Actors in at least two movies that won the Best Picture Oscar
The Oscars cometh (tomorrow).
Here’s an interesting Wikipedia list:
Actors Who Have Appeared in Multiple Best Picture Academy Award Winners
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Three observations:
(1) The actors with the most appearances all worked in the first half of the twentieth century …
… when there were fewer movies and fewer actors and the top people all knew each other and voted for each other’s movies to win Best Picture.
Franklyn Farnum had seven Best Picture appearances. Wallis Clark and Bess Flowers each had five appearances. Three other actors had four appearances.
Quite a lot of actors have had two or three appearances. The important boundary is between those who’ve had three and those who’ve had four or more.
The last Best Picture winner with any of the “four or more” appearers was Around the World in 80 Days (1956). It featured a staggering number of A and B list actors, and, consequently, received the most votes for Best Picture that year – even though it wasn’t very good.
(I will say this for Around the World in 80 Days. Except for David Niven, all those top people were billed behind Cantinflas. I don’t think another Mexican actor has been so prominent in any other Best Picture winner – though that will change if Roma wins this year.)
In what follows, I’ll focus on the period after 1950.
(2) You have to be a pretty darned good actor to make it onto the list.
Sofia Coppola is the exception who proves the rule. Widely disparaged as an actress, she’s listed by virtue of having performed in the Godfather movies, which her father directed. But even she has subsequently distinguished herself by directing a few very good movies.
On the other hand, M. Emmet Walsh typifies the rule. He’s played small roles in two Best Picture winners, Midnight Cowboy and Ordinary People.
In Ordinary People, Walsh’s part is small enough that just about any middle-aged male could play it. But then, the movie is populated from top to bottom by top-notch performers. That’s just the kind of movie it is: an “actor’s movie” first and foremost, directed by an actor (Robert Redford).
Walsh is the kind of actor who makes an impression in just a few seconds on the screen. Because he’s an actor’s actor, he earns this minor credit, which vaults him onto the list.
The list is full of actors like that.
Ordinary People has three actors on the list. None of them is Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, or Elizabeth McGovern, each of whom is much more famous than any of the three on the list. (Nor is Timothy Hutton, who won an acting Oscar for this movie, on the list.)
Which leads to my last observation:
(3) Being the star – even a star of the “Oscar bait” variety – doesn’t get you onto the list; if getting on the list is your goal, it’s better to act in movies that have many other good actors.
Humphrey Bogart and Steve McQueen aren’t on the list. Tom Cruise isn’t on the list, though he’s appeared in quite a few Best Picture nominees.
Paul Newman isn’t on the list, and he won an Oscar all by himself for a sequel (almost unheard of) and was also in a lot of movies with Robert Redford (including The Sting, which won Best Picture). Jack Lemmon isn’t on the list, and he also has his own Oscar, as well as an appearance in The Apartment with Shirley MacLaine. The legendary John Wayne, another Oscar winner, isn’t on the list. Nor is Spencer Tracy, a legend who won twice. More recently, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Sean Connery, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, and Denzel Washington have all failed to make the list, even though they’ve won Oscars for themselves (some more than once).
Some stars specialize in “Oscar bait.” Even they find it hard to rack up Best Picture appearances. With all her nominations, Meryl Streep has the same number of acting Oscars as Best Picture appearances – three (a quite decent number, to be sure). Jack Nicholson also has three of each kind of achievement. Two movies for which he won an acting Oscar, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Terms of Endearment, also won Best Picture. Both had large casts with great actors from top to bottom.
Shirley MacLaine won two acting Oscars and appeared in three Best Picture winners. Those Best Picture winners have already been mentioned for the other good actors in them: Around the World in 80 Days, The Apartment, and Terms of Endearment.
Daniel Day-Lewis won three acting Oscars without appearing in any Best Picture winners. He isn’t on the list.
It’s the movies with great ensembles that seem likeliest to win Best Picture:
The ones in which the excellent Simon Callow (Amadeus and Shakespeare in Love) and Michael Peña (Crash and The Hurt Locker) hardly stand out.
The ones with M. Emmet Walsh or Beth Grant or John Gielgud, in just one or two scenes, playing the swimming coach or the mother-in-law or the old university don.
The ones with Diane Keaton or Talia Shire playing the leading man’s girlfriend or sister.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Winning the Oscar for Best Editing is thought to be the strongest statistical predictor of winning the Oscar for Best Picture. And that may well be true.
But consider that there is no Oscar for Best Cast.
I see that two of this year’s Best Picture nominees have actors who are nominated for individual awards and who previously appeared in Best Picture winners.
The Favourite has Emma Stone, who was in Birdman.
Green Book has Mahershala Ali, who was in Moonlight, as well as Viggo Mortenson, who was in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
I’d wager that the Best Picture Oscar will go to one of these two nominees.
