Actor-Actress Joint Wins and Nominations: An Oscar History
Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 9:00AM 
Since it premiered in Venice, Maestro has had critics and awards pundits abuzz. After its screenings at NYFF, BFI London, and the AFI Fest, the movie's status as one of the season's major contenders only grew. Right now, some are even speculating that with their double act as Leonard and Felicia Bernstein, Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan may be about to accomplish an Oscar feat unrepeated since 1997, when Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt took home the two lead acting prizes for As Good As It Gets. Before that, the only other instances occurred in 1934, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1981, and 1991. Let's dig deeper into this history…
Going back to the genesis of the Academy Awards, here are all the instances when a film nabbed that golden couplet of Best Actor and Actress nominations. Winners will be bold and underlined.
1930/31) Lionel Barrymore & Norma Shearer, A Free Soul
1930/31) Richard Dix & Irene Dunne, Cimarron
1931/32) Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne, The Guardsman
1934) Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night
1936) William Powell & Carole Lombard, My Man Godfrey
1937) Fredric March & Janet Gaynor, A Star Is Born
1938) Leslie Howard & Wendy Hiller, Pygmalion
1939) Robert Donat & Greer Garson, Goodbye, Mr. Chips
1939) Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind
1940) Laurence Olivier & Joan Fontaine, Rebecca
1940) James Stewart & Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story
1942) Walter Pidgeon & Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver
1943) Gary Cooper & Ingrid Bergman, For Whom the Bell Tolls
1943) Walter Pidgeon & Greer Garson, Madame Curie
1944) Charles Boyer & Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight
1945) Bing Crosby & Ingrid Bergman, The Bells of St. Mary's
1946) Gregory Peck & Jane Wyman, The Yearling
1947) Gregory Peck & Dorothy McGuire, Gentleman's Agreement
1947) Michael Redgrave & Rosalind Russell, Mourning Becomes Electra
1948) Lew Ayres & Jane Wyman, Johnny Belinda
1950) William Holden & Gloria Swanson, Sunset Boulevard
1951) Humphrey Bogart & Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen
1951) Marlon Brando & Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
1951) Montgomery Clift & Shelley Winters, A Place in the Sun
1953) Montgomery Clift & Burt Lancaster & Deborah Kerr, From Here to Eternity
1954) Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly, The Country Girl
1954) James Mason & Judy Garland, A Star Is Born
1956) Yul Brynner & Deborah Kerr, The King and I
1957) Anthony Quinn & Anna Magnani, Wild Is the Wind
1958) Paul Newman & Elizabeth Taylor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
1958) David Niven & Deborah Kerr, Separate Tables
1959) Laurence Harvey & Simone Signoret, Room at the Top
1960) Jack Lemmon & Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment
1961) Paul Newman & Piper Laurie, The Hustler
1962) Jack Lemmon & Lee Remick, Days of Wine and Roses
1963) Richard Harris & Rachel Roberts, This Sporting Life
1963) Paul Newman & Patricia Neal, Hud
1965) Oskar Werner & Simone Signoret, Ship of Fools
1966) Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1967) Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway, Bonnie and Clyde
1967) Dustin Hoffman & Anne Bancroft, The Graduate
1967) Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
1968) Peter O'Toole & Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter
1969) Richard Burton & Genevieve Bujold, Anne of the Thousand Days
1970) James Earl Jones & Jane Alexander, The Great White Hope
1970) Ryan O'Neal & Ali MacGraw, Love Story
1971) Peter Finch & Glenda Jackson, Sunday Bloody Sunday
1972) Paul Winfield & Cicely Tyson, Sounder
1974) Dustin Hoffman & Valerie Perrine, Lenny
1974) Jack Nicholson & Faye Dunaway, Chinatown
1975) Jack Nicholson & Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976) Peter Finch & William Holden & Faye Dunaway, Network
1976) Sylvester Stallone & Talia Shire, Rocky
1977) Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
1977) Richard Dreyfuss & Marsha Mayson, The Goodbye Girl
1978) Jon Voight & Jane Fonda, Coming Home
1979) Jack Lemmon & Jane Fonda, The China Syndrome
1981) Warren Beatty & Diane Keaton, Reds
1981) Henry Fonda & Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond
1981) Burt Lancaster & Susan Sarandon, Atlantic City
1982) Jack Lemmon & Sissy Spacek, Missing
1983) Michael Caine & Julie Walters, Educating Rita
1986) William Hurt & Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God
1987) William Hurt & Holly Hunter, Broadcast News
1987) Jack Nicholson & Meryl Streep, Ironweed
1989) Morgan Freeman & Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy
1991) Anthony Hopkins & Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs
1993) Laurence Fishburne & Angela Bassett, What's Love Got to Do With It
1993) Anthony Hopkins & Emma Thompson, The Remains of the Day
1995) Nicolas Cage & Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas
1995) Sean Penn & Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking
1996) Ralph Fiennes & Kristin Scott Thomas, The English Patient
1997) Jack Nicholson & Helen Hunt, As Good as It Gets
1999) Kevin Spacey & Annette Bening, American Beauty
2001) Tom Wilkinson & Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom
2004) Clint Eastwood & Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
2005) Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
2012) Bradley Cooper & Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
2013) Christian Bale & Amy Adams, American Hustle
2014) Eddie Redmayne & Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
2016) Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone, La La Land
2018) Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
2019) Adam Driver & Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
2020/21) Chadwick Boseman & Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
2021) Javier Bardem & Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
So, in 95 years of Oscars, a film has been nominated in both Best Actor and Actress categories a grand total of 85 times. Here are some observations:
- Seven out of 85 times, the film won BOTH categories, or 8.2%.
