Ranking the 30 most memorable Best Actor-winning performances in Oscar history

30. Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything (2014)

Eddie Redmayne is not the first actor to win an Oscar for playing a man with a physical or mental disability. However, his capacity to transform physically yet never lose the beautiful mind and mischievous spirit of genius Stephen Hawking, living with the paralyzing effects of ALS, is what’s supremely remarkable about his performance.

His facial contortions and cramped muscles, increasing incrementally as his condition worsens, are essential — and punishing — elements of the performance, but Redmayne doesn’t rely on them as a crutch. He scopes the light and the darkness within, the hope and the fear that lives in all of us. —Nicole Sperling

29. James Cagney — Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

By the early-’40s, James Cagney had found a niche playing tough guys — so much so that he practically invented the hot-headed archetype. But Cagney had roots in song and dance, and it was his 1942 performance in Yankee Doodle Dandy that unleashed his many talents. The musical about George M. Cohan let Cagney sing, tap-dance, and charm his way across the composer’s life.

The role won Cagney, then 43, his only Oscar and was often cited as the star’s favorite. It’s easy to see why: A more energetic and enjoyable Best Actor performance would be hard to fathom. More than 80 years later, the movie still puts a skip in your step. —Christopher Rosen

28. Jamie Foxx — Ray (2004)

Few could have predicted that stand-up comedian-turned-actor Jamie Foxx would have portrayed Ray Charles with such remarkable depth. Foxx — whose extensive auditions for the role included a piano session with Charles himself — brought vivacity to an otherwise standard biopic chronicling the singer’s tumultuous life.

The actor mastered Charles’ verbal and physical mannerisms — and played the piano and lip-synced with a fervor few actors have ever mustered. Charismatic and complex, Foxx’s portrait of a beloved but deeply flawed man set a new standard for music biopics. —Nina Terrero

27. Ben Kingsley — Gandhi (1982)

How does one play a saint or deity, or a man treated as one? That was the challenge for Ben Kingsley in this great-man epic about Mahatma Gandhi, the martyred Indian independence leader who preached non-violent disobedience against British oppression. Oh, and throw in that the film spans 55 years, beginning with Gandhi’s days as an angry young lawyer being tossed off a South African train.

Humble but strong, philosophical but pragmatic, Kingsley’s interpretation of the leader manages to balance both his spirituality and shrewdness, simultaneously demystifying an icon while also adding another layer to the legend. —Will Robinson

26. Michael Douglas — Wall Street (1987)

Gordon Gekko is a cunning and unscrupulous corporate predator who crystallized the Reagan-era ethos into three words. With the slicked-back hair and a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, Michael Douglas intimidated and seduced, delivering a portrayal that not only influenced other actors’ subsequent takes on bullying high-rollers (See: The Wolf of Wall Street), but trickled down to the actual Street drones who still quote Gekko’s credo like it’s gospel. Greed is good — and Douglas’ performance is even better. —Shirley Li

25. Denzel Washington — Training Day (2001)

Denzel Washington was already an Oscar winner and one of Hollywood’s biggest stars when he seized with both hands the role of ferocious L.A. cop Alonzo Harris. Tasked with breaking in Ethan Hawke’s naïve rookie, Alonzo is the devil (barely) in disguise, a self-described wolf who is the unchallenged alpha of his turf.

It’s a huge, colorful, over-the-top role, one that Washington never shrinks from. Yet, it’s a testament to Washington’s on-screen powers — his charm, energy, sex appeal, and rage — that Alonzo is so seductive and beguiling. And yes, King Kong ain’t got s— on him. —Kevin P. Sullivan

24. Laurence Olivier — Hamlet (1948)

Thousands of actors have tackled the Bard’s most tragic and ambivalent hero, but Laurence Olivier’s eerie, atmospheric adaptation — the first major non-silent film version — makes the 400-year-old prince of Denmark seem devastatingly real.

