The only actors to have been nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
The Academy Awards have a rich, near-100-year history, with the very first Oscars ceremony dating back to 1929. Over the course of 94 ceremonies, the celebrated event that crowns the very best pieces of cinema that have come out the year prior has seen scandal, protest and more, with Will Smith’s outburst onstage at the most recent ceremony being right up there with the Oscars’ most controversial moments.
The most celebrated stars in movie history have been showered with multiple honours across the years, with Katharine Hepburn holding the most Oscars, winning four across her reign in the industry throughout the middle of the 20th century. Taking home awards for 1933s Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in 1967, The Lion in Winter in 1968 and 1981s On Golden Pond, Hepburn remains the ceremony’s most decorated actor.
However, she’s not in a league of her own, with three actors in hot pursuit of her record, each holding three Oscars each. Contemporary stars Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis and Frances McDormand could indeed catch up with Hepburn, even if the likes of Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan, who also have three Oscars each, will never quite catch up.
Indeed, there are more records to hold than just this one, with another exclusive club of actors being able to look back at an exceptional year in which they were nominated for two Oscars in the very same year.
One of the few names to be included on this peculiar list, which includes ten other actors, is the great Al Pacino, who enjoyed a significant year in 1993 when he was nominated for Best Leading Actor for Scent of a Woman and Best Supporting Actor for Glengarry Glen Ross, a film he starred in alongside Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris and Jonathan Pryce.
Other actors who have achieved this extraordinary and unique feat are Fay Bainter, Teresa Wright, Holly Hunter, Emma Thompson, Barry Fitzgerald, Jessica Lange and Sigourney Weaver. Further, more recent examples include Julianne Moore, who was honoured in 2003 with a nomination for Leading Actor for her role in Far from Heaven and a supporting nod for The Hours.
Jamie Foxx was also honoured in this same exclusive club, taking home the Oscar for Leading actor in 2005 for the titular role of Ray Charles in Ray, whilst also being given recognition for his supporting role alongside Tom Cruise in Michael Mann’s Collateral. Cate Blanchett also achieved the feat in 2007 for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I’m Not There.
The most recent person to join the club is Scarlett Johansson, who was recognised for her performance in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit in 2020, and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, where she delivered an extraordinary performance.
