The only movies with three Oscar-nominated performances in the same category
Oscar success isn’t the be-all and end-all of being an actor, but the feeling of simply receiving a nomination from the Academy is surely pretty affirming. Having your hard work praised and recognised by the most prestigious institution in all of Hollywood is enough to reassure you that you’re good at what you do (and it’ll probably inflate your ego, too), but the act of competing against others certainly puts the pressure on, to say the least.
In some instances, actors have had to compete against their own co-stars in the same category, something we can only imagine has destroyed, or at least weakened, a few Hollywood friendships. There are five movies that have seen three of their actors nominated in one category, which is quite impressive, although only one film actually managed to win from these nominations.
This was, unsurprisingly, The Godfather Part II, which won Robert De Niro ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for his bold performance as Vito Corleone, embodying a younger version of the character initially played by Hollywood heavyweight Marlon Brando in the first movie. Nominated in the same category alongside De Niro were Michael V Gazzo and Lee Strasberg, who played Frank Pentangeli and Hyman Roth, respectively.
The first instalment in the trilogy, released in 1972, also walked away with three ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nominations for James Caan, Al Pacino, and Robert Duvall, but Joel Grey was the lucky winner, earning the coveted golden statuette for his role in Bob Fosse’s Cabaret. The Godfather did see Brando win ‘Best Actor’, but fans were certainly shocked that none of the three actors nominated in the supporting category actually won anything.
The rare occasions when multiple co-stars battled for the same Oscar
Speaking of Brando, his film On the Waterfront, directed by Elia Kazan, also fits into this category, although he was much more successful than his co-stars. While he won ‘Best Actor’, beating the likes of Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny and Bing Crosby in The Country Girl, three other members of the cast failed to join him in winning the award that night. Lee J Cobb, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger all earned ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nominations, only for Edmond O’Brien to win for The Barefoot Contessa.
Going back to the earliest entry on this list, Mutiny on the Bounty from 1935 found three of its co-stars competing against each other in a very tough battle. Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, and Charles Laughton were all up for ‘Best Actor’, but they all surprisingly missed out on securing the accolade, which instead went to Victor McLaglen, who won for his performance in The Informer.
Interestingly, there’s only one movie that falls into this list that features three nominees from the ‘Best Supporting Actress’ category, and that’s Tom Jones. The 1963 British film saw Tony Richardson win both ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Picture’, but Diane Cilento, Edith Evans, and Joyce Redman returned home empty-handed. It was Margaret Rutherford who won the prize for her role in the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton caravan, The VIPs, sadly leaving Tom Jones with only four wins in the bag, the other two being ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ and ‘Best Original Score’.
Perhaps Academy voters have always been aware of how cruel it is to make several people from the same movie compete against each other, which is why it’s been so rare for an actor to actually win when they’re up against their co-stars. Regardless, it’s a phenomenon that hasn’t happened in decades, and with the industry’s saturation of movies being churned out yearly, it feels unlikely that we’ll see it happen again anytime soon.
