The 94-year-old history of the Academy Awards, which everyone knows as the Oscars, is also the history of surprising American pictures which have made their way to the never-ending lists of the greatest motion pictures of all time. But what makes this nearly century-old story all the more rich and interesting is the enduring and everlasting presence of the snubs, films that got overlooked and missed out on the awards when they deserved those so much more than the actual winners. Or the films which deserved all the accolades they could afford and couldn’t even get a single nomination.
So, while we will never really know if the presence and overblown popularity of Academy Awards is relevant, what we do know is like everything that is of remarkable quality in pop culture and elsewhere, the Oscars dazzle a lot more and are much more visible due to the criticism they are subjected to. However, as it happens, a few things still don’t get to see the light of popular discourse, and the snubs and surprises of acting performances, although discussed on the popular front, are not given as much importance as the actual films. While a lot of brilliant actors have received the glory they deserve, thanks to their landmark Oscar wins, some of the best actors we have still pave their way without them.
One can call this comprehensive list of the best actors who have never won an Oscar a rather foundational one, given that the list of people who excel in the art of cinematic performance without having an Oscar in their portfolio has seemingly no end to it, which is especially true of actors who are non-American and work in non-American films, the fact that the foreign language pictures are counted notwithstanding. So, in the process of your agreement with the mentioned names, do mention the others which come to your mind and help us expand the list.
1. Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams is one of the most luminous yet effortlessly real faces of American cinema. There is a resounding maturity she brings to her characters, and her portrayal of everyday struggles, isolation, and individual troubles is moving to say the least. Her collaborations with Kelly Reichardt prove her strong affinity for films with independent spirits of their own. In fact, even her strongest critics have noted how she thrives under such minimalistic works. It is her portrayal of seeming nothingness and her nuanced and personal touch to the inherent sadness of some of her characters that makes her such a priceless and worthy enigma.
The actor, who made her feature-film debut as a teenager in the 1994 film Lassie, has since become a name familiar to movie-goers and has earned two Best Supporting Actress nominations for Brokeback Mountain (2006) and Manchester by the Sea (2017) and three Best Actress nominations for Blue Valentine (2011), My Week with Marilyn (2012) and The Fabelmans (2023). However, she hasn’t won a single Oscar yet, and it’s high time the Academy acknowledges her compelling body of work, along with that of her most frequent collaborator, writer-director Kelly Reichardt.
2. Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is one of the strongest and the most compelling female faces of an otherwise largely male-dominated arena of big-budget, commercial Hollywood fare. She has this distinctive ability to bring a certain range and depth even to those roles, which are characterized by rather basic and sketchy writing. She has an element of versatility that makes her stand out from the crowd in an interesting and coherent manner. Although all these adjectives feel random in praise of a consistently great artist, there is simply no other way you could possibly describe her commanding energy. Moreover, she will always be remembered and studied as one of the prominent faces of the science-fiction genre.
Born Susan Alexandra Weaver, such was her penchant for creativity that she took the name Sigourney at the age of 14 after being influenced by one of the minor characters from the book The Great Gatsby. The actor, who made her acting debut with Durang’s plays in the 1970s and then in a minor character in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, has had three Oscar nominations. One of them was for her outstanding leading turn in Aliens (1986), and she secured a Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress both in 1989 for her roles in Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl, respectively. However, she lost the awards due to strong competition.
3. Cary Grant
Cary Grant is one of Hollywood’s classic leading men, known for his definitive debonair style, ravishing looks, and unputdownable charm. His light-hearted treatment towards a lot of the characters that he played showed his love towards them. And that instantly memorable and classic Mid-Atlantic accent has been written a lot about.
Grant was born into a poor and fractious family. And his life story is a film-like rags-to-riches story. Later, he ran away from home to join a troupe of comedians and then moved toward the United States for a Broadway tour. Soon, Grant became a household name for his extraordinary performances in screwball comedies such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and his terrific working relationship with Alfred Hitchcock, giving us films such as To Catch a Thief (1955) and North By Northwest (1959).
However, even he fell short of the so-called ‘Oscar glory.’ This could have much to do with him being one of the first and probably the biggest star of his time to have rejected the studio system. Although he was nominated twice as Best Actor in Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944), he only received an Honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 1970 for his impeccable mastery.
4. Montgomery Clift
Nebraska-born Montgomery Clift was One of the first method actors of Hollywood, who, along with Marlon Brando, is known to have helped define a new exemplar for modern American cinematic heroes. He was known as one of the finest stars of his time, one who never strived to be a star any more than he wanted to be an actor. However, his life was as tragic as it was dazzling, and he died young, at the age of 45, due to various health problems and addiction. The authenticity he brought to his performances in the films was remarkable, noticed immediately from his debut in Red River and The Search, both of which were released in 1948.
In a short career of only 17 films, Clift was nominated for four Oscars. He was nominated for The Search (1948), A Place in the Sun (1951), From Here to Eternity (1953), and Judgement at Nuremberg (1961). Shrouded in some form of ambiguity despite his resounding actorly success, perhaps he did not live long enough to hold the trophy in his hands.
