Where To Watch Every Movie That Won Best Actor at the Oscars

As highly predicted, Cillian Murphy won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 96th Oscars. He won the award for his portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer. Murphy wholly transformed into the historical figure and was able to convey the conflicting life and morals of the creator of the atomic bomb. Now, he joins a list of just 86 actors to win America's most prestigious acting award. This guide will revisit all of the movies that hold Best Actor-winning performances and reveal where to stream them.

Emil Jannings was the first nominee to win Best Actor at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929. Back then, actors could win the award for multiple films. Hence, he won for his roles as Grand Duke Sergius Alexander in The Last Command and August Schilling in The Way of All Flesh. Since the rules changed afterward, Jennings is the only actor to win the award for multiple roles.

While a lot has changed about the Oscars in 96 years, one thing that has not is the Best Actor category. To this day, it remains one of the Big Four awards one can win. It has been awarded to a wide variety of men for many different roles, such as Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field, Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Adrien Brody for The Pianist, and Joaquin Phoenix for Joker.

While every win is a significant achievement, several particularly notable wins have occurred. In 2012, Daniel Day-Lewis won his third Best Actor for portraying Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln. Hence, he became the only actor to have ever won Best Actor three times at the time of writing. As for the actors with the most Best Actor nominations in history, Laurence Olivier and Spencer Tracy are tied with a whopping nine nominations each.

However, several men have earned two Best Actor awards in their lifetime, including Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, and Anthony Hopkins. In addition to being one of few actors to win Best Actor twice, Hopkins became the oldest winner when he won for The Father in 2020 at age 83.

Here’s where to watch every movie that has produced an Oscar-winning performance from newest to oldest.