The Shakespearean actor had famously played Hamlet on stage at the Old Vic in London, and his magnetic cinematic incarnation would come to personify the character — and in fact, Shakespeare — for a generation of filmgoers. Of course, purists will quibble that his stage Hamlet was better, but Olivier’s mastery of the material allowed him to get inside the prince’s slowly deteriorating mind. —Devan Coggan

23. Gene Hackman — The French Connection (1971)

The right role at the right time can open all the locked career doors for an actor, and for Gene Hackman, that role was Popeye Doyle, the bad-news New York narcotics detective with the porkpie hat obsessed with smashing a heroin ring.

Bigoted and vicious, with a bite to match his bark, Doyle was a new kind of cop — beating Dirty Harry to movie screens by two months — and Hackman completely inhabited the character so that he felt as real as the film’s vérité surroundings. Dirty Harry was an agenda-driven caricature; Popeye Doyle lived and breathed. Clint Eastwood and Hackman united decades later for 1992’s Unforgiven, and Hackman won another Oscar for playing Little Bill, the black-hat sheriff infused with Popeye DNA. —Jeff Labrecque

22. Tom Hanks — Philadelphia (1993)

At a time in Hollywood when actors playing queer characters was considered risky, Tom Hanks used his star power to help mainstream America empathize with the plight of gay men facing the AIDS crisis. In this poignant courtroom drama, Hanks plays Andrew Beckett, an attorney who is fired from his law firm upon discovering his sexuality and his AIDS diagnosis.

As Andrew hires a lawyer (Denzel Washington) to sue his former employer for discrimination, Hanks movingly portrays a man fighting for his life in a society that fears and loathes him. Inarguably his best scene is when Andrew loses himself in the transcendent beauty of an operatic aria, and, like his lawyer, we come to understand the full breadth of his humanity. —Kevin Jacobsen

21. Sean Penn — Milk (2008)

Sometimes, an actor and a role are made for each other. Sean Penn, on the other hand, wasn’t necessarily born to play Harvey Milk, the out gay San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978 while fighting for equal rights.

Somehow, though, the passionate extroverted character triggered something deep inside Penn; his Milk is occasionally awkward, incredibly warm, and fearlessly energetic. It’s a role worlds apart from Mystic River Penn and Dead Man Walking Penn, proving the actor’s awesome prowess that delivers a beautifully refined performance in the process. —Ariana Bacle

20. Jeremy Irons — Reversal of Fortune (1990)

The most fascinating aspect of Jeremy Irons’ performance as Claus von Bülow, an aloof aristocrat accused of trying to murder his heiress wife, is that he manages to evoke more than grim fascination for a character described in one scene as a “prince of perversion.”

Acting on a knife’s edge but never slipping into caricature, Irons elicits genuine empathy by portraying a man whose mannered air barely masks his fear of an uncertain future. The film, based on a true story that became a media sensation in the ’80s, never renders definitive judgment on von Bülow (who was acquitted in court), leaving him an indelible enigma that Irons teases but never tells. —Oliver Gettell

19. F. Murray Abraham — Amadeus (1984)

It’s tempting to say that Milos Forman’s Amadeus is an exquisite prestige drama about the life of Mozart. But that’s a bit like saying Moby Dick is a book about fishing. What it really is, is a movie about the morally destructive nature of envy. As the composer Salieri, F. Murray Abraham seethes with a wannabe’s ambition that’s frustrated at every turn by his rival’s seemingly tossed-off brilliance. You can see his jealousy devouring him from the inside like a cancer.

Tom Hulce is daffy and delicious as the airhead prodigy Mozart, but few of us can identify with that kind of genius. Salieri, on the other hand, is someone we can see in ourselves, albeit our worst selves. Every repeat viewing of Abraham’s performance reveals some new moment of humiliation — some fresh sickening glimmer of anguish that feels all too familiar. —Chris Nashawaty

18. Cillian Murphy — Oppenheimer (2023)

Best Actor is often given to overtly showy performances and big transformations. As J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb, Cillian Murphy refreshingly eschews such theatrics in favor of deeply internalized work that shows the many complexities of his title character’s mind.

Murphy’s performance is a study of contrasts, playing a logic-minded man who is nonetheless haunted by his actions. Rarely has an actor’s eyes been put to such good use, as Murphy’s thousand-yard stare communicates guilt, regret, and anxious anticipation of how his life’s work will impact the world for generations to come. —K.J.

