The Oscars – Best Actor Awards – Film Quiz

Sean Penn has won the Best Actor Academy Awards for his roles in the mystery drama Mystic River (2003) and the biopic Milk (2008).

Hamlet won the award for Best Picture at the 21st Academy Awards in 1949. Laurence Olivier won the award for Best Actor in a leading role. Olivier also directed the film. It was the first time an actor directed himself in an Oscar-winning performance.

At the 59th Academy Awards in 1987, Paul Newman received the Best Actor Award for his role in The Color of Money, directed by Martin Scorsese (not nominated).

Spartacus received four academy awards in 1961, including an Oscar to Peter Ustinov for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

The Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 American film directed by Jonathan Demme. Jodie Foster plays the role as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins the role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Anthony Hopkins won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film won five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Demme), Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Foster), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally).

In 2016, Leonardo DiCaprio had been nominated for six Academy Awards (five for acting and one for producing). For his role as Hugh Glass in The Revenant, he won his first Academy Award for Best Actor.

Jack Nicholson was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Easy Rider and A Few Good Men, but did not win. He was nominated for the Oscar in a leading role with As Good as It Gets and About Schmidt. He won the Oscar for his role as Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets. Helen Hunt, who plays a single mother with a chronically ill son, won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

The 11th Academy Awards in 1939, Spencer Tracy was awarded the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Boys Town. Spencer Tracy became the first lead actor to win two years in a row. In 1941, MGM made a sequel, Men of Boys Town, with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney reprising their roles from the earlier film.

Appearing the first time as an unbilled football player in Brown of Harvard (1926), John Wayne starred in over 170 movies. He had to wait until 1969 (almost 150 films) before receiving an Academy Award for his role in True Grit. He was only nominated twice for Best Actor.

Forest Whitaker received outstanding critical acclaim for his performance as dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. He won Best Actor at the 79th Academy Awards in 2007.