The most prestigious Academy Award is undoubtedly the Oscar for Best Picture. While the number of Best Picture nominees each year has fluctuated as the Academy has shifted its rules around, at the time of writing, there have been 621 in total. While the producers of the movies in question are technically the people who are nominated for the Best Picture award, it's high time we celebrated the actors who were a major factor in these movies ending up in contention. These 12 performers have racked up some impressive numbers, starring in more Best Picture nominees than anybody else in history.
A note: We'll only be counting credited roles for this list, either lead or supporting.
12.Gary Cooper
‘The Pride of the Yankees’ (1942)
Source: RKO PicturesWhile there is a 20-way tie for the actor who has starred in the most Best Picture winners (with three movies apiece), there is only a six-way tie at the bottom of this list. All of these actors have starred in nine Best Picture nominees, and the first of them actually starred in the first-ever winner, 1927's Wings. That would be Gary Cooper, who we're famously trying to look like in "Puttin' On the Ritz." While none of Cooper's other eight nominees won Best Picture, he did win Best Actor twice, for Sergeant York and High Noon.
Best Picture Nominees: Wings (1927), A Farewell to Arms (1932), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), High Noon (1952), Friendly Persuasion (1956)
11.Ward Bond
'Wagon Train' (1957-1965)
Credit: NBC
You've probably never heard of Ward Bond unless you're a huge fan of the Western series Wagon Train, because he was never a major player in the Best Picture nominees he appeared in. Nevertheless, the character actor, who often played police officers, had credited roles in nine nominees and one winner: the sweeping epic Gone with the Wind.
Best Picture Nominees: Dead End (1937), Gone with the Wind (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Long Voyage Home (1940), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Sergeant York (1941), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), The Quiet Man (1952), Mister Roberts (1955)
10.Spencer Tracy
'Father of the Bride' (1950)
Credit: Loew's, Inc.
Spencer Tracy starred in nine different Best Picture nominees over a span of 31 years, with two pairs of films being nominated simultaneously in two different years, and yet none of his movies ever won. However, he did win Best Actor for two of those movies, namely Captains Courageous and Boys Town.
Best Picture Nominees: Libeled Lady (1936), San Francisco (1936), Captains Courageous (1937), Boys Town (1938), Test Pilot (1938), Father of the Bride (1950), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1963), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
9.Thomas Mitchell
'Stagecoach' (1939)
Credit: United Artists
Thomas Mitchell was another character actor with the good fortune to appear in nine Best Picture nominees, with the one winner among them being Gone with the Wind. However, he one-upped Ward Bond by being nominated for Best Supporting Actor awards for The Hurricane and Stagecoach, winning the latter.
Best Picture Nominees: Lost Horizon (1937), Gone with the Wind (1939), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Stagecoach (1939), The Long Voyage Home (1940), Our Town (1940), Wilson (1944), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), High Noon (1952)
8.William Holden
'Sunset Boulevard'
Credit: Paramount Pictures
1950s box office superstar and Oscar winner William Holden (he won Best Actor for Stalag 17) also starred in nine Best Picture nominees. However, he's yet another multiple nominee with just one Best Picture under his belt, namely The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Best Picture Nominees: Our Town (1940), Born Yesterday (1950), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Country Girl (1954), Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), Picnic (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Towering Inferno (1974), Network (1976)
7.Brad Pitt
'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood' (2019)
Credit: Sony Pictures Releasing
The most contemporary actor to be part of this six-way tie with nine Best Picture nominees is Brad Pitt, who continues to star in notable projects, including the hit 2026 survival movie Heart of the Beast and the upcoming David Fincher movie The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth. The latter movie, which is a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, could very well see him getting bumped up to 10 come next year. His only Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave, is a movie that he also produced, meaning he got to take home the big trophy. He later won a Best Supporting Actor Award for OUATIH as well.