17. Anthony Hopkins — The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Have the years diminished Anthony Hopkins’ star turn as Hannibal the Cannibal? Maybe. Hopkins returned to the part twice — gleefully unrestrained in Hannibal (2001) and altogether too restrained in Red Dragon (2002). Also not helping matters: Every fictional serial killer and practically every fictional psychopath post-Silence of the Lambs owes some debt to Hopkins’ radical performance — wry, polite, delicate, and demonic.

Hopkins’ Hannibal appears in shockingly few scenes, but every millisecond of screen time is tattooed in scar tissue on pop culture. There’s not an unmemorable line reading, not one physical movement wasted. Demme often shoots Hopkins straight on, making for an unusually intimate performance: His Lecter stares straight into our eyes, and we, horrified, can’t help but stare back. —Darren Franich

16. Clark Gable — It Happened One Night (1934)

Frank Capra’s screwball comedy was the first film in Oscar history to sweep the five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay), and Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable’s verbal sparring set the tone for every quick-witted romantic comedy that followed.

As Peter Warne, a savvy reporter and the original rom-com cad, Gable helped establish the template that every leading man from Cary Grant to George Clooney would follow: witty, tender, and, of course, charming, whether he’s explaining how to properly undress or fruitlessly trying to hail a ride. Legend has it that when Gable stripped off his shirt in the film and audiences saw him bare underneath, undershirt sales plummeted. —D.C.

15. Leonardo DiCaprio — The Revenant (2015)

After decades of great work and multiple awards losses, Leonardo DiCaprio won an overdue Oscar in 2016. All he had to do was trudge through the South Dakota wilderness, get mauled by a (CGI) bear, and survive an unspeakably frigid environment.

All kidding aside, it’s apparent when watching DiCaprio in The Revenant that he takes his craft very seriously, and he burrows deep within his character, Hugh Glass, a man grieving the murder of his wife and hellbent on revenge upon being left behind by his hunting team. It’s one of the most physically demanding performances ever to win Best Actor, and, by the end of the film, you’ll feel like you went through it right alongside him. —K.J.

14. Philip Seymour Hoffman — Capote (2005)

Philip Seymour Hoffman looked and sounded nothing like Truman Capote. But he understood the famous writer deeply since both men were at similar pivotal points in their careers: accomplished artists who hungered for greatness. For Capote, it was In Cold Blood, the nonfiction novel that changed American literature. For Hoffman, it was Truman, a conflicted outsider no matter if he was in New York or Kansas.

The actor slimmed down and heightened his voice for the part, but he never needed to aim for an exact physical impression. Ambition, obsession, and a convenient humanity were enough, and Hoffman etched those turbulent emotions in every frame. —Christian Holub

13. Gregory Peck — To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Forget about orphaned aliens saving mankind or dark knights with cool gadgets — Atticus Finch may very well be the greatest hero ever depicted on screen. Gregory Peck, tall and broad-shouldered in cream suits and tortoiseshell glasses, effortlessly embodied Atticus’ quiet dignity and noble ideals — a moral compass defending a Black man framed for rape in the Depression-era South, while quietly teaching his motherless children about tolerance and the ugliness of bigotry and ignorance.

Has there ever been a better marriage of character and actor? When Scout (Mary Badham) is urged to stand up with the rest of the courtroom gallery — “Your father’s passing” — you’ll want to salute him as well. —Sara Vilkomerson

12. Daniel Day-Lewis — There Will Be Blood (2007)

Either the scariest or funniest performance of the 2000s, Daniel Day-Lewis is Daniel Plainview at his most scenery-gnashing. Actor-director John Huston was a key reference point for Plainview’s oft-imitated diction, but the only obvious comparisons are literary. There’s an Ahab quality to Plainview’s all-consuming hunt for the Earth’s treasures — an obsession that begins in the prologue when he drags himself out of a mine and crawls on a broken leg to a claims office, and that reaches its glorious epiphany in the film’s epilogue.

Only Day-Lewis could transform this material into meme fodder — a thousand “I drink your milkshake!” imitations followed — but then, only Day-Lewis could have also made such a potentially cartoonish character feel so devastatingly real. Daniel Plainview is only human, despite his best efforts. —D.F.

