by Nathaniel R
Saoirse Ronan hosting SNLTimothée Chalamet (about to turn 22) and Saoirse Ronan (23) are only a year apart in age and both are looking like major Oscar contenders in Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. In other words, it MIGHT be a really young Oscar year. Despite their close ages they're miles apart in terms of Oscar statistics. If Timothée is nominated he'll be a first time nominee and become the 3rd youngest man ever up for Best Actor while Saoirse, if nominated, would be on nomination #3 and would just barely crack the youngest 20 contenders in her category.
So, who are the youngest female leads ever nominated? We're about to tell you but one thing is for sure: this list is MUCH younger than the corresponding leading man list.
DISCLAIMER: The male list was comparatively easier to order as there were significant gaps in ages. With so many women roughly the same age on this list it's possible the order is not entirely accurate (given that Oscar dates are not the same each year) but we did the best we could.
I'm just a human girl person and I ain't always perfect."
JUST MISSED THE LIST: Laura Dern was 24 when Rambling Rose came out but by the time Oscar season hit she had just turned 25. When Audrey Hepburn won on her first nomination Roman Holiday (1953) and Shirley Maclaine lost for her first nomination for Some Came Running (1958) they were both about to turn 25. Jeanne Crain was another 24 year old who just missed this list with Pinky (1949). They were the closest all rans...
But a lot of nominees or winners we think of as "young" for Oscar weren't really. Jennifer Jones famously won her Song of Bernadette Oscar on her 25th birthday so she was not within striking distance here. Other famously 'young' contenders were still too old for this type of list. Nominees like Gabby Sidibe in Precious, Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo and first time winners like Barbra Streisand, Jodie Foster and Hillary Swank were all in their 20s on their first win but at 25 plus hardly anomalies with Oscar. The rules are much different for women then men as we see over and over again in Oscar history. That's an extension, of course, of what's available on the screen for AMPAS voters to choose from. Dozens of actresses in any decade of cinema history are having huge careers in the twentysomething years but the Leonardo DiCaprios of the world (i.e. men who enjoy a robust leading man career as early as their twenties) are closer to once-or-twice-a-generation exceptions. Literally the most common age to win Best Actress is 29; for comparison only one man that age has ever won (Adrien Brody) and he happens to be the youngest of all time on the male side of this "Best" equation.
Without further ado...
25 YOUNGEST BEST ACTRESS NOMINEES
25 Carey Mulligan (24) for An Education (2009)
Both Gabby Sidibe and Carey Mulligan were nominated for playing teenage girls that Oscar season but both were in their twenties as is casting tradition for high-school age movies. Many expected Carey Mulligan to become a regular nominee after this star-is-born arthouse hit but she has yet to snag a second nomination, despite being in several prestige dramas since then. Her latest, Mudbound, is expected to show up somewhere on nomination morning but people disagree as to where exactly and how far reaching its success (or failure) will be.
24 Maggie McNamara (24) for The Moon is Blue (1953)
The 50s initially seemed kind to McNamara who had a couple of hits on stage (including the play this movie is based on), and an Oscar nomination for this stage-to-film transfer (she was also nominated for a BAFTA and you can read Nick Davis's writeup of the performance here). McNamara had another big hit the following year with the Best Picture nominated American-singles-abroad movie Three Coins in the Fountain. Unfortunately her career never moved past this initial peak. She was plagued by mental health issues including severe depression and committed suicide at 49.
23 Teresa Wright (24) for Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Oscar had a short-lived but passionate love for Wright. She had been nominated the year prior in supporting actress for The Little Foxes (1941) and made it two consecutive supporting actress bids with Mrs Miniver (1942). The year she won for Mrs Miniver she was double nominated and this was her horse in the Best Actress derby. That's an equestrian analogy for a baseball movie. Forgive me, I am hopeless when it comes to sports.
22 Joan Fontaine (24) for Suspicion (1941)
This was the second of three nominations for the 40s superstar and she took the Oscar beating her older sister Olivia de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn. De Havilland was not pleased as she had become a star first.
21 Lynn Redgrave (turning 24) for Georgy Girl (1966)
Speaking of sisters... only this time happy siblings with no storied rivalry. Lynn Redgrave's star-making role netted her the first of two Oscar nominations shortly before she turned 24 (the second was three decades later in supporting actress for Gods and Monsters). She was able to share the excitement with her big sister Vanessa Redgrave who was nominated in the same category for Morgan! (Correct me if I'm wrong trivia hounds but I believe this is the last time siblings competed with each other in an Oscar category?) They both lost to Liz Taylor's firebreathing Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
20 Liza Minelli (turning 24) for The Sterile Cuckoo (1969)
And yet more famous Oscar families (they're all grouped together in this countdown). Minnelli was born into showbiz, the offspring of director Vincente Minnelli and The World's Greatest Entertainer Judy Garland who had married after collaborating on one of the best movies ever made, Meet Me In St Louis (1944). You can see Liza as a toddler in Judy's film In the Good Old Summertime (1949) but that was an uncredited role. Liza was an Oscar nominated star by just her second legit feature film at 23, turning 24 between the nomination and Oscar night.
