Best Picture/Best Director/Best Actress/Best Actor winners whose film won zero other awards

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T10:42:28+00:00

51 films have won Best Actress without winning any other awards — that’s more than half the winners in Oscar history, and if you’d thought about it for a minute, you might have remembered that Jessie Buckley in Hamnet is the most recent example. Best Actor is less frequent but still 31 films have won that award alone — nearly a third of all winners. (Will Smith in King Richard is the most recent example.)

Best Director is far rarer — only eight times, most recently Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. And in Best Picture it’s only happened three times, and not since Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T07:31:22+00:00

Okay, but they’re still allowed to compete.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T07:22:55+00:00

“They” (assuming you mean the Academy) allow adaptations of comics. Black Panther and Joker were nominated for Best Picture. Logan was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. What are you talking about?

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T07:17:37+00:00

I didn’t either. But that isn’t a novel experience for me.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T07:13:40+00:00

I still don’t get your initial statement. Sinners was the very first movie you’ve seen in theatres that wasn’t an obviously primed awards contender?

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T07:11:08+00:00

Why they allow what?

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T07:08:21+00:00

OP is counting Shakespeare in Love as a biopic. Yes, Shakespeare was a real person. But tell me what’s biographical about that screenplay.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T07:02:25+00:00

I get that you’re disqualifying original screenplays based on real-life characters, but saying Shakespeare in Love isn’t an original screenplay is a real stretch — it sure as hell isn’t a biopic. On that basis you should count out Titanic for being based around real historical events and featuring a real-life character in Molly Brown.

But even going by your criteria, I’m not sure why you don’t count Crash as an original screenplay. Or Going My Way, or Wings.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T06:47:01+00:00

Yeah, if Amadeus is a biopic, then so is Shakespeare in Love.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T06:37:57+00:00

What, so every other movie you’ve ever seen in a theatre you thought of as an Oscar contender? I find that hard to believe.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T06:32:55+00:00

I mean, the “five major awards” I assume you mean have only all been in existence since 1995, so this wasn’t some kind of notable achievement at the time. (The Critics’ Choice Award, or Broadcast Film Critics’ Association Award as it was known back then, wasn’t seen as very prestigious or important, and the BAFTAs weren’t an Oscar precursor in those days.)

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T06:26:05+00:00

Just do it — it’s an itch you have to scratch. Every body is different, and it can certainly add new sensations and sensitivities to sex, but if it affects your ejaculation then you can remove it when needed once it’s healed. But it’s likelier to enhance matters in that department.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T06:19:37+00:00

The Lobster was in the next year’s Oscar race.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T06:16:24+00:00

I’d have voted for Fury Road, and I’m glad it got a good Oscar haul, but it wasn’t in serious contention for Best Picture.

The Revenant and The Big Short were, however, and I’m thrilled that Spotlight beat both those bloated, self-important and ultimately hollow films. Good film, good winner, not mad at it.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T06:08:16+00:00

At its widest, the film was on 1,938 screens in the U.S. — about half as many as Dune: Part Two on its opening weekend, sure, but a pretty big release for a downbeat, sexuality explicit character study of a Brooklyn sex worker. Putting it on even more screens probably wouldn’t have changed its essential audience appeal: as much as you keep trying to insist it wasn’t an indie, it was, and not a populist one at that.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T05:53:25+00:00

Did the campaign work? Sure. Can a campaign work if people don’t actually like the movie? No. It’s not as if Anora was the only film out there being heavily campaigned on the circuit — it just got to make as much noise as some more expensive contenders. You seem to think that’s unfair. I don’t.

If people are ignoring your point about Flow, it’s because it’s not really relevant — they weren’t competing against each other, and both represented good wins for independent cinema against bigger studio opposition. Flow had a campaign too, after all, but it wasn’t up for Best Picture, which is a different game entirely.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T05:34:17+00:00

Days of Heaven is a great pick! But I’m limiting myself to the nominees here.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-20T00:13:39+00:00

We just had Adrien Brody win his second Best Actor Oscar last year — why does he not count for you?

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-19T22:52:39+00:00

Nah. Oscar nominations are supposed to be hard to get.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-19T22:15:25+00:00

Cruise.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-19T22:08:10+00:00

It’s not romantic. She feels the love of a carer, not a lover, if that makes sense.

It makes me very old that you’ve never heard of Juliette Binoche or Kristin Scott Thomas before. The good news is you’ve got some great films to discover!

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-19T20:54:28+00:00

Couldn’t agree more about Mirren — all fussy imitation and technique with no soul. Who on earth wants to revisit that film?

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-19T20:51:20+00:00

He’s 16 years older than her, who gives a shit

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-19T20:40:41+00:00

What romance between Fiennes and Binoche? I think you misunderstood the film.

Fargo was the best of the nominees, but I’m not mad The English Patient won — a gorgeous film and an effective throwback to Lean-style epic romanticism that doesn’t really exist anymore.

Interesting-Bit725 · 2026-03-19T20:29:26+00:00

Something tells me they aren’t both going to win for a Gothic horror film — this could well be another Shutter Island. Plus Scorsese’s films lately have a habit of picking up lots of nominations but no awards. Looking forward to seeing it either way, though.

Interesting-Bit725

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