11. Peter Finch — Network (1976)

“I’m as mad as hell,” soaking-wet news anchor Howard Beale screams, live on air in his trench coat, “and I’m not going to take this anymore!” The moment has been so baked into America’s cultural cake that Tea Party Republicans parrot the phrase, not realizing that the film is a satire of sheep mentality and the man who authored it (screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky) was a political lefty.

Much of Peter Finch’s raging wildfire of a performance is delivered in extended monologues, but the nuanced Australian actor portrays the man’s brokenness even during his horsepower speeches. Beale’s death is ironic, but Finch’s was no joke: He died of a heart attack at age 60 while promoting Network, and two months later his widow accepted the Oscars’ first posthumous acting award. —Joe McGovern

10. Fredric March — Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been adapted dozens of times in various formats, but Fredric March’s portrayal of the title characters makes this 1931 film version the definitive one for us. This is also a significant Oscar win, as a rare horror performance to be acknowledged by the Academy. Additionally, he won the award in a tie with The Champ‘s Wallace Beery, another rarity.

March brings his Everyman charisma to the part of Dr. Jekyll, a scientist with a morbid fascination with the goodness and evil of humanity. His curiosity leads him to develop a potion that transforms him into the sadistic Mr. Hyde, where March goes to fascinating, malevolent places that show he’s more than just your average matinee idol. —K.J.

9. Daniel Day-Lewis — Lincoln (2012)

First came the stories — that Daniel Day-Lewis had stripped his life of all modern conveniences and was trying to inhabit the mindset of a man from the mid-19th century. Then came the first breathtaking image — a photo of the actor in full Lincoln makeup and costume. Gaunt. Pensive. Haunted. Finally, we heard him speak with a reedy delivery that contradicted the stentorian voice subsequent generations applied to Lincoln’s almighty presence in the history books.

But, according to historians, that higher-pitched voice contributed to his power as an orator in that pre-microphone era, since the sound would carry further in a large crowd. Day-Lewis (along with director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner) cut through the mythology of the Civil War Commander-in-Chief to give us such a true portrait of Abraham Lincoln, we almost didn’t recognize him. Now, it’s Day-Lewis’ portrayal that belongs to the ages. —Anthony Breznican

8. Alec Guinness — The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

A proud and proper English officer tortured at a Japanese POW camp during World War II, Alec Guinness’ Colonel Nicholson is the soul of David Lean’s still-fresh epic. His personal fog of war twists his priorities so that he supervises the construction of a strategic bridge that will serve the Japanese but stand forever as a monument to the British fighting spirit.

Standing next to his Japanese rival on the completed bridge, he reminisces about his life. “There are times when suddenly you realize you’re nearer the end than the beginning,” he says. “And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total represents.” Nicholson accidentally drops his cane and it stops him from completing a thought that every human being who’s a cog in a wheel has considered—or someday will. The afterthought, “What have I done?” tragically comes later. —J.M.

7. Sidney Poitier — Lilies of the Field (1963)

Sidney Poitier made history as the first Black actor to win the Oscar for Best Actor, for a film that may seem slight on the surface but, in actuality, is a great representation of his one-in-a-million skill as a leading man. Poitier stars as Homer Smith, a drifter who turns up in a small Arizona town and helps a group of nuns construct a chapel for the local community.

Poitier brings his megawatt charm to the proceedings as Homer gets to know the convent, taking this opportunity to not only do good but to satisfy his architectural dreams. While it’s sometimes easier and more impressive when actors play bad, there’s something profound when someone can embody decency with seemingly effortless grace while still being fully believable as a flawed human being, and that’s what Poitier does here. —K.J.

6. Jack Nicholson — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Prior to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jack Nicholson had been nominated four times in six years, without a win. But his triumph at the 1976 ceremony was not simply a recognition of his remarkable hot streak. Nicholson’s portrayal of a rebellious mental hospital inmate is a phenomenal combination of sly intelligence and impish braggadocio, best showcased during the scene where, thwarted in his attempt to watch the World Series on TV, McMurphy ad libs a commentary in front of a blank set.

