The only two people ever to win two consecutive ‘Best Actor’ Oscars
Winning an Academy Award is the pinnacle for an actor, with the trophies handed out by the most prestigious ceremony on the calendar deemed as the peak of recognition and acclaim, and it’s a rare accomplishment to win multiple Oscars.
Since the very first edition in 1929, only 44 stars have been rewarded with two trophies, and anything beyond that becomes more elusive still. Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Frances McDormand, and Walter Brennan are the sole sextet to have three acting Oscars under their belts, with Katharine Hepburn the only name in history to have claimed four.
The rarest achievement of all for any multi-time Oscar winner is to nab consecutive statues, something that’s only ever happened twice in the ‘Best Actor’ category. Even at that, the pair of thespians to have secured back-to-back victories were separated by over half a century.
Spencer Tracy was the first after being named ‘Best Actor’ for both Victor Fleming’s 1937 adventure epic Captains Courageous and Norman Taurog’s biographical drama Boys Town the following year. After going home empty-handed following his first nomination for San Francisco the previous year, Tracy would win two in a row before failing to scoop a third ‘Best Actor’ award despite being nominated six further times between 1950 and 1967.
He would hold the unique distinction of being the only back-to-back ‘Best Actor’ winner for 56 years until the unstoppable rise of Tom Hanks, which saw the comedy star turned dramatic powerhouse repeat the feat through Jonathan Demme’s legal drama Philadelphia and Robert Zemeckis’ cultural juggernaut Forrest Gump.
Coincidentally, much like Tracy, Hanks had just one ‘Best Actor’ nomination – for his star-making turn in Big – prior to notching his consecutive wins. Even more curiously, he’s also matched his trailblazing predecessor by failing to win a third acting Oscar despite a further three nominations.
It could be a very long time before anybody joins Tracy and Hanks on the pedestal of winning back-to-back ‘Best Actor’ trophies, though, considering that even getting nominated in consecutive years is becoming ever more difficult. In fact, the last male star to be shortlisted more than twice in a row was Bradley Cooper going zero-for-three on Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, and American Sniper, which saw two ‘Best Actor’ nominations separated by a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nod for David O. Russell’s biting crime caper.
Having only happened twice in the span of nearly a century, it remains one of the rarest distinctions in Academy Awards history, putting Tracy and Hanks on a pedestal all of their own. While it can never be ruled out that a third actor will eventually join them, the competition becoming so fierce annually has certainly lengthened those odds.