- Ten times, the film won ONLY Best Actor, or 11.8%.
- Nineteen times, the film won ONLY Best Actress, or 22.4%.
- Forty-nine times, the film won NEITHER category, or 57.6%.
- There have been 18 years with multiple films scoring both Best Actor and Actress nominations. Twelve out of those, there was AT LEAST one victory.
- In 1939, 1977, and 1995, two films shared this double nomination honor. In these three instances, one won Best Actress and the other Best Actor.
- Only thrice have three films repeated across BOTH categories, in 1951, 1967, and 1981.
- On two occasions, a film has scored two Best Actor nominations and one Best Actress. The first time, in 1953, they all lost. In 1976, the film took both trophies.
- The 1970s are the best decade for this phenomenon. The only year when it didn't happen was 1973.
- The 2000s are the worst decade. Maybe part of it stems from a wide systematization of category fraud that wasn't as prevalent under the Old Hollywood star system.
- Every time Jack Nicholson won an Oscar, even in supporting, his leading lady also won.
- Every time Faye Dunaway has been nominated for an Oscar, it's been for a film nominated for Best Actor. The only time she won, one of her leading men did as well.
- Though she is the most nominated actor of all time, Meryl Streep has only ever been nominated alongside one of her leading men, in 1987 for Ironwood.
- Bradley Cooper stars in over a fourth of every 21st-century film that got this double honor, and he was nominated for all of them, albeit once in supporting.
- Unsurprisingly, most actors involved in more than one of these pair situations eventually win an Oscar. After all, this tends to signify the Academy's love for a performer. Still, there are exceptions to the rule. Deborah Kerr got three of these rare nominations, plus three additional ones, and never won.
Beyond Cooper and Mulligan, other candidates for the paired Best Actor-Actress honors include DiCaprio and Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon and, on a lesser level of likelihood, Phoenix and Kirby in Napoleon, Too and Lee in Past Lives. That said, only the Maestro pair seems safe, if not locked already.
What other interesting patterns can you find in these numbers? What did I miss?
Reader Comments (15)
This is interesting - especially that Meryl Streep statistic. Thanks for putting it together.
I get that Burstyn's win has its fans, as does the Rowlands performance (to put it mildly), but kind of wish Nicholson and Dunaway had won for Chinatown. Fantastic film and fine performances, of course, but also those 2 kind of ruled the '70s and since this kind of thing defined a lot of '70s films (as your data illustrates) that pair winning then would've captured a lot of the decade in one moment.
God, I love Network. Find another movie with that much wit, guts, pathos, stakes, genius, style, prescience, sheer entertainment value...films just don't get better than that.
I've always thought William Holden gives one of the greatest performances of all time in it, he'd get my win over Finch. But Dunaway won for 100% the correct performance. Straight's win is an Oscar miracle.
Which half of the Gladstone/DiCpario duet to you consider less safe for a nomination?
Claudio, thanks for all the hard work in putting this together. I liked the Nicholson stat...never thought about it before. I'm stating the obvious, but he really was such a remarkable actor...even when he was big and showy, he was very generous to his fellow actors.