Here’s an interesting Wikipedia list:
Actors Who Have Appeared in Multiple Best Picture Academy Award Winners
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Three observations:
(1) The actors with the most appearances all worked in the first half of the twentieth century …
… when there were fewer movies and fewer actors and the top people all knew each other and voted for each other’s movies to win Best Picture.
Franklyn Farnum had seven Best Picture appearances. Wallis Clark and Bess Flowers each had five appearances. Three other actors had four appearances.
Quite a lot of actors have had two or three appearances. The important boundary is between those who’ve had three and those who’ve had four or more.
The last Best Picture winner with any of the “four or more” appearers was Around the World in 80 Days (1956). It featured a staggering number of A and B list actors, and, consequently, received the most votes for Best Picture that year – even though it wasn’t very good.
(I will say this for Around the World in 80 Days. Except for David Niven, all those top people were billed behind Cantinflas. I don’t think another Mexican actor has been so prominent in any other Best Picture winner – though that will change if Roma wins this year.)
In what follows, I’ll focus on the period after 1950.
(2) You have to be a pretty darned good actor to make it onto the list.
Sofia Coppola is the exception who proves the rule. Widely disparaged as an actress, she’s listed by virtue of having performed in the Godfather movies, which her father directed. But even she has subsequently distinguished herself by directing a few very good movies.
On the other hand, M. Emmet Walsh typifies the rule. He’s played small roles in two Best Picture winners, Midnight Cowboy and Ordinary People.
In Ordinary People, Walsh’s part is small enough that just about any middle-aged male could play it. But then, the movie is populated from top to bottom by top-notch performers. That’s just the kind of movie it is: an “actor’s movie” first and foremost, directed by an actor (Robert Redford).
Walsh is the kind of actor who makes an impression in just a few seconds on the screen. Because he’s an actor’s actor, he earns this minor credit, which vaults him onto the list.
The list is full of actors like that.
Ordinary People has three actors on the list. None of them is Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, or Elizabeth McGovern, each of whom is much more famous than any of the three on the list. (Nor is Timothy Hutton, who won an acting Oscar for this movie, on the list.)
Which leads to my last observation:
(3) Being the star – even a star of the “Oscar bait” variety – doesn’t get you onto the list; if getting on the list is your goal, it’s better to act in movies that have many other good actors.
Humphrey Bogart and Steve McQueen aren’t on the list. Tom Cruise isn’t on the list, though he’s appeared in quite a few Best Picture nominees.
Paul Newman isn’t on the list, and he won an Oscar all by himself for a sequel (almost unheard of) and was also in a lot of movies with Robert Redford (including The Sting, which won Best Picture). Jack Lemmon isn’t on the list, and he also has his own Oscar, as well as an appearance in The Apartment with Shirley MacLaine. The legendary John Wayne, another Oscar winner, isn’t on the list. Nor is Spencer Tracy, a legend who won twice. More recently, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Sean Connery, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, and Denzel Washington have all failed to make the list, even though they’ve won Oscars for themselves (some more than once).
Some stars specialize in “Oscar bait.” Even they find it hard to rack up Best Picture appearances. With all her nominations, Meryl Streep has the same number of acting Oscars as Best Picture appearances – three (a quite decent number, to be sure). Jack Nicholson also has three of each kind of achievement. Two movies for which he won an acting Oscar, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Terms of Endearment, also won Best Picture. Both had large casts with great actors from top to bottom.
Shirley MacLaine won two acting Oscars and appeared in three Best Picture winners. Those Best Picture winners have already been mentioned for the other good actors in them: Around the World in 80 Days, The Apartment, and Terms of Endearment.
Daniel Day-Lewis won three acting Oscars without appearing in any Best Picture winners. He isn’t on the list.
It’s the movies with great ensembles that seem likeliest to win Best Picture:
The ones in which the excellent Simon Callow (Amadeus and Shakespeare in Love) and Michael Peña (Crash and The Hurt Locker) hardly stand out.
The ones with M. Emmet Walsh or Beth Grant or John Gielgud, in just one or two scenes, playing the swimming coach or the mother-in-law or the old university don.
The ones with Diane Keaton or Talia Shire playing the leading man’s girlfriend or sister.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Winning the Oscar for Best Editing is thought to be the strongest statistical predictor of winning the Oscar for Best Picture. And that may well be true.
But consider that there is no Oscar for Best Cast.
I see that two of this year’s Best Picture nominees have actors who are nominated for individual awards and who previously appeared in Best Picture winners.
The Favourite has Emma Stone, who was in Birdman.
Green Book has Mahershala Ali, who was in Moonlight, as well as Viggo Mortenson, who was in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
I’d wager that the Best Picture Oscar will go to one of these two nominees.