Which movies did Katharine Hepburn win an Oscar for?
The easiest way to underline the legacy Katharine Hepburn left behind in cinema is that it’s been more than 40 years since she won her last Academy Award and over 20 since she passed away at the age of 96. Yet, nobody has managed to eclipse the record she set.
There are six names to have won three Oscars for acting, which is a legendary list in itself comprised of Walter Brennan, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Frances McDormand, but nobody other than Hepburn has ever been awarded four trophies for their performative exploits.
Of that sextet, only Day-Lewis and McDormand have lifted all three prizes in the leading categories, with all four of Hepburn’s Oscar wins coming in the ‘Best Actress’ category. With the former spending seven years in exile before ending his retirement and with no guarantees it’ll be a permanent comeback, the latter is the only active performer who could potentially match Hepburn’s history-making achievement at any point in the near future.
The fact Hepburn’s 12 nominations were separated by almost half a century speaks volumes to her consistency and longevity, too, even if she had to wait an awfully long time between her first and second wins. She was regularly in the mix, though, but there’s only so long the people in charge of doling out Oscars could resist.
Famed for her fierce independence and refusal to conform with either Hollywood or society’s traditional ideals of how a woman should speak, conduct themselves, or even dress, Hepburn was every bit the trailblazer away from the silver screen as she was in front of the cameras, as well as serving as one half of a double act that eventually became a subgenre unto itself.
The pair were together for 26 years until his death in 1967 and made nine films together during that time, turning the mere mention of ‘Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn’ into a drawing card that could entice audiences to their local theatre based on nothing more than the promise of the star-studded duo’s latest cinematic escapade.
It’ll take a very special kind of actor to dislodge Hepburn from the perch she’s had all to herself since 1981, but what movies did she win those Oscars for?
Katharine Hepburn’s Oscar-winning performances
She’s won the most Academy Awards out of any actor to have ever taken their talents to the big screen, and she’s got more ‘Best Actress’ Oscars than anybody else, but Hepburn only attended the ceremony once during her career. When she did, it was to present an honorary gong to friend and producer Lawrence Weingarten; she didn’t bother getting changed out of her gardening gear and went home right after.
Getting off on the right foot, Hepburn won at the very first attempt when her performance as Eva Lovelace in the 1933 drama Morning Glory earned her a maiden ‘Best Actress’ prize, but it would be more than 30 years before she nabbed a second.
Hepburn accrued eight unsuccessful nominations between those two points, before winning in consecutive years for the classic and boundary-pushing romantic comedy Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner opposite Sidney Poitier and lavish historical drama The Lion in Winter in 1967 and 1968, respectively.
She may have been feuding with rising star Jane Fonda throughout the production, but that didn’t affect Hepburn’s performance as the wife of Henry Fonda’s Norman Thayer in the elegiac drama On Golden Pond, with the formidable duo melting hearts and exuding gravitas as an elderly married couple in what turned out to be the final film appearance of Fonda’s glittering career.
Every Oscar nomination Katharine Hepburn received
- 1933 – Eva Lovelace in Morning Glory – WON
- 1935 – Alice Adams in Alice Adams
- 1940 – Tracy Samantha Lord in The Philadelphia Story
- 1942 – Tess Harding in Woman of the Year
- 1951 – Rose Sayer in The African Queen
- 1955 – Jane Hudson in Summertime
- 1956 – Lizzie Curry in The Rainmaker
- 1959 – Violet Venable in Suddenly, Last Summer
- 1962 – Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night
- 1967 – Christina Drayton in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? – WON
- 1968 – Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion of Winter – WON
- 1981 – Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond – WON
