List of Oscar’s Best Actor winners from beginning to now

The Oscars (officially known as the Academy Awards) honor male actors in leading roles through the “Best Actor” category. This award has been a staple of the Oscars since its inception in 1929. Below is a list of “Best Actor” winners from the first award to the last.

1920s

• 1929: Emil Jannings for “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh”

1930s

• 1930: Warner Baxter for “In Old Arizona”
• 1931: George Arliss for “Disraeli”
• 1932: Lionel Barrymore for “A Free Soul”
• 1933: Fredric March for “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and Wallace Beery for “The Champ”
• 1934: Charles Laughton for “The Private Life of Henry VIII”
• 1935: Clark Gable for “It Happened One Night”
• 1936: Victor McLaglen for “The Informer”
• 1937: Paul Muni for “The Story of Louis Pasteur”
• 1938: Spencer Tracy for “Captains Courageous”
• 1939: Spencer Tracy for “Boys Town”

1940s

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

1950s

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

1960s

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

1970s

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

1980s

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

1990s

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

2000s

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

2010s

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

2020s

• 2020: Joaquin Phoenix for “Joker”
• 2021: Anthony Hopkins for “The Father”
• 2022: Will Smith for “King Richard”
• 2023: Brendan Fraser for “The Whale”