Ellen Burstyn's Oscar history
Friday, January 8, 2021 at 11:30AM 
At 88 years of age, Ellen Burstyn is back on the hunt for gold and she might just become the oldest acting Oscar nominee of all-time for her work in Kornél Mundruczó's Pieces of a Woman. (The record is currently held by Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World, who had just turned 88 at the time but Burstyn would be just a bit older). Burstyn's film, now streaming on Netflix, concerns Vanessa Kirby's Martha, a woman dealing with the unimaginable pain of having lost her newborn daughter. Burstyn plays the protagonist's mother, a severe matriarch whose disapproval of her daughter's life choices is an incandescent force, blinding in its intensity.
The actress breathes life into this supporting role, illuminating the brittleness, the scars of past woes, and the terror brought upon by the first signs of dementia. It's a showy performance, complete with an Oscar clip-ready monologue that unspools from Burstyn like a torrent of misdirected fervor. As we ponder if AMPAS will grace the thespian with another honor, let's look at her record with the Academy. Ellen Burstyn has been nominated six times and won once…
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971)
An elegy for lost youth, lost Texan small towns, and lost cinema, The Last Picture Show is Peter Bogdanovich's debut feature. It's bittersweet and heartfelt, a nostalgia that's clearheaded enough to see through the rose-tinted glasses. Despite the young taking center stage, it's the older folk who delineate the tone. It's, in the end, a film about death and dying, about empty streets that are only becoming emptier as time goes by, ravaging everything it touches. It's the past preserved in crystal, then shattered, stepped on until its shards turn to silvery powder.
Ellen Burstyn's Lois Farrow was once the prettiest girl in town. When we meet her, middle-age has robbed her of past glory. The ghost of youthful sultriness still haunts her every step. Most of all, Lois is bored and Burstyn lets that suffocating sentiment inform every gesture, be it tired coquettishness or the woman's frustrated confusion when dealing with her teenage daughter. There's emotional clarity to Burstyn's work, especially when grief shows its ugly face. However, her attempts at projecting sly sauciness feel a bit forced. It's a good performance and a worthy nomination but far from the actress' best achievements.
She was beaten by her The Last Picture Show costar, Cloris Leachman. This is still the only Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination in Burstyn's career. But that might change this year.
From its desert opening to its Washington-set climax, The Exorcist is a horror classic like few others. William Friedkin's filming of William Peter Blatty's novel is a visceral nightmare. The kind that crawls under the viewer's skin, polluting their mind with ancient evils and modern anxieties misshapen as demonic facsimiles. Still, the frights of this unholy movie depend on primordial wrongness, the contamination of mundanity, the violation of innocence. In other words, you feel the human fragility and the humanity that's coming undone.
Chris MacNeil is a Hollywood star, the mother of the girl whose body becomes Pazuzu's vessel. Ellen Burstyn plays this actress with smart naturalism, underlining her mundanity before opening the gates of hell beneath her feet. The performance is an escalation of terror, helplessness eating away at a mother who can't do anything to save her beloved daughter until all that's left is a pulsing miasma of despair. It's because of her that some of the most upsetting scenes in The Exorcist are the ones with no puke and no priests, those set inside sterile hospitals where the agonized go in search of medical salvation.
But the 1973 Best Actress champion came from another Best Picture nominee. Glenda Jackson won her second Oscar for the comedy A Touch of Class.
ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974)
It's a pity that Martin Scorsese doesn't make more movies centered on women. His few flicks with female leads are among his best, with Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore standing out as a wonderful example. Not that it doesn't look like a Scorsese film. Its setting and milieu may be distant from the director's usual fare, but his vision is seen throughout, especially during the opening. From Sirkian excess and robust artifice, the director cuts to 70s realism, dusty and dirty. It's a film about dashed dreams, about knowing the imperfection of reality, accepting it, learning how to live with it. A film about waking from a Technicolor dream and facing the grit of waking life.
The titular Alice is, of course, played by Ellen Burstyn. Here, she's a woman faced with unexpected widowhood, forced to travail with her son in search of a job as a lounge singer. In her path, she finds disillusions, male aggression, sisterhood, perchance love. It's quite the character arc and Burstyn performs it with amazing ease. Instead of foregrounding her craft, the actress delivers a feat of underplayed naturalism, lacing Alice's misfortunes with unexpected humor. The way she draws comedy from tragic news, how she plays with her on-screen son, and confides with Diane Ladd's Flo, all those details are both golden and worthy of gold.
