The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actress winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years’ Best Actor winners instead. The Best Actor award has been presented 97 times, to 86 actors. The first winner was German actor Emil Jannings for his roles in The Last Command (1928) and The Way of All Flesh (1927). The most recent winner is Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer (2023), who simultaneously became the first Irish-born actor to win this award. Italian actor Roberto Benigni gave the first non-English winning performance in Life Is Beautiful (1997) in this category. The record for most wins is three, held by Daniel Day-Lewis, while nine other actors have won twice. The record for most nominations is nine, jointly held by Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier. James Dean, with two consecutive nominations, remains the only actor to have been posthumously nominated for this award more than once. Meanwhile, Peter Finch remains the only posthumous winner in this category, for Network (1976). At the 5th Academy Awards, Fredric March finished one vote ahead of Wallace Beery; under the rules of the time, this meant both actors were awarded, in this category's only tie. Peter O'Toole holds the record in this category for most nominations (eight) without a win—albeit in 2003, he was an Honorary Oscar recipient.

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. In the first three years of the awards, actors and actresses were nominated as the best individuals in their categories. At that time, all of their work during the qualifying period (as many as three films, in some cases) was listed after the award. Despite this, at the 3rd Academy Awards, held in 1930, only one film was cited in each winner's award regardless of how many they were eligible to be considered for during that span. The current system, in which an actor is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, was introduced for the 4th Academy Awards. Starting with the 9th Academy Awards, held in 1937, the category was limited to a maximum five nominations per year.

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. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months, from August 1 to July 31. For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Multiple awards and nominations

The following individuals received two or more Best Actor awards: The following individuals received three or more Best Actor nominations:

Age superlatives

Films with multiple Leading Actor nominations

Winners are in bold.

Multiple character nominations

The following were nominated for their portrayals of the same fictional or non-fictional character in separate films (including variations of the original). Winners are in bold.