Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
The 2024 recipient: Zoe Saldaña
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)
Country	United States
First awarded	1937
Currently held by	Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez (2025)

The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is a special prize given out every year. It's awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). This award celebrates an actress who gives an amazing performance in a smaller, but still important, role in a movie.

The award started back in 1937. For a while, winners received a plaque instead of the famous Oscar statuette. But since the 16th Academy Awards, everyone gets the golden statuette!

The Best Supporting Actress award has been given 89 times to 87 different actresses. The very first winner was Gale Sondergaard for her role in Anthony Adverse. The newest winner is Zoe Saldaña for her part in Emilia Pérez.

Only two actresses have won this award twice: Dianne Wiest and Shelley Winters. Everyone else has won it just once. Thelma Ritter holds the record for the most nominations, with six, but she never won. A big moment happened in 1940 when Hattie McDaniel became the first person of color to win an Oscar in any category.

How Winners Are Chosen

Actors who are members of AMPAS vote for the nominees. Then, all eligible members of the Academy vote to pick the winners. The person with the most votes wins!

In the early years of the awards, actors were nominated for all their work in a year. But for the 4th Academy Awards, they changed it. Now, an actress is nominated for one specific role in one movie. Also, they decided that there could only be up to five nominees in each acting category.

Gale Sondergaard was the first winner, for Anthony Adverse (1936).

Alice Brady won for In Old Chicago (1938).

Fay Bainter won for Jezebel (1938).

Hattie McDaniel won for Gone with the Wind (1939); the first black person to win an Oscar.

Jane Darwell won for The Grapes of Wrath (1940).

Mary Astor won for The Great Lie (1941).

Teresa Wright won for Mrs. Miniver (1942).

Katina Paxinou won for For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943).

Ethel Barrymore won for None but the Lonely Heart (1944).

Anne Revere won for National Velvet (1945).

Anne Baxter won for The Razor's Edge (1946).

Celeste Holm won for Gentleman's Agreement (1947).

Claire Trevor won for Key Largo (1948).

Mercedes McCambridge won for All the King's Men (1949).

Josephine Hull won for Harvey (1950).

Kim Hunter won for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

Gloria Grahame won for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).

Donna Reed won for From Here to Eternity (1953).

Eva Marie Saint won for On the Waterfront (1954).

Jo Van Fleet won for East of Eden (1955).

Dorothy Malone won for Written on the Wind (1956).

Miyoshi Umeki won for Sayonara (1957); the first East Asian acting winner.

Wendy Hiller won for Separate Tables (1958).

Shelley Winters won twice, for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) & A Patch of Blue (1965).

Shirley Jones won for Elmer Gantry (1960).

Rita Moreno won for West Side Story (1961); the first Latina winner.

Patty Duke won for The Miracle Worker (1962).

Margaret Rutherford won for The V.I.P.s (1963).

Lila Kedrova won for Zorba the Greek (1964).

Sandy Dennis won for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

Estelle Parsons won for Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

Ruth Gordon won for Rosemary's Baby (1968).

Goldie Hawn won for Cactus Flower (1969).

Helen Hayes won for Airport (1970).

Cloris Leachman won for The Last Picture Show (1971).

Eileen Heckart won for Butterflies Are Free (1972).

Tatum O'Neal won for Paper Moon (1973); at age 10, the youngest winner of a competitive Oscar.

Ingrid Bergman won for Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

Lee Grant won for Shampoo (1975).

Beatrice Straight won for Network (1976); shortest winning performance (5 minutes, 2 seconds).

Vanessa Redgrave won for Julia (1977).

Maggie Smith won for California Suite (1978).

Meryl Streep won for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).

Mary Steenburgen won for Melvin (and Howard) (1980).

Maureen Stapleton won for Reds (1981).

Jessica Lange won for Tootsie (1982).

Linda Hunt won for playing a male character in The Year of Living Dangerously (1983).

Peggy Ashcroft won for A Passage to India (1984); this category's oldest winner (age 77).

Anjelica Huston won for Prizzi's Honor (1985).

Dianne Wiest won twice, for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) & Bullets Over Broadway (1994).

Olympia Dukakis won for Moonstruck (1987).

Geena Davis won for The Accidental Tourist (1988).

Brenda Fricker won for My Left Foot (1989).

Whoopi Goldberg won for Ghost (1990).

Mercedes Ruehl won for The Fisher King (1991).

Marisa Tomei won for My Cousin Vinny (1992).

Anna Paquin won for The Piano (1993).

Mira Sorvino won for Mighty Aphrodite (1995).

Juliette Binoche won for The English Patient (1996).

Kim Basinger won for L.A. Confidential (1997).

Judi Dench won for Shakespeare in Love (1998).

Angelina Jolie won for Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Marcia Gay Harden won for Pollock (2000).

Jennifer Connelly won for A Beautiful Mind (2001).

Catherine Zeta-Jones won for Chicago (2002).