1974 is a candidate for best Best Actress lineup of all-time. The truth is each of the five women would have been a good victor. Still, Burstyn reigned supreme over her competition and scored her only Academy Award. It's a glorious victory, even if she wouldn't have been my pick.
SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR (1978)
Conspicuously based on a play by Bernard Slade, Same Time, Next Year is a turgid affair whose staginess is both overwhelming and inescapable. It concerns the decades-long affair of two married people who meet by chance in a secluded inn. They first find each other during the postwar years, but their one-night stand gradually turns into a lasting relationship. Every year, they meet again in the same place, spend a night of passion, and then go on with their separate lives. As the years unfold, we see them transform into stereotypes, their lives dictated by visual gags instead of organic evolution and authentic feeling.
Pardon the harsh words, but I'm not a fan of Same Time, Next Year and can't quite fathom why AMPAS went so wild over it, bestowing the film with four nominations. The citation for Best Cinematography is superlatively baffling. Burstyn's nod is more understandable at least. Though she's unable to resolve her character's wild changes of style, values and morals, there's an attempt made. We can see her struggle trying to tie all these loose threads, weaving a warped tapestry that tells the story of a normal woman's life as seen through her annual interactions with a dear lover. Still, not even she could make the countercultural phase of this story feel real, earned, or minimally convincing.
As with 1973, Burstyn lost this Best Actress bid to another actress winning her second trophy. This time, it was Jane Fonda for her star turn in Coming Home. Burstyn did, however, tie for the Golden Globe with Maggie Smith.
RESURRECTION (1980)
What an odd picture this is. Previously discussed in the 1980 Best Supporting Actress Smackdown, Daniel Petr's Resurrection is a proto-sci-fi drama about a woman who gains healing powers after she's part of a catastrophic car accident that results in her husband's death. It's heady defiance of genre norms, boldly refusing to deliver answers or conclusions that untangle its strangeness. The film turns its face on religion, but indulges in its imagery, spits on the face of classic melodrama but is unashamed of reveling in pure feeling devoid of narrative purpose. Overall, it's a fascinating conundrum that seldom works but is all the more interesting for it.
In the role of the unlikely healer, Burstyn is as fascinating as her film. At the start, we are in usual territory for the actress, casual naturalism grounding the early chapters in some semblance of human reality. However, it's when the narrative goes crazier that the performance truly sings. My favorite element of Burstyn's work is certainly the physicality brought to the role by its thespian, how the body manifests the cost of fantastical amelioration of other people in need. Even at the end, with a long grey wig and the tics of theatrical old age,
Nobody was going to take 1980's Best Actress Oscar away from Sissy Spacek. Her performance in Coal Miner's Daughter is the prototypical biopic star turn that sweeps the awards season.
Darren Aronofsky's sophomore feature is an ecstatic moral tale about the perfidious influence of addiction. Such a description suggests a degree of self-righteous didacticism the film doesn't necessarily exemplify, always more concerned with understanding its characters' suffering than in making them case studies. From its opening in a Coney Island summer to its wintery conclusions, Requiem for a Dream follows in line with many of Ellen Burstyn's most famous projects, detailing the cataclysm that is the implosion of personal utopias, dreams crumbling, hopes dying.
Sara Goldfarb, played by Burstyn, is perhaps the most tragic figure in this sad tale. A lonely widow whose junkie son only comes home to ask for money or steal her TV, she's consumed by lies about getting on her favorite self-help show. Going on a wretched diet aided by uppers, Sara starts losing herself to obsession, to addiction, to the need for some ineffable idea of happiness. Burstyn holds nothing back, going as big as her director does, feverishly exploding in the wreckage of human misery, her body and soul falling to pieces. It's devastating to witness, bruising, lacerating... a tour-de-force!
As great as Burstyn is in Requiem for a Dream, I'm sometimes still surprised AMPAS nominated such a weird abrasive flick. The winner that year came from a much more conventional picture, the great Erin Brockovich starring Julia Roberts.
Are you rooting for Ellen Burstyn to get a seventh nomination this year? Would you have ever given her a second win?
Reader Comments (42)
Burstyn is a great actor and star deserves all the Oscars she can get
Perfect timing! Was just discussing her Oscar history last night!! I've never seen Resurrection and just ordered it from the library. It seems impossible to find online.
