The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor is one of the annual awards given by the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association.
| Year | Actor | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Jack Nicholson | About Schmidt | Warren Schmidt |
| 2003 | Bill Murray | Lost in Translation | Bob Harris |
| Chiwetel Ejiofor | Dirty Pretty Things | Okwe | |
| Ben Kingsley | House of Sand and Fog | Behrani | |
| Sean Penn | Mystic River | Jimmy Markum | |
| Johnny Depp | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl | Captain Jack Sparrow | |
| 2004 | Jamie Foxx | Ray | Ray Charles |
| 2005 | Philip Seymour Hoffman | Capote | Truman Capote |
| Heath Ledger | Brokeback Mountain | Ennis Del Mar | |
| David Strathairn | Good Night, and Good Luck. | Edward R. Murrow | |
| Terrence Howard | Hustle & Flow | DJay | |
| Joaquin Phoenix | Walk the Line | Johnny Cash | |
| 2006 | Forest Whitaker | The Last King of Scotland | Idi Amin |
| 2007 | George Clooney | Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton |
| 2008 | Mickey Rourke | The Wrestler | Randy "The Ram" Robinson |
| 2009 | George Clooney | Up in the Air | Ryan Bingham |
| Colin Firth | A Single Man | George Falconer | |
| Morgan Freeman | Invictus | Nelson Mandela | |
| Jeremy Renner | The Hurt Locker | SFC. William James | |
| Viggo Mortensen | The Road | The Man |
| Year | Actor | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Chadwick Boseman | Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | Levee Green |
| Riz Ahmed | Sound of Metal | Ruben Stone | |
| Anthony Hopkins | The Father | Anthony | |
| Delroy Lindo | Da 5 Bloods | Paul | |
| Steven Yeun | Minari | Jacob Yi | |
| 2021 | Andrew Garfield | Tick, Tick... Boom | Jonathan Larson |
| Nicolas Cage | Pig | Robin "Rob" Feld | |
| Benedict Cumberbatch | The Power of the Dog | Phil Burbank | |
| Will Smith | King Richard | Richard Williams | |
| Denzel Washington | The Tragedy of Macbeth | Lord Macbeth | |
| 2022 | Colin Farrell | The Banshees of Inisherin | Pádraic Súilleabháin |
| Austin Butler | Elvis | Elvis Presley | |
| Tom Cruise | Top Gun: Maverick | Capt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell | |
| Brendan Fraser | The Whale | Charlie | |
| Paul Mescal | Aftersun | Calum | |
| 2023 | Cillian Murphy | Oppenheimer | J. Robert Oppenheimer |
| Bradley Cooper | Maestro | Leonard Bernstein | |
| Colman Domingo | Rustin | Bayard Rustin | |
| Paul Giamatti | The Holdovers | Paul Hunham | |
| Jeffrey Wright | American Fiction | Thelonious "Monk" Ellison |