Oscars Trivia Part 1: Nominated once and won once

lm23reviews
Feb 20, 2023
5 min read

I’ve been working in digital analytics and insights for basically my entire working life. When I did a course in Tableau, one of the available test data Excel files was for the Academy Awards. I’ve been working on this blog for almost two years now and I’m thinking, what kind of articles can I write about beyond reviews? But then I remembered the import data trick in Excel and I thought I’d give it a go by reviewing all of the winners in the major categories since the first Oscars were handed out in 1929. Here are some random Oscars facts based on the winner and nominees information for the major categories since the first Oscars.

It’s great to be nominated and it’s even greater to win. But is it good enough to just do it the one time and never again? As of 2023, 53 actors and 51 actresses have been nominated once and won once in an acting category.

Halle Berry

It’s been over 20 years since Halle Berry won the Best Actress Oscar for Monsters Ball (2001). She became the first and still only Black actress to win for the lead actress category. Since Monster’s Ball, Halle’s filmography has leaned heavy on the action and adventure films like Die Another Day, Catwoman, X-Men: The Last Stand, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. It’s definitely time for Halle to jump back into those more meaty and emotional roles that she’s obviously capable of.

Kim Basinger

Similar to Halle Berry, Kim Basinger was more well known as a model and pretty face than a serious actress. She was the Vicki Vale who caught Bruce Wayne’s eye in 1989’s Batman and she was the femme fatale cartoon in 1992’s Cool World. But it was 1997’s L.A. Confidential in which Basinger still leaned heavily on her looks as a Veronica Lake lookalike, but her character was actually three-dimensional. Since L.A. Confidential, Basinger doesn’t appear to have been too many notable films save for Eminem’s 8 Mile and the Fifty Shades franchise. Basinger will be 70 this year, but there’s recently been several hit films featuring women beyond 70 having fun and living their lives as they did when they were under 70. Would love to see Basinger in a Book Club like vehicle.

Rita Moreno

Speaking of actresses over 70, Rita Morena is 91 and she’s still going strong in the 2020’s with films like West Side Story (2021), 80 for Brady (2023) and yes, even Fast X (2023). Moreno was nominated and won her first Oscar 60 years ago for the 1961 version of West Side Story. Although she’s been in many films and TV shows since then (my favorite is her guest turn on the Cosby Show as a laid off cleaning lady who returns to school), she hasn’t been up for an Oscar since 1961.

Jeremy Irons

Most people my age who grew up on Lion King probably know Jeremy Irons best as the voice of the evil Scar in The Lion King (1994). Or, the infamous anagram attempt by Lisa Simpson of “Jeremy’s Iron”. But Jeremy Irons has been in the movie game for over 40 years now and he has been in a wide range of films like M. Butterfly (1992), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), and House of Gucci (2021). But his one and only win and nomination came over 30 years ago with 1990’s Reversal of Fortune.

Sean Connery

The legendary late Scotsman and 007, Sean Connery, has unbelievably only ever been nominated once for an Academy Award for 1987’s The Untouchables. You’d think that with turns in movies like The Hunt for Red October (1990), Medicine Man (1992), A Good Man in Africa (1994), and Finding Forrester (2000), that he probably picked up another nom along the way, but he never did.

Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker is another one of those actors who pops up in films either in front or behind the camera (he directed Hope Floats in 1998 and Waiting to Exhale in 1995), and you know he’s going to make it count. He won for 2006’s The Last King of Scotland, making him the fourth and the most recent Black actor to have ever won the Best Actor Oscar. Since his Oscar winning role, Whitaker has been steadily on the big and small screen including Black Panther (2018) and Andor (2022). He did such a great job directing Waiting to Exhale (starring Angela Bassett and Whitney Houston) and Hope Floats (starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr.) that it would be great to see Whitaker take on more directing duties and aim for an Oscar there as well.

Full list of actors and actresses who have been nominated once and won an Oscar once

Actors

Adrien Brody, The Pianist
Art Carney, Harry and Tonto
Ben Johnson, The Last Picture Show
Broderick Crawford, All the King's Men
Burl Ives, The Big Country
Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur
Chris Cooper, Adaptation
Cliff Robertson, Charly
Cuba Gooding Jr., Jerry Maguire
David Niven, Separate Tables
Dean Jagger, Twelve O'Clock High
Don Ameche, Cocoon
Donald Crisp, How Green Was My Valley
Ed Begley, Sweet Bird of Youth
Emil Jannings, The Last Command, The Way of All Flesh
Ernest Borgnine, Marty
F. Murray Abraham, Amadeus
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
George Burns, The Sunshine Boys
George Chakiris, West Side Story
Haing S. Ngor, The Killing Fields
Harold Russell, The Best Years of Our Lives
Jack Albertson, The Subject Was Roses
James Coburn, Affliction
James Dunn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Jared Leto Award, Dallas Buyers Club
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Jeremy Irons, Reversal of Fortune
Jim Broadbent, Iris
Joel Grey, Cabaret
John Houseman, The Paper Chase
John Mills, Ryan's Daughter
Joseph Schildkraut, The Life of Emile Zola
Kevin Kline Award, A Fish Called Wanda
Lee Marvin, Cat Ballou
Lionel Barrymore, A Free Soul
Louis Gossett Jr., An Officer and a Gentleman
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Martin Balsam, A Thousand Clowns
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Michael Douglas, Wall Street
Paul Lukas, Watch on the Rhine
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend
Red Buttons, Sayonara
Roberto Benigni, Life Is Beautiful
Sean Connery, The Untouchables
Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Timothy Hutton, Ordinary People
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Van Heflin, Johnny Eager
Warner Baxter, In Old Arizona
Yul Brynner, The King and I

Actresses

Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Aline MacMahon, Dragon Seed
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Anna Paquin , The Piano
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Beatrice Straight, Network
Brenda Fricker, My Left Foot
Brie Larson, Room
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago
Cloris Leachman, The Last Picture Show
Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity
Dorothy Malone,Written on the Wind
Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront
Ginger Rogers, Kitty Foyle
Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love
Halle Berry, Monster's Ball
Hattie McDaniel,Gone with the Wind
Jane Darwell, The Grapes of Wrath
Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden
Josephine Hull, Harvey
Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday
Katina Paxinou, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Kim Basinger, L.A. Confidential
Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire
Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek
Linda Hunt, The Year of Living Dangerously
Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
Margaret Rutherford, The V.I.P.s
Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God
Mary Astor, The Great Lie
Mary Pickford,Coquette
Mary Steenburgen, Melvin and Howard
Mercedes Ruehl, The Fisher King
Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite
Miyoshi Umeki, Sayonara
Mo'Nique, Precious
Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Patty Duke, The Miracle Worker
Peggy Ashcroft, A Passage to India
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Rita Moreno, West Side Story
Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Shirley Booth, Come Back, Little Sheba
Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry
Tatum O'Neal, Paper Moon
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
Youn Yuh-jung, Minari