I get the criticisms of Same Time Next Year, but I have a mysterious undying love for that movie. One of my main go-to comfort movies. I've lost track of how many times I've seen it. For some reason, I'm drawn to movies that romanticize infidelity!!??!
The other day I was thinking about her contemporary Marsha Mason- who was nominate so many times specially when ex husband Neil Simon was writing vehicles for her.
There's a good (but too short) interview with her at the Guardian this week. She said that, hot off The Exorcist, she was given latitude to choose her Alice director, and she chose Scorsese.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jan/05/cinema-legend-ellen-burstyn-pieces-of-a-woman-movie-star-oscar
God, she was on fire in Requiem for a dream. It's my #1 Oscar sore spot, that she lost for that performance.
Her name may not be as well known now as a Fonda or a Christie but she is certainly their equal talent wise,One of the things I like about her is her warm voice and easy demeanor.
Top 5
1 - The Exorcist - she grounds it in believability
2 - RFOD - simply sad and astonishing,one of the best monologues ever.
3 - ADLHA - funny frustrating and likeable all at once in some scenes
4 - Twice in a Lifetime - a forgotten Hackman flick,she's very touching as the spurned wife
5 - Resurrection - apparently her own favourite film and performance
Also fabulous in the underated The King of Marvin Gardens.
I understand why Julia Roberts won. But 2000 Oscar should had been for Burnstyn.
What’s the broadest span of Oscar nomination history? It seems like Burstyn would have nominations over 49 years if she is nominated. The only one I can think of is Hepburn..
Just watched Pieces last night. She will deserve that nomination. Great work.
Sight unseen ... give it to Burstyn!!!!!
If it wasn't Julia Roberts' "turn," I'm convinced Burstyn would've won for "Requiem." And Jennifer Connolly should've won for supporting. (Kind of odd how much of the narrative for her "A Beautiful Mind" win the following year was "she deserved it last year," when she really wasn't in the conversation.)
I absolutely adore her - and would've given her the win for REQUIEM. I even like her in STNY!
Minority opinion here but I'm actually not crazy about her performance in Requiem (though I admire it tremendously) and would have given the Oscar that year to Roberts, with Linney and Allen as my runner ups before Burstyn. I personally think there's a lot of affectation to her work that sort of contributes to some of my problems with the movie itself. Connolly is no Burstyn but I actually think she gets farther in Requiem because she works against the deliberate stylization of the movie as opposed to playing right into it, the way I personally think Burstyn does. Again I admire and respect her hard work quite a bit, but that's what it looks like to me: hard work and very "actorly".
Of her Oscar nominated performances I think Alice is actually probably the best and an excellent performance overall. IMO 1974 is THE greatest best actress line-up ever. Rowlands would have gotten my vote but there's no way I could quibble with Burstyn winning nor would have I had a problem with any of those ladies winning. I would personally have put Perrine in the supporting category (which I then would have given her) so I could put Ullmann on the best actress ballot. But again, it's all quibbles because again all five of the nominated women would have been wonderful potential winners. Rowlands' is just medium defining for me and in another category on it's own.
With the exception of the horrendous Same Time, Next Year I actually think the Oscars basically did right by Burstyn. I prefer her work in Last Picture Show to Leachman's (though Brennan is the lady who would have been on my own ballot), I think she's legitimately wonderful in the Exorcist, I think similar to Duvall in the Shining Burstyn provides a genuine emotional force that is scarier than anything else in the movie. There isn't a arc but she makes the feeling of being a parent whose child is going thru something totally unholy but can only stand and watch it happen disturbingly palatable. My vote that year is for Streisand but Burstyn surely would have been preferable to Jackson, a truly inexplicable win. And I happen to like her in Resurrection quite a bit, even if she's nowhere near as good as Spacek that year (I almost think Spacek is among the more underrated best actress winners because it's a fairly rote biopic. But she is IMO tremendous in that movie). It was a passion project and while I think the movie is a might shaggy I think Burstyn really does solid work.
However, similar to Susan Sarandon, she was weirdly ignored for what I think is easily her best performance in the King of Marvin Gardens. She is remarkable in that movie and Tyrell aside she was worthy of win.
Love her work and hope we see her get another nomination this year. I would have given her Actress a year earlier, but Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a wonderful film.
I rather Close gets a first before Burstyn gets a second in this race.
