This list consists of some of the biggest names the entire industry has to offer. These actors are essentially the crème of the crop, with several nominations across the board of award ceremonies to their respective, A-list names.
You should without a doubt recognize these performers off the bat, perhaps except for one or two for the more modern film fans out there. But again: the name value held by these performers rivals anyone you can muster that didn’t make an appearance. All that said, these are the eight actors that received Oscar nominations in five different (not consecutive, necessarily) decades.
8 Frances McDormand
Thanks to Mississippi Burning (1988), a crime thriller that seems to get less love as the years go by, Frances McDormand received her first nomination at the Academy Awards. It was for Best Supporting Actress, and although she came up short to Geena Davis in The Accidental Tourist (1988), she would walk away with a golden statuette from the Oscars just under a decade down the line. Of course, that was a Best Actress win for Fargo (1996), which was directed by Joel and Ethan Coen — the former of whom McDormand had actually married after filming Blood Simple (1984), their respective debuts.
Her first nomination of the twenty-first century came with Almost Famous (2000), followed by North Country (2005) — both were for Best Supporting Actress, and both came up just short. But with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) by Martin McDonough, she received an Academy Award nomination for the fourth consecutive decade, and actually walked away with a win. It was again for Best Actress — an award she’d win for a third time with Nomadland (2020). And of course, that Chloé Zhao film landed McDormand on this list.
7 Denzel Washington
The first nomination for Denzel Washington was for Best Supporting Actor thanks to his work in Cry Freedom (1987), and he won in the same category for Glory (1989) just two years later. He then received Best Actor nominations in the subsequent decade for both Malcolm X (1992) and The Hurricane (1999), and won in that category as Detective Alonzo Harris in Training Day (2001). There’s a solid argument to be made that he could have walked away victorious for either of those nineties performances, too.
While he hasn’t triumphed since that crime thriller by Antoine Fuqua, his three nominations for Best Actor throughout the 2010s marked the fourth consecutive decade in which the Academy recognized Washington. And with The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) by Joel Coen, the acclaimed actor landed himself here at number seven.
6 Meryl Streep
As being nominated in five consecutive decades is an incredible, near-impossible feat, these performers have of course piled up their fair share of records at the Academy Award throughout their respective careers. And as for Meryl Streep: she holds the distinction of being the most-nominated performer in the ceremony’s history, regardless of gender.
Her first two were for Best Supporting Actress in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Kramer vs Kramer (1979) — the latter of which marked her first win at the ceremony — and in the following decade, she picked up a whopping six nominations for Best Actress. Of course, she walked away with the second statue of her career for Sophie’s Choice (1982). And despite coming up short in both the nineties and the aughts, she still accrued eight nods throughout those twenty years. She won again for The Iron Lady (2011) and picked up four other nominations in that decade. Twenty-three total nods at the Academy Awards throughout five decades — if she receives a nod at any point in the 2020s, that will be yet another distinction to her name.
5 Paul Newman
At the 58th ceremony of the association at hand, Paul Newman received an Honorary Academy Award. It was for, “his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft.” So, in other words, he had received six nominations for Best Actor throughout the sixties, seventies, and the early years of the eighties. The Academy was just granting him the honor that fans and pundits alike though he should have won on multiple occasions throughout the aforementioned years.
Little did the community expect, however, that Newman would reprise his role as Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money (1986) by Martin Scorsese and walk away with the win after all. He had previously been nominated for playing that very character in The Hustler (1961) by Robert Rossen despite coming up short to Maximillian Schell for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). But with a Best Actor nod for Nobody’s Fool (1994) and a Supporting nomination for Road to Perdition (2002) solidify Newman as one of eight actors to receive nominations at the Oscars in five separate decades.
4 Michael Caine
With the fewest nominations on the list, esteemed English actor Michael Caine received six nods at the Oscars throughout his career. Most of them were for Best Actor, though he never actually triumphed in that category. But with Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) by Woody Allen, he picked up a win of the Supporting variety. And his next nomination came in that same category for The Cider House Rules (1999) in the following decade — it proved to be his bread and butter, the Supporting award, as that project marked his second win throughout the ceremony’s history.
Obviously, there was only one decade from the sixties to the aughts that saw Caine receiving two nominations: the eighties, where on top of Hannah and Her Sisters, he received a nod for Educating Rita (1983). That was another for Best Actor, and although he came up short to Robert Duvall in Tender Mercies (1983), the BAFTAs gave the respective award to Caine. And in the end, roles in Alfie (1966), Sleuth (1972), and The Quiet American (2002) land him here at number four.
3 Jack Nicholson
The seventies were a busy time for Jack Nicholson, as he received Best Actor nominations at the Academy Awards on four separate occasions. Of course, he won for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) — perhaps the greatest performance of his critically acclaimed career — with another famous nomination coming in the prior year thanks to Chinatown (1975). But his first piece of Oscars recognition actually came in the sixties, as he picked up a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Easy Rider (1969).
In the eighties, Nicholson picked up one win out of four nominations much like he did in the seventies. His win was for Terms of Endearment (1983), with the other nods being for Reds (1981), Prizzi’s Honor (1985), and Ironweed (1987). He picked up the third win of his career in the subsequent decade — Best Actor for As Good as It Gets (1997) — and solidified his spot on this list with a nod for About Schmidt (2003).
2 Laurence Olivier
Throughout his esteemed career, Laurence Olivier received four Academy Awards, but only one was for thespianism in Hamlet (1948). That was for Best Actor, and a producing credit on that same project garnered him another win for Best Film. The other two victories were of the Honorary variety, but still: Olivier did pick up several other acting nominations throughout his time in the industry. The first came with Wuthering Heights (1939), William Wyler’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel of the same name.
But most of Olivier’s nominations were for his own adaptations of William Shakespeare plays — he directed himself in the lead roles of Henry V (1944), Richard III (1955), and Othello (1965) on top of the aforementioned Hamlet. And he did in fact receive Best Actor nominations for each. The only Best Supporting nod of his career (at the Oscars, at least) came in the seventies with Marathon Man (1976). And not only did he win, but the nomination in general rendered him the first person to ever receive such throughout five disparate decades at the Oscars. Pretty impressive stuff for Olivier.
1 Katherine Hepburn
Although she wasn’t the first to receive nominations in five different decades, Katherine Hepburn does hold the distinction of having the earliest nomination on the list thanks to her Best Actress-winning efforts in Morning Glory (1933). But the reason she wasn’t the first to hold the record at hand is that she also holds the distinction of being the only person on this list to achieve the feat in non-consecutive decades.
In other words, she picked up nominations throughout the forties, fifties, and sixties after the aforementioned Best Actress win. But in the seventies, she only appeared in four feature films, and received recognition for none of them regarding the ceremony at hand. It was her Best Actress win — the fourth of her career following Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), and The Lion in Winter (1968) — for On Golden Pond (1981) that rendered her qualified to make the list. And it also made her the only actor regardless of gender to hold four wins for acting in a lead role. Nobody can compete with those statistics.