Nicholson’s fireworks would be subsequently aped, and amped up to over-the-top proportions, by other actors and by the future Batman villain himself. Here, however, his anti-authoritarian antics perfectly light up one of cinema’s great masterpieces. —Clark Collis

5. Marlon Brando — The Godfather (1972)

Marlon Brando had semi-coasted through the ’60s on reputation, and he was in need of a creative and popular comeback when Francis Ford Coppola came calling with his adaptation of Mario Puzo’s Mafia page-turner. The studio preferred Ernest Borgnine or George C. Scott — anyone but the mercurial Brando — to play the Godfather, but Coppola got his way.

As the Don, the 46-year-old Brando was aged up and gave a performance that became ingrained with American culture practically the day after the film opened. Despite half a century of cheap parody, it’s an inimitable acting achievement. —K.P.S.

4. George C. Scott — Patton (1970)

George C. Scott didn’t attend the Oscars to collect his honor. He considered the show “a two-hour meat parade,” and didn’t feel acting should be turned into a sport. His refusal to even allow the statue to be sent to him is a kind of grit and integrity seldom found in an industry fueled by ego. Still, there’s no denying that his performance as the eccentric, explosive World War II general was one of the greatest ever filmed. Patton was not constrained by such humility. Vain, ambitious, and intolerant of the suffering of others, he pushed the U.S. Seventh Army through the Mediterranean and into the hellfire of Europe through sheer force of will.

At times, Scott’s Patton seems insane with zeal; other times we see the tender cluster of neuroses shielded by this hardened, bellicose exterior. While most old soldiers, like Karl Malden’s superb, empathetic Gen. Omar Bradley, absorb the senseless loss of life of war with regret and resolve that the sacrifice was necessary, Scott’s Patton reveals the darker side of humanity that craves conflict, that lives for it. Surveying a smoldering battle scene, he is moved not to tears, but to a grim satisfaction: “I love it. God help me, I do love it so.” –A.B.

3. Adrien Brody — The Pianist (2002)

Adrien Brody’s win for The Pianist is one of the most shocking upsets in Oscar history, having won none of the major precursors leading up to the night and winning over heavyweight favorites Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson. This also made him the youngest Best Actor winner in history, at the age of just 29 years old.

But if you watch Brody’s performance outside the context of that awards season, his winning an Oscar for it comes as no surprise. His gives an astonishingly raw performance as Władysław Szpilman, a real-life Polish Jewish musician who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. While the specifics of Szpilman’s perilous journey are unique, Brody’s portrayal makes his story universal as an ordinary person like any of us, thrust into an extraordinary situation. —K.J.

2. Robert De Niro — Raging Bull (1980)

Playing boxer Jake LaMotta, Robert De Niro gave all of his mind and body to this portrait of a man destroyed by his anger, his jealousies, his pride, his retrograde notions of manhood. Not everyone was awed by the performance, although critic Pauline Kael’s famous denunciation (“a swollen puppet with only bits and pieces of a character inside”) may have ironically summed up everything poignant and terrifying about De Niro’s imagining of this jaundiced soul.

Taking Method acting to a new extreme, De Niro famously put on 60 pounds to play post-prime LaMotta. In theory, we shouldn’t be too impressed by this. Oscars shouldn’t be given for “Most Eating” or “Most Willing To Hurt Themselves For Art.” And yet, watching De Niro in Raging Bull, you can understand why serious actors abuse themselves for greatness: It’s a staggering achievement of transformative truth-seeking, inside and out. —Jeff Jensen

1. Marlon Brando — On the Waterfront (1954)

So much has been said about Marlon Brando’s simmering Method genius during the early-’50s that watching his revolutionary approach to acting now couldn’t possibly live up to the hype, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. In Elia Kazan’s still-explosive working-class morality play about a palooka-turned-longshoreman who stands up to union-boss corruption on the docks, Brando is both hypnotic and heartbreakingly human.

In every scene, he’s being devoured by regret, torn apart about doing the right thing, and simmering with an existential anxiety that could blow at any second. You needn’t look any further than the film’s most iconic and quoted scene, Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” speech in the back of a car with his brother Charley (Rod Steiger). More than 70 years later, it still feels anguished and vital…and it still gives you glorious goosebumps. —C.N.