NEW ENTRY: SAOIRSE RONAN, LADY BIRD (2017). CONTRARY TO SOME REPORTS, SHE DID NOT BREAK JENNIFER LAWRENCE'S RECORD OF "QUICKEST TO THREE NOMINATIONS" SINCE JENNIFER WAS A FEW MONTHS YOUNGER
19 Catalina Sandino Moreno (23) for Maria Full of Grace (2004)
This Colombian actress was the 15th woman to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for a foreign language performance. Best Actress is the category most welcoming to subtitled performances. It breaks down like so.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE STATS IN ACTING CATEGORIES
*some of them partially in English though
Best Actress - 20 nominated performances (2 wins)
Best Actor - 11 nominated performances (1 win)
Best Supporting Actor - 5 nominated performances (3 win)
Best Supporting Actress - 4 nominated performances (1 win)
It was her first and to date only nomination. She was most recently seen as a recurring character on Showtime's The Affair.
18 Carol Kane (23) for Hester Street (1975)
First and only nomination. Hester Street was only Kane's 5th or 6th performance and she's really unique and terrific - seek it out! Kane was also in one of the Best Picture nominees that year, Dog Day Afternoon. Within 5 years she was more well known as Simka in the TV sitcom Taxi.
17. Natalie Wood (23) for Splendor in the Grass (1961)
The child star had graduated to teen sensation with her first nomination (Rebel Without a Cause, 1955) and was a bonafide movie queen by 23. It's a pity she didn't win this second of three nominations. She died all too young at 43 but not before comitting several indelible star turns to screen including this all time classic of adolescent angst and sexuality.
16 Joan Fontaine (23) for Rebecca (1940)
Her sister preceded her into the movies and to the first Oscar nomination. (Olivia de Havilland had been up for supporting actress in Gone With the Wind the year before) but Joan was hot on her tail. This was the first of three nominations for Fontaine and though her film won Best Picture she lost her category to Ginger Rogers's only Oscar bid, Kitty Foyle.
14. [TIE] Winona Ryder (23) for Little Women (1994)
Julia Roberts (23) for Pretty Woman (1990)
TRIVIA CRAZINESS: Their birthdays are just one day apart and, get this, they were exactly the same age to the day within these respective Oscar seasons when they received their nominations. What's more they were both graduating from their debut nomination in supporting to a second (consecutive) nomination with promotions to leading lady. And they were competing for roles in the early 1990s, too, since Winona stated in an interview that she'd rather lose roles to Julia Roberts than other less talented actresses. Isn't that wild?
13 Leslie Caron (22) for Lili (1953)
This Parisian actress had become instantly famous with her debut in the Best Picture winning An American in Paris (1951). Two years later she received the first of two nominations, the second was for The L Shaped Room (1962). Curiously though she led two Best Picture winning musicals (An American in Paris and Gigi), she wasn't nominated for either. Caron is still with us AND still acting, recently playing Countess Mavrodaki in the British TV series The Durrells in Corfu.
12 Janet Gaynor (22) in Seventh Heaven (1927), Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Street Angel (1928)
The very first winner of Best Actress held the record for the youngest lead actress winner for almost 60 years before Marlee Matlin took over. Though Oscar quickly changed the rules to fit its honors into exact calendar years and to not allow multiple film nominations like this, this was not her only Oscar experience. The fresh silent star transferred easily to sound pictures and was nominated again a decade later for A Star is Born (1937), a non musical version of the oft-filmed story.
11 Jennifer Lawrence (22) in Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
The ubiquitous superstar won her first Oscar on the second of her four nominations. We maintain she was and remains miscast in that role as the character obviously should have been played by a thirtysomething actress.
10 YOUNGEST BEST ACTRESS NOMINEES
10 Kate Winslet (22) for Titanic (1997)
Titanic was an absolute behemoth at both the Oscars and at movie theaters. This was the second of seven nominations for this English Rose but one of only three nominations that that ocean bound megablockbuster lost on Oscar night.