I love her, but Gena's was the best performance of all time, bar none.
I would carve her face on Mount Rushmore!
Julia's Oscar is the perfect Oscar, but I would have voted for her in 2000. I'm also one of the few people on Earth that prefers Alice to Mabel.
I'm in a minority who wouldn't even nominate Rowlands,I find her tiresome in it.
I will continue to say this forever and ever, but Ellen Burstyn was ROBBED of that Oscar for REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. That film is my favourite one of all time, and her performance is the best thing I have ever seen on any medium EVER. I would have given that second Oscar to her for that movie in a heartbeat!
Her monologue about about the red dress is one of the most heartbreaking pieces of dialogue ever put to film <3 :(
I plan to watch it this weekend but curious about the age difference between Burstyn and Kirby (32) as mother and daughter. No shade, just generally curious if one is playing younger/older or if they even touch on it.
Echo the love for Burstyn though - The Exorcist and RFAD are for the ages!
A wonderful talent and an fun amusing interview subject too.
She's consistently strong no matter the project but I think her nominations came for worthy work save one. I enjoy Same Time, Next Year and think she's terrific in it but not to the point of receiving a nomination. If she had to win only one Oscar I would have rather it be for Resurrection than Alice. That one should have gone to Gena Rowlands.
Ellen Burstyn is an actress who I want to love in a lot of things yet I find myself slightly underwhelmed on many occasions. This is most likely due to her massive standing (clout) in the industry. She is just as impactful on the film industry as her contemporaries from the actors studio Pacino and De Niro. I unfortunately cannot give her the Oscar for any of her nominations as in most cases there was always somebody better for me.
My favourite performance of hers is Requiem as it's the closest I get to not feeling a slight detachment as I'm fully invested in everything she is doing (she doesn't make my 5 that year as 2000 is very packed). I look forward to watching POW over the weekend as I'm a massive fan of Kirby and I look forward to Burstyn based on the praise she has received. I for one would welcome another nomination as it would give the record for oldest acting nominee to a WOMAN and I so want that to be the case. Burstyn herself even recently talked about this fact which is pushing her to want the nomination for the same reasons as myself.
While I'm talking about Burstyn I still find it hilarious to this day she received an emmy nomination for the television movie Mrs. Harris yet in the film she had a quick seconds long cameo. This preposterous nomination forced the television academy to change their rules so it would never happen again. I just enjoy the fact that it happened for Burstyn of all people
If you take out Ellen in 78 there aren't a lot of other options to choose from to replace her.
She should've won for Requiem for a Dream and I do hope she gets one. It's about time. She's more deserving than Glenn Close.
Should have won for THE EXORCIST and not for Alice.
Worthy for Pieces of a Woman and she is campaigning hard already, but would not be surprised if she ended up snubbed. The script and that monologue are just badly written
I think we can get Ellen AND Glenn. We don't necessary have to put one against the other.
a) She only would've been my unequivocal choice in 1980, actually. I like Spacek and am fine with her win, but Burstyn in Resurrection is just oddly compelling.
b) There's no such thing as an unequivocal choice in that 1974 line-up, especially with the absence of Liv Ullmann.
c) Take her out of 1978 and give it to Glenda Jackson in Stevie.
d) I would've voted for her in 2000, no question (though Gillian Anderson was my personal favourite), but I'm not mad she doesn't have a second Oscar.
She is absolutely searing in 'Pieces of a Woman' - I was floored.
I think for me, this will be an instance of a film with a brilliant leading performance, but with one supporting performance that just touched me more. (See also: Sound of Metal and Paul Raci)
@Tyler. I have a similar sensation precisely with Requiem for a Dream, Ellen Burstyn is a terrific lead but Jennifer Connelly left me breathless.
She is revered by actors - and she's acted with everyone. And of course, she's been the co-president of the actors studio for 20 years. While she hasn't really been given a role worthy of a nomination since Requiem, I suspect they'll jump at the chance to nominate her again (assuming they watch the film .. and there is publicity).
A few other performances not mentioned above that are great -
Harry and Tonto - short but endearing
The Spitfire Grill - prickly and interesting
Playing By Heart - heartbreaking
Law & Order SVU - powerful and complex
All deserved noms so I only want Burstyn nominated if it's a worthy performance. Don't break a stellar streak. Fuck any one saying Close should get an undeserved Oscar 'just cause'.