Whether or not they are truly best in show, Cooper and Mulligan are both superb actors, and seeing their names on a list like this 20 years from now if they both won will wear very, very well.
And I am still mystified by Katharine Hepburn winning for On Golden Pond. She is by far...by FAR...the weakest of the five nominees that year. She's arguably bad in that movie. Voters were feeling very sentimental back then.
I echo DK's sentiments on Holden,I always found Finch to be a little 1 note,Holden shows many shades as Max and would've been agreat career caper since he would be dead in 4 years.
Hunt's win has aged much better than Jacks's.
I wish Cooper had won along with Lawrence,I found DDL's perfomance overrated though still very good.
I don't think Hepburn the weakest but Meryl and Susan.
The best duet winners are Foster/Hopkins though the best in a long time were Johansson and Driver.
Cooper seems the favourite with Mulligan probably being Glenn Closed..
Shame we never got Trintignant - Riva.
a) I'm not sure that category fraud explains the poverty of the 2000s. While there are a couple early decade examples (Harden on Pollock, Broadbent in Iris) there are enough counterexamples to argue otherwise. What's interesting to me is when you look at the nominees and realize just how few films had two leads. If you look at 2007 for example, I'd assert only three films represented in the leading races actually had two leads (Sweeney Todd, Away from Her, and The Savages).
b) You mention Streep, but a lot of heavily garlanded performers don't have nominated leads. Close has never seen her leading man nominated (1/2 point for Michael Douglas in 87, if you want). Bette Davis is another example. Al Pacino as well.
c) Yeah, Trintigant should've definitely happened alongside Riva.
d) I'm surprised at how few winning PAIRS there are, though. There are 85 nominated pairs out of a potential 468 pairs (the first few years were inconsistent), so 18%, but less than half as many winners. I feel like it should be more common.
Shame we never got Carrey-Winslet, Gosling-Williams & McGregor-Kidman too.
Though I wouldn’t particularly classify 1954/2018’s A Star is Born, 1993’s What’s Love got to do with It, 2005’s Walk the Line or 2020’s Ma Rainey’s as ‘musicals’ (correct me if I’m wrong), I don’t see an instance where two Leads from a ‘musical’ have been nominated together-though there’s been singular Lead winners (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Funny Girl and Cabaret).
TOM -- While I would consider the '54 A STAR IS BORN a musical, there's also THE KING AND I in 1956 and LA LA LAND in 2016.
Love this analysis.
While Streep hasn't been nominated as Lead Actress against her co-star, three of the four times she has had a Supporting Actress nomination the leading man has been recognized - Deer Hunter, Kramer vs. Kramer (when they both won), and Adaptation.
Fascinating that, until now perhaps, there's not another year in the 21st century where going into the Oscar ceremony it seemed possible there would be a double winner. Maybe Ma Rainey or A Star is Born?
I'm curious which 21st century films you would think would be added to the list if there were less category fraud. I'm having a hard time coming up with too many. Pollock seems like one. But otherwise... The Post? Everything Everywhere? A Beautiful Mind? I think there may be something going on more in the kinds of movies we are getting, there are less traditional male/female two-handers than there were in past decades.
Peter -- Here are some I can think of...
2000) Ed Harris & Marcia Gay Harden, POLLOCK
2001) Jim Broadbent & Judi Dench, IRIS
2001) Russell Crowe & Jennifer Connelly, A BEAUTIFUL MIND
2003) Bill Murray & Scarlett Johansson, LOST IN TRANSLATION (she campaigned supporting, and it's interesting to ponder how things would have ended had she gone lead.)
2009) Christopher Plummer & Helen Mirren, THE LAST STATION
2010) Jeff Bridges & Hailee Steinfeld, TRUE GRIT
2011) Jean Dujardin & Berenice Bejo, THE ARTIST
2015) Eddie Redmayne & Alicia Vikander, THE DANISH GIRL
2016) Denzel Washington & Viola Davis, FENCES
2017) Sam Rockwell & Frances McDormand, THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
-Forgot about The King and I/La La Land. Guess I skipped over 1954’s A Star is Born because James Mason didn’t sing.
-Seems odd that while many singular Foreign Language performances have been nominated, we haven’t reached the point yet when both Leads can get a nomination.
Great stats, Cláudio.
"The Artist" duet definitely suffered category fraud.
Bérénice Bejo won the César (French Oscar) for Leading Actress that year.
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