09 Elizabeth Hartmann (22) for A Patch of Blue (1965)
First and only nomination. She played a blind girl in love with Sidney Poitier in this interracial drama. Her screen mother Shelley Winters took the Best Supporting Actress statue. In some markets (aka the South) the interracial kiss was edited out in the movie's theatrical run. Tragically, like Maggie McNamara earlier in this list, her career slowed down quickly and she also committed suicide in her forties.
08 Saoirse Ronan (21) for Brooklyn (2015)
Despite receiving her second of two nominations by just 21 years of age she wasn't the quickest to achieve that feat. That record has been held for aeons by Angela Lansbury who received two nominations by the time she was 20 (Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray). Ronan won't be able to break the record for fastest to three nominations either (held by Jennifer Lawrence), but maybe fastest to four if she keeps up both her current pace and incredible quality.
07 Marlee Matlin (21) for Children of a Lesser God (1986)
First and only nomination. She's held the record of the youngest lead actress winner ever since, though as a lifelong Kathleen Turner fanatic this one stings a bit since that was, bizarrely, the great 80s star's only nomination and shot at a win. But cheers to Matlin for forging quite an impressively enduring career given the obstacles facing her as a deaf actress. After this debut/breakout she went on to multiple Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for television work.
06 Ellen Page (20) for Juno (2007)
First and only nomination. It would be so satisfying to see her return to the Oscar fold as an out gay actress, wouldn't it? Someone give her a great part again. Contrary to popular belief, no out lesbian has ever been nominated for an Oscar for acting. All of the famous lesbian nominees or winners throughout history were not publicly out at the time of their nominations (though sometimes they were "open secrets" as it were: Lily Tomlin, Eva LaGalliene, or Jodie Foster). Statistics aren't much better on the male side. Sir Ian McKellen (Gods and Monsters, 1998 and The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001) and Sir Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George, 1994) remain the only male actors ever nominated who were out before their nominations; both were comfortably enough with their sexuality to bring male dates to the Oscars.
05 Keira Knightley (20) for Pride & Prejudice (2005)
First of two nominations and the only woman ever Oscar-nominated for playing Elizabeth Bennett or a derivation thereof -- not even Oscar queen Greer Garson managed it in the 1940s! Here's hoping for a third nomination somewhere down the line for Keira as her first two were so deserved and she's continued to push herself as an actor and now she has to deal with that young semi-look-and-sound-alike Daisy Ridley hogging the media's attention. Oh the humanity.
04 Isabelle Adjani (20) for The Story of Adele H (1975)
First of two nominations for this genius French actress. Absolutely should've won the Oscar for this tale of love and madness (sorry Louise Fletcher but no). If she only had she would still be the youngest ever. She had to make due with Best Actress prizes from NBR, NSFC, and the NYFCC that year. She even lost the César over in France (to Romy Schneider in That Most Important Thing: Love). Oscar waited until Marion Cotillard in Ma Vie En Rose (2007) to give an Oscar to a French woman for a French language performance.
03 Jennifer Lawrence (20) for Winter's Bone (2010)
First of four nominations. Her performance as a tough Appalachian teenager with two unfit absent parents is still one of her best... but who knew whilst watching this that she'd become that big of a star and Oscar favorite immediately thereafter?
02 Keisha Castle Hughes (13) for Whale Rider (2003)
Hilariously campaigned as supporting (despite being the film's entire focus) Oscar voters wised up and rejected the category fraud. Sadly the enthusiasm around her came in a year when a lot of great performances were shunned because they didn't fit the usual Oscar template for Best Actress, including the incredible Evan Rachel Wood who would have held this same position in the Youngest Best Actress list for thirteen had she been nominated instead.
01 Quvenzhane Wallis (9) for Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
First and only nomination to date. She's also, of course, the youngest of the 11 black women nominated for this honor through Oscar's history. We haven't seen her on screens much since this wondrous debut (beyond that cameo in the following year's Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave and that subsequent shot at 'not-a-one-hit-wonder' stardom with Annie in 2014) but she is only 14 so there's plenty of time for her to get back to acting after high school. We hope she has another "Hushpuppy" level performance in her. That's if she continues acting that is; You never know with child stars whether they a) really want to and b) whether the opportunities will be there if they do). Despite holding this amazing record as youngest Best Actress nominee of all time she is not the youngest nominee of all time. That honor belongs to Justin Henry from Kramer vs Kramer who was 8 years old when he became the all time youngest nominee in any category, acting and beyond). Justin Henry is now 46 in case you remember him as a little boy in Kramer vs Kramer and want to feel very very old.
How many of these performances have you seen and which do you think should have won their Oscar race?