I'm constantly surprised by the way Ellen Burstyn manages to convey startling levels of vulnerability and tenacity - how she can often be candid and enigmatic at the same time. Always maintaining a kind of hushed electricity that's hers alone. I always look forward to new performances from her.
As regards 1978, there was another legit choice for a Burstyn nomination. "A Dream of Passion" offered the once in a lifetime casting combo of Melina Mercouri and Ellen Burstyn (directed by Mercouri's husband Jules Dassin). Mercouri is an actress about to play Medea, who bites off more than she can chew when (for research and possibly publicity purposes) she arranges to visit an imprisoned child murderess (Burstyn). I remember at the time reading that both stars were being submitted in the lead actress category. And I still recall that Burstyn was absolutely riveting. The picture itself, a bit strange and definitely off the beaten track, went pretty much under the radar though, while the highly accessible "Same Time Next Year" was a solid box office hit. And netted Burstyn nomination #4.
I love the idea that she might be nominated in 1980, 2000 and 2020 - with 20 years separating her last two nominations.
So many more spoilers for Pieces of a Woman than even the review had. Very un-Claudio like?!?
I've found critics who have a healthy suspension of disbelief and not overly pretentious views of comedies seem to enjoy Same Time Next Year quite well.
Greg -- as far as I remember they never mention it. But I'd rather a big age difference than doing that more typical hollywood thing of having someone just 10-15 years older playing the mom.
oh and I should not that I love all of Burstyn's performances. What a great track record.
Would love to see her win....she was egregiously (thanks Julie Andrews) snubbed in 2000. Ok - what to do about Glen Close. It’s time to give her an honorary Oscar. If Oprah and Sophia Loren have honorary Oscars.....it’s certainly overdue to Ms Close.
Unpopular opinion but I think her Requiem performance is hammy and over cooked. That accent! Ugh.
It’s wild that Burstyn is playing Kirby’s mother, given the 55-year age difference, but it doesn’t stick out as much as I would’ve thought going in. She definitely should’ve won for The Exorcist, with Gena Rowlands winning for A Woman Under the Influence.
I'd be happy for Ellen to get a career-capper nomination for PIECES OF A WOMAN. I don't necessarily think it's a stretch for her, but it works--and to Greg's point, it never even occurred to me about the age difference although it is ridiculous now that I think of it.
Back in 2001, I probably said it should've been Burstyn to win for REQUIEM, but I was also 15 and I think that film probably works best to people who are discovering cinema. In retrospect I am very glad that Julia won. It's very rare to find such a perfect vehicle for the perfect star, a big hit and star turn. Those sort of performances win far tess often than one would think.
Jaragon -- I love her but I would also take that '78 nomination away without a second thought.
Corey -- I'm glad others enjoy that movie more than I. Re-watching it for this write-up was a chore.
James from Ames -- Thanks for the link.
markgordonuk -- I need to catch up with TWICE IN A LIFETIME one of these days. Regarding the lack of choices in 78, I think Ullmann in AUTUMN SONATA, Hurt in INTERIORS would have made better nominees. There are also other contenders I haven't watched like Glenda Jackson's acclaimed performance in STEVIE.
Bhurray -- That monologue is heartbreaking and I always get emotional, no matter the number of times I've re-watched it.
Greg F. -- I did find the age difference a bit weird, but both actresses are quite good in the roles, so I tried not to think too much about it.
joel6 -- I'm also a Rowlands voter in 1974.
Eoin Daly -- That Emmy conundrum was hilarious. Name-checking at its most flagrant.
Rama -- I commend her for how much she makes the awful writing work. I was not a fan of the film's script, at all.
Peggy Sue -- Agreed.
Arkaan -- I'm fine with her as a one-time Oscar winner too. The only time I'd have given her a win was in 2000.
Ellsworth -- I too am a fan of her short performance in HARRY AND TONTO. Glad to see that others share in my affection.
Ken -- Thanks for mentioning A DREAM OF PASSION. I've never watched it, but it looks like an interesting showcase for Burstyn.
Una -- What does un-Cláudio like even mean? Also, what spoilers?
Juan -- Sorry if I'm too pretentious to get that film.
Glenn Dunks -- While I prefer Burstyn to Roberts, I agree that it's a great win. Also agree that REQUIEM FOR A DREAM worked better when I was younger and just discovering some more radical experiments of cinema. It looks less interesting now.
Thank you all for the feedback.