	Lionel Logue	The King's Speech
2011 (84th)	Christopher Plummer ‡	Hal Fields	Beginners	[84]
	Kenneth Branagh	Laurence Olivier	My Week with Marilyn
	Jonah Hill	Peter Brand	Moneyball
	Nick Nolte	Paddy Conlon	Warrior
	Max von Sydow	The Renter	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
2012 (85th)	Christoph Waltz ‡	Dr. King Schultz	Django Unchained	[85]
	Alan Arkin	Lester Siegel	Argo
	Robert De Niro	Patrizio Solitano Sr.	Silver Linings Playbook
	Philip Seymour Hoffman	Lancaster Dodd	The Master
	Tommy Lee Jones	Thaddeus Stevens	Lincoln
2013 (86th)	Jared Leto ‡	Rayon	Dallas Buyers Club	[86]
	Barkhad Abdi	Abduwali Muse	Captain Phillips
	Bradley Cooper	Richie DiMaso	American Hustle
	Michael Fassbender	Edwin Epps	12 Years a Slave
	Jonah Hill	Donnie Azoff	The Wolf of Wall Street
2014 (87th)	J. K. Simmons ‡	Terence Fletcher	Whiplash	[87]
	Robert Duvall	Joseph Palmer	The Judge
	Ethan Hawke	Mason Evans Sr.	Boyhood
	Edward Norton	Mike Shiner	Birdman
	Mark Ruffalo	David Schultz	Foxcatcher
2015 (88th)	Mark Rylance ‡	Rudolf Abel	Bridge of Spies	[88]
	Christian Bale	Michael Burry	The Big Short
	Tom Hardy	John Fitzgerald	The Revenant
	Mark Ruffalo	Michael Rezendes	Spotlight
	Sylvester Stallone	Rocky Balboa	Creed
2016 (89th)	Mahershala Ali ‡	Juan	Moonlight	[89]
	Jeff Bridges	Marcus Hamilton	Hell or High Water
	Lucas Hedges	Patrick Chandler	Manchester by the Sea
	Dev Patel	Saroo Brierley	Lion
	Michael Shannon	Bobby Andes	Nocturnal Animals
2017 (90th)	Sam Rockwell ‡	Jason Dixon	Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri	[90]
	Willem Dafoe	Bobby Hicks	The Florida Project
	Woody Harrelson	Bill Willoughby	Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
	Richard Jenkins	Giles	The Shape of Water
	Christopher Plummer	J. Paul Getty	All the Money in the World
2018 (91st)	Mahershala Ali ‡	Don Shirley	Green Book	[91]
	Adam Driver	Philip "Flip" Zimmerman	BlacKkKlansman
	Sam Elliott	Bobby Maine	A Star Is Born
	Richard E. Grant	Jack Hock	Can You Ever Forgive Me?
	Sam Rockwell	George W. Bush	Vice
2019 (92nd)	Brad Pitt ‡	Cliff Booth	Once Upon a Time in Hollywood	[92]
	Tom Hanks	Fred Rogers	A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
	Anthony Hopkins	Pope Benedict XVI	The Two Popes
	Al Pacino	Jimmy Hoffa	The Irishman
	Joe Pesci	Russell Bufalino

2020s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Film	Ref.
2020/21 (93rd) [93]	Daniel Kaluuya ‡	Fred Hampton	Judas and the Black Messiah[c]	[95]
	Sacha Baron Cohen	Abbie Hoffman	The Trial of the Chicago 7
	Leslie Odom Jr.	Sam Cooke	One Night in Miami...
	Paul Raci	Joe	Sound of Metal
	LaKeith Stanfield[c]	William O'Neal	Judas and the Black Messiah
2021 (94th)	Troy Kotsur ‡	Frank Rossi	CODA	[96]
	Ciarán Hinds	Pop	Belfast
	Jesse Plemons	George Burbank	The Power of the Dog
	J. K. Simmons	William Frawley	Being the Ricardos
	Kodi Smit-McPhee	Peter Gordon	The Power of the Dog
2022 (95th)	Ke Huy Quan ‡	Waymond Wang	Everything Everywhere All at Once	[97]
	Brendan Gleeson	Colm Doherty	The Banshees of Inisherin
	Brian Tyree Henry	James Aucoin	Causeway
	Judd Hirsch	Boris Podgorny	The Fabelmans
	Barry Keoghan	Dominic Kearney	The Banshees of Inisherin
2023 (96th)	Robert Downey Jr. ‡	Lewis Strauss	Oppenheimer	[98]
	Sterling K. Brown	Clifford "Cliff" Ellison	American Fiction
	Robert De Niro	William King Hale	Killers of the Flower Moon
	Ryan Gosling	Ken	Barbie
	Mark Ruffalo	Duncan Wedderburn	Poor Things
2024 (97th)	Kieran Culkin ‡	Benjamin "Benji" Kaplan	A Real Pain	[99]
	Yura Borisov	Igor	Anora
	Edward Norton	Pete Seeger	A Complete Unknown
	Guy Pearce	Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr.	The Brutalist
	Jeremy Strong	Roy Cohn	The Apprentice