Best Picture Nominees: Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Moneyball (2011), The Tree of Life (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), The Big Short (2015), Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019), F1 (2025)
6.H. B. Warner
'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946)
RKO Radio Pictures
As we climb the chart, we have now run into a four-way tie of actors with 10 Best Picture nominees apiece. For the first of these actors, H. B. Warner, we must once again step back toward the very beginning of the Academy Awards. The actor, who famously played Mr. Gower in It's a Wonderful Life and frequently worked with both Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart, appeared in 10 nominees between 1931 and 1956, winning his own Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Lost Horizon. His only Best Picture winner, however, was You Can't Take It with You.
Best Picture Nominees: Five Star Final (1931), Viva Villa! (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), A Tale of Two Cities (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), You Can't Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Ten Commandments (1956)
5.Jack Nicholson
'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1975)
Credit: United ArtistsNow-retired cinema icon Jack Nicholson is not only the first actor on the list with multiple Best Picture winners, but he is also one of the actors who are tied for No. 1 with three (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Terms of Endearment, and The Departed). He has also earned three acting Oscars for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Terms of Endearment, and the Best Picture nominee As Good as It Gets.
Best Picture Nominees: Five Easy Pieces (1970), Chinatown (1974), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Reds (1981), Terms of Endearment (1983), Prizzi's Honor (1985), Broadcast News (1987), A Few Good Men (1992), As Good as It Gets (1997), The Departed (2006)
4.Tom Hanks
'Forrest Gump' (1994)
Credit: ParamountAnd we're back to actors with 10 nominees, but only one Best Picture win under their belts. For beloved movie dad Tom Hanks, that would be Forrest Gump, which also won him his second of two acting Oscars (the first was for Philadelphia the year before).
Best Picture Nominees: Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Green Mile (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), Captain Phillips (2013), Bridge of Spies (2015), The Post (2017), Elvis (2022)
3.Cate Blanchett
'Tár' (2022)
Credit: Focus Features
The final actor tying with 10 Best Picture nominees is Cate Blanchett. She won an acting Oscar for one of those nominees (The Aviator) and another for one that wasn't a contender (Blue Jasmine), but the only movie in which she appeared that actually won Best Picture was the 2003 awards-sweeper The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Best Picture Nominees: Elizabeth (1998), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Aviator (2004), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Don't Look Up (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021), Tár (2022)
2.Robert De Niro
'GoodFellas' (1990)
Credit: Warner Bros.Statistically, somebody else on this list had to be in multiple Best Picture winners. Thankfully, Robert De Niro turned his 11 nominations into two winners (The Godfather Part II and The Deer Hunter). De Niro himself also won an Oscar for The Godfather Part II and earned his second for a non-winner nominee, 1980's Raging Bull.
Best Picture Nominees: The Godfather Part II (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978), Raging Bull (1980), The Mission (1986), Awakenings (1990), GoodFellas (1990), Silver Linings Playbook (2012), The Irishman (2019), Joker (2019), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
1.Leonardo DiCaprio
'One Battle After Another' (2025)
Credit: Warner Bros.The actor who has appeared in the most Best Picture nominees co-starred with a number of previous entrants in their Best Picture nominations, including Robert De Niro (in Killers of the Flower Moon), Cate Blanchett (in The Aviator and Don't Look Up), Brad Pitt (in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood) and Jack Nicholson (in The Departed). From a total of 12 Best Picture nominees, he has starred in three winners (Titanic, The Departed, and One Battle After Another), putting him in that 20-way tie that somehow includes almost nobody else on this list. For good measure, he won his own Oscar for The Revenant, which was also a Best Picture nominee.
Best Picture Nominees: Titanic (1997), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Inception (2010), Django Unchained (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Revenant (2015), Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019), Don't Look Up (2021), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), One Battle After Another (2025)
There are plenty of actors who would rise in the ranks or become runners-up for this list if we counted uncredited roles, including Ward Bond (who starred in a whopping 14 and would have tied for No. 1 with Ian Wolfe, who also had 14), Elizabeth Taylor and Mary Forbes (with 10 apiece), and Edwin Maxwell (with 12). Robert De Niro would also have climbed to 12.
Were you surprised to learn about any of these actors' status on the list? And whose run of Best Picture nominees do you think is the best? Sound off in the comments below!
