Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
The 2023 recipient: Robert Downey Jr.
Awarded for	Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Country	United States
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)
First awarded	1937
Most recent winner	Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer (2024)
Most awards	Walter Brennan (3)
Most nominations	Walter Brennan, Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Claude Rains, and Mark Ruffalo (4)
Website	oscars.org

The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Supporting Actress winner. In lieu of the traditional Oscar statuette, supporting acting recipients were given plaques up until the 16th Academy Awards,^[1] when statuettes were awarded to each category instead.^[2]

The Best Supporting Actor award has been presented a total of 88 times, to 79 actors. The first winner was Walter Brennan for his role in Come and Get It. The most recent winner is Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer.^[3] The record for most wins is three, held by Brennan–who won every other year within a succession of the first five years. Seven other actors have won twice. Brennan is also tied for receiving the most nominations in the category (with four altogether) along with Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Claude Rains, and Mark Ruffalo.

Nominations process

Nominees are currently determined by single transferable vote within the actors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy.^[4]

In the first three years of the awards, actors and actresses were nominated as the best individuals in their categories, along with all qualifying cumulative work.^[5] The current system, in which an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, was introduced for the 4th Academy Awards, in the lead acting categories.^[5] Simultaneously, along with the introduction of the supporting acting categories, all four acting categories were limited to a maximum five nominations per year.^[5]

Walter Brennan was the inaugural winner, thrice over, for: Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938), & The Westerner (1940).

Joseph Schildkraut won for The Life of Émile Zola (1937).

Thomas Mitchell won for Stagecoach (1939); first male to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting".

Donald Crisp won for How Green Was My Valley (1941).

Van Heflin won for Johnny Eager (1942).

Charles Coburn won for The More the Merrier (1943).

Barry Fitzgerald won for Going My Way (1944); only actor nommed in both lead + supporting for the same performance.

James Dunn won for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945).

Harold Russell won for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); w/ an Honorary bonus, became only person to earn two Oscars for the same role.

Edmund Gwenn won for Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

Walter Huston won for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Dean Jagger won for Twelve O'Clock High (1949).

George Sanders won for All About Eve (1950).

Karl Malden won for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

Anthony Quinn won twice, for Viva Zapata! (1952) & Lust for Life (1956); first latino to win in this category.

Frank Sinatra won for From Here to Eternity (1953).

Edmond O'Brien won for The Barefoot Contessa (1954).

Jack Lemmon won for Mister Roberts (1955).

Red Buttons won for Sayonara (1957).

Burl Ives won for The Big Country (1958).

Hugh Griffith won for Ben-Hur (1959).

Peter Ustinov won twice, for Spartacus (1960) & Topkapi (1964).

George Chakiris won for West Side Story (1961).

Ed Begley Sr. won for Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).

Melvyn Douglas won twice, for Hud (1963) & Being There (1979).

Martin Balsam won for A Thousand Clowns (1965).

Walter Matthau won for The Fortune Cookie (1966).

George Kennedy won for Cool Hand Luke (1967).

Jack Albertson won for The Subject Was Roses (1968).

Gig Young won for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969).

John Mills won for Ryan's Daughter (1970); first winner using BSL.

Ben Johnson won for The Last Picture Show (1971); this category's shortest winning performance, at 9m54s.

Joel Grey won for Cabaret (1972).

John Houseman won for The Paper Chase (1973).

Robert De Niro won for The Godfather Part II (1974); first non-English dialogue role (Italian) in this category to win.

George Burns won for The Sunshine Boys (1975).

Jason Robards Jr. won twice consecutively—for All the President's Men (1976) & Julia (1977).

Christopher Walken won for The Deer Hunter (1978).

Timothy Hutton won for Ordinary People (1980); this category's youngest winner, at age 20.

John Gielgud won for Arthur (1981); first out LGBTQ+ winner in this category.

Louis Gossett Jr. won for An Officer and a Gentleman (1982); first black winner for this category.

Jack Nicholson won for Terms of Endearment (1983).

Haing S. Ngor won for The Killing Fields (1984); first Asian to win in the category.