Multiple wins and nominations

The following individuals received two or more Best Supporting Actor awards:

Wins	Actor
3	Walter Brennan
2	Mahershala Ali
	Michael Caine
	Melvyn Douglas
	Anthony Quinn
	Jason Robards
	Peter Ustinov
	Christoph Waltz

The following individuals received three or more Best Supporting Actor nominations:

Nominations	Actor
4	Walter Brennan
	Jeff Bridges
	Robert Duvall
	Arthur Kennedy
	Jack Nicholson
	Al Pacino
	Claude Rains
	Mark Ruffalo
3	Charles Bickford
	Charles Coburn
	Willem Dafoe
	Robert De Niro
	Gene Hackman
	Ed Harris
	Philip Seymour Hoffman
	Tommy Lee Jones
	Martin Landau
	Edward Norton
	Jack Palance
	Joe Pesci
	Christopher Plummer
	Jason Robards
	Peter Ustinov
	Gig Young

Age superlatives

Main article: List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees § Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Record	Actor	Film	Age (in years)	Ref.
Oldest winner	Christopher Plummer	Beginners	82	[100]
Oldest nominee		All the Money in the World	88	[100]
Youngest winner	Timothy Hutton	Ordinary People	20	[100]
Youngest nominee	Justin Henry	Kramer vs. Kramer	8	[100]

Films with multiple Supporting Actor nominations

There have been 22 instances in which films have produced more than one nominee within this category. All resulted in two nominations, with the exceptions of On the Waterfront (1954), The Godfather (1972), and The Godfather Part II (1974), which each obtained three.

Winners are in bold.

• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – Harry Carey Sr. and Claude Rains
• Quo Vadis (1951) – Leo Genn and Peter Ustinov
• Shane (1953) – Brandon deWilde and Jack Palance
• On the Waterfront (1954) – Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger
• Peyton Place (1957) – Arthur Kennedy and Russ Tamblyn
• Anatomy of a Murder (1959) – Arthur O'Connell and George C. Scott
• The Hustler (1961) – Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) – Gene Hackman and Michael J. Pollard
• The Last Picture Show (1971) – Jeff Bridges and Ben Johnson
• The Godfather (1972) – James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino
• The Godfather Part II (1974) – Robert De Niro, Michael V. Gazzo, and Lee Strasberg
• Rocky (1976) – Burgess Meredith and Burt Young
• Julia (1977) – Jason Robards and Maximilian Schell
• Ordinary People (1980) – Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton
• Terms of Endearment (1983) – John Lithgow and Jack Nicholson
• Platoon (1986) – Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe
• Bugsy (1991) – Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) – Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell
• The Irishman (2019) – Al Pacino and Joe Pesci
• Judas and the Black Messiah (2020)^[d] – Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield
• The Power of the Dog (2021) – Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee
• The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) – Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan

Multiple character nominations

• Max "Pop" Corkle from Here Comes Mr. Jordan (James Gleason, 1941) and Heaven Can Wait (Jack Warden, 1978)

Thus far, this is the only instance of the same character producing two nominated performances within this particular same category.

See also

• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
• All Academy Award acting nominees
• List of actors with more than one Academy Award nomination in the acting categories
• List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
• List of awards for supporting actor
• List of Academy Award–nominated films
• Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
• Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
• BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
• Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture

Notes

1. Due to category confusion, Barry Fitzgerald received nominations in both lead actor and supporting for this same role, winning the latter award. To prevent this from occurring in the future, the Academy revised its rules so that if ever a single actor/actress was submitted in both categories for the same performance, they would only get nominated for whichever one had the higher overall percentage within that respective category.^[15]
2. George C. Scott refused his nomination.^[34]
3. An anomaly occurred when both LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya received nominations in the supporting category, despite the former being campaigned for the lead race. This occurrence is likely a direct effect of the AMPAS rule enacted after Fitzgerald's nominations at the 17th ceremony. Stanfield and Kaluuya received votes in both categories, but each of them had more nominations in supporting, thus each making the top five nominees in this category.^[94]
4. Judas and the Black Messiah was not released in theaters until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting theatrical releases. However, Academy guidelines were adjusted for 2020, thus allowing this and several other films to be submitted for the 2020 calendar year of nominees/winners.^[101]