5. Judy Garland
That Judy Garland herself never got an Oscar for any of her fine performances, but Renne Zellweger got the Best Actress win for her portrayal of Judy in her biopic has to be one of the modern American cinema’s biggest ironies. She was nominated twice for her performances in A Star is Born (1955) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1962) but did not win any of them. A celebrated singer apart from being a seasoned and beautiful actress, she is most popularly known in her acting career for her performance in The Wizard of Oz (1939), which got her a number of accolades. Born Frances Ethel Gumm, Garland started out as a child actor along with her sisters but then became a star in her own right, signing and acting in about two dozen films for MGM.
She, however, had a tragic life underneath the dazzle, a tragedy that goes so much farther than the lack of Oscars under her belt. She struggled with the emotional and physical pressures that came with the early achievement of stardom and died at the age of 47 due to a barbiturate overdose in London.
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6. Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter is one of the most versatile and well-loved names from the popular English cinema, whose rise to prominence from period dramas to more contemporary stories was immediately noticed and lauded. Initially uncomfortably deemed the ‘English rose’ for her typecast body of work, she took on more challenging and compelling roles later on. She rose to prominence playing Lucy Honeychurch in the film A Room with a View and then in Trevor Nunn’s Lady Jane, playing the titular character. The humor, quirk, and spark Helena adds to a character are often believed to be the primary reason for the critical acclaim she receives.
Helena was nominated in the Best Actress category for her performance in The Wings of Dove (1997) and in the Best Supporting Actress category for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother in The King’s Speech (2010). However, she won for neither of them and hasn’t been nominated too frequently, either. However, she remains one of the most notable women in the pop culture of her time, and her unconventional eloquence has an appeal.
7. Johnny Depp
Even if you don’t have a lot to do with the movies, you would know Johnny Depp from the infamous defamation trial that he fought and won against ex-wife Amber Heard, who accused him of abuse and was accused back by him of the same. While the conclusive opinions on the case are debatable, the fact that Depp has been one of the most bankable stars of Hollywood in his time remains a fact. He made his feature film debut in the 1980s with A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and has since earned a lot of name and fame with the immortal role of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. However, as an actor, he is best remembered for his many collaborations with director-writer Tim Burton.
Unfortunately, his iconic stature has not helped him with an Oscar as of now. He was nominated three times in the Best Actor category for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). But perhaps due to stronger contenders among the nominees in those years, he did not secure a win.
8. Tom Cruise
At times called a “madman” for his single-minded commitment and dedication to the upliftment of quality show business, Tom Cruise is the most bankable superstar alive. In fact, if the rumors are believed to be true, perhaps also the last surviving one. Frankly, the fact that he hasn’t achieved an Oscar win in his lifetime so far is a disappointing fact because his contribution to cinema is beyond parallels in the industry, and a successive range of genre films and IP movies of different kinds defines his filmography. He is not particularly known for starring in exceedingly theme-park stuff, which is another plus.
Cruise, who has brought the world’s movie enthusiasts down to their knees twice in a row recently with Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), has been nominated four times for an Oscar. The first time was for his role as Ron Kovic in the film Born on the Fourth of July (1989), the second time for his portrayal of Jerry Maguire in the namesake film (1996), and the other two times for Magnolia (1999) as Best Supporting Actor and Top Gun: Maverick (2022) as a producer. However, he hasn’t won one yet.
9. Ralph Fiennes
From his stateside breakout role as the intensely scary Aman Göth in Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece Schindler’s List (1996) to the sinister chef Slowik in Mark Mylod’s latest eat-the-rich satire The Menu (2022), Ralph Fiennes’s illustrious career has come a long way. Best known to the modern audience for his sophisticated and funny leading turn as Monsieur Gustave H in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), the English actor is an on-screen visionary in the best sense of the term and also a prolific director of fine period dramas such as Coriolanus (2011) and The Invisible Woman (2013). He is also multifaceted and a worthy talent in the field of arts, known to have pursued painting from the Chelsea College of Arts.
Known to be selecting his parts rather intuitively, Fiennes was nominated for the Oscar twice. The first time was for his terrifying Schindler’s List performance as a Nazi war criminal in the Best Supporting Actor category, and the second time was as Best Actor for the film The English Patient (1996). However, sinfully enough for the Academy, he didn’t win either of them and hasn’t been nominated since either.
10. Michelle Pfeiffer
The Californian actress Michelle Pfeiffer did not work as consistently as to cement a very top-tier name for herself through the 21st century so far but remains one of the most familiar female faces of the mainstream American film industry. Although she was in immediate danger of being typecast as the attractive modern woman for her great looks and sense of style, she did resist that and took on more challenging material, which made her one of the highest-paid performers of the 1990s. Most recently, she excelled in her performance in the film French Exit (2020).
Michelle has been nominated thrice for the Oscars, once as the Best Supporting Actress in Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and twice as Best Actress for The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and Love Field (1992).
Edward G. Robinson and Boris Karloff were the greatest actors never even nominated for an Oscar. I highly recommend Danny Peary’s 1993 book Alternate Oscars.