Don Ameche won for Cocoon (1985).

Michael Caine won twice, for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) & The Cider House Rules (1999).

Sean Connery won for The Untouchables (1987).

Kevin Kline won for A Fish Called Wanda (1988).

Denzel Washington won for Glory (1989).

Joe Pesci won for GoodFellas (1990).

Jack Palance won for City Slickers (1991).

Gene Hackman won for Unforgiven (1992).

Tommy Lee Jones won for The Fugitive (1993).

Martin Landau won for Ed Wood (1994).

Kevin Spacey won for The Usual Suspects (1995).

Cuba Gooding Jr. won for Jerry Maguire (1996).

Robin Williams won for Good Will Hunting (1997).

James Coburn won for Affliction (1998).

Benicio del Toro won for Traffic (2000); first Spanish-language performance to win.

Jim Broadbent won for Iris (2001).

Chris Cooper won for Adaptation. (2002).

Tim Robbins won for Mystic River (2003).

Morgan Freeman won for Million Dollar Baby (2004).

George Clooney won for Syriana (2005).

Alan Arkin won for Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Javier Bardem won for No Country for Old Men (2007).

Heath Ledger won for The Dark Knight (2008); category's first posthumous win, + the first ever for a comic book role.

Christoph Waltz won twice, for Inglourious Basterds (2009) & Django Unchained (2012).

Christian Bale won for The Fighter (2010).

Christopher Plummer won for Beginners (2011); this category's oldest winner, at age 82.

Jared Leto won for Dallas Buyers Club (2013).

J. K. Simmons won for Whiplash (2014).

Mark Rylance won for Bridge of Spies (2015).

Mahershala Ali won twice, for Moonlight (2016) & Green Book (2018).

Sam Rockwell won for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).

Brad Pitt won for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

Daniel Kaluuya won for Judas and the Black Messiah (2021).

Troy Kotsur won for CODA (2021); first deaf male win.

Ke Huy Quan won for Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022).

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of film release in Los Angeles County; the ceremonies are always held the following year.^[6] For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months, from August 1 to July 31.^[7] For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933.^[7] Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.^[7]

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Multiple wins and nominations

The following individuals received two or more Best Supporting Actor awards:

The following individuals received three or more Best Supporting Actor nominations:

Age superlatives

Films with multiple Supporting Actor nominations

There have been 22 instances in which films have produced more than one nominee within this category. All resulted in two nominations, with the exceptions of On the Waterfront (1954); The Godfather (1972); and The Godfather Part II (1974), which each obtained three.

Winners are in bold.

• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) -- Harry Carey Sr. and Claude Rains
• Quo Vadis (1951) -- Leo Genn and Peter Ustinov
• Shane (1953) -- Brandon deWilde and Jack Palance
• On the Waterfront (1954) -- Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger
• Peyton Place (1957) -- Arthur Kennedy and Russ Tamblyn
• Anatomy of a Murder (1959)-- Arthur O'Connell and George C. Scott
• The Hustler (1961) -- Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) -- Gene Hackman and Michael J. Pollard
• The Last Picture Show (1971) -- Jeff Bridges and Ben Johnson
• The Godfather (1972) -- James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino
• The Godfather Part II (1974) -- Robert De Niro, Michael V. Gazzo, and Lee Strasberg
• Rocky (1976) -- Burgess Meredith and Burt Young
• Julia (1977) -- Jason Robards and Maximilian Schell
• Ordinary People (1980) -- Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton
• Terms of Endearment (1983) -- John Lithgow and Jack Nicholson
• Platoon (1986) -- Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe
• Bugsy (1991) -- Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) -- Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell
• The Irishman (2019) -- Al Pacino and Joe Pesci
• Judas and the Black Messiah (2020)^[d] -- Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield
• The Power of the Dog (2021) -- Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee
• The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) -- Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan

Multiple character nominations

• Max "Pop" Corkle from Here Comes Mr. Jordan (James Gleason, 1941) & Heaven Can Wait (Jack Warden, 1978)

Thus far, this is the only instance of the same character producing two nominated performances within this particular same category.