Renée Zellweger won for Cold Mountain (2003).

Cate Blanchett won for The Aviator (2004).

Rachel Weisz won for The Constant Gardener (2005).

Jennifer Hudson won for Dreamgirls (2006).

Tilda Swinton won for Michael Clayton (2007).

Penélope Cruz won for Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008).

Mo'Nique won for Precious (2009).

Melissa Leo won for The Fighter (2010).

Octavia Spencer won for The Help (2011).

Anne Hathaway won for Les Misérables (2012).

Lupita Nyong'o won for 12 Years a Slave (2013).

Patricia Arquette won for Boyhood (2014).

Alicia Vikander won for The Danish Girl (2015).

Viola Davis won for Fences (2016).

Allison Janney won for I, Tonya (2017).

Regina King won for If Beale Street Could Talk (2018).

Laura Dern won for Marriage Story (2019).

Youn Yuh-Jung won for Minari (2020); first Korean-dialogue win.

Ariana DeBose won for West Side Story (2021); first openly queer person of color to win.

Jamie Lee Curtis won for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Winners and Nominees by Year

The years below show when the movies were released. The actual awards ceremonies happen the next year.

1930s Winners

Year	Actress	Role	Film	Ref.
1936 (9th)	Gale Sondergaard	Faith Paleologus	Anthony Adverse
1937 (10th)	Alice Brady	Molly O'Leary	In Old Chicago
1938 (11th)	Fay Bainter	Aunt Belle Massey	Jezebel
1939 (12th)	Hattie McDaniel	'Mammy'	Gone with the Wind

1940s Winners

Year	Actress	Role	Film	Ref.
1940 (13th)	Jane Darwell	'Ma' Joad	The Grapes of Wrath
1941 (14th)	Mary Astor	Sandra Kovak	The Great Lie
1942 (15th)	Teresa Wright	Carol Beldon	Mrs. Miniver
1943 (16th)	Katina Paxinou	Pilar	For Whom the Bell Tolls
1944 (17th)	Ethel Barrymore	'Ma' Mott	None but the Lonely Heart
1945 (18th)	Anne Revere	Mrs. Araminty Brown	National Velvet
1946 (19th)	Anne Baxter	Sophie MacDonald	The Razor's Edge
1947 (20th)	Celeste Holm	Anne Dettrey	Gentleman's Agreement
1948 (21st)	Claire Trevor	Gaye Dawn	Key Largo
1949 (22nd)	Mercedes McCambridge	Sadie Burke	All the King's Men

2020s Winners

Year	Actress	Role	Film	Ref.
2020/21 (93rd)	Yuh-jung Youn	Soon-ja	Minari
2021 (94th)	Ariana DeBose	Anita	West Side Story
2022 (95th)	Jamie Lee Curtis	Deirdre Beaubeirdre	Everything Everywhere All at Once
2023 (96th)	Da'Vine Joy Randolph	Mary Lamb	The Holdovers
2024 (97th)	Zoe Saldaña	Rita Mora Castro	Emilia Pérez

Actresses with Multiple Wins and Nominations

Some actresses have won or been nominated for this award many times!

Two-Time Winners

Actresses with Three or More Nominations

Age Records for Winners and Nominees

Here are some interesting facts about the ages of actresses who won or were nominated.

Movies with More Than One Supporting Actress Nomination

Sometimes, a movie is so good that two actresses from it get nominated for Best Supporting Actress! This has happened 36 times. Only one movie, Tom Jones (1963), had three nominations in this category.

Winners are in bold.

• Gone with the Wind (1939) -- Olivia de Havilland and Hattie McDaniel
• The Little Foxes (1941) -- Patricia Collinge and Teresa Wright
• Mrs. Miniver (1942) -- May Whitty and Teresa Wright
• The Song of Bernadette (1943) -- Gladys Cooper and Anne Revere
• Mildred Pierce (1945) -- Eve Arden and Ann Blyth
• Gentleman's Agreement (1947) -- Celeste Holm and Anne Revere
• I Remember Mama (1948) -- Barbara Bel Geddes and Ellen Corby
• Come to the Stable (1949) -- Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchester
• Pinky (1949) -- Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Waters
• All About Eve (1950) -- Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter
• The High and the Mighty (1954) -- Jan Sterling and Claire Trevor
• The Bad Seed (1956) -- Eileen Heckart and Patty McCormack
• Peyton Place (1957) -- Hope Lange and Diane Varsi
• Imitation of Life (1959) -- Susan Kohner and Juanita Moore
• Tom Jones (1963) -- Diane Cilento, Edith Evans, and Joyce Redman
• Othello (1965) -- Joyce Redman and Maggie Smith
• Airport (1970) -- Helen Hayes and Maureen Stapleton
• The Last Picture Show (1971) -- Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman
• Paper Moon (1973) -- Madeline Kahn and Tatum O'Neal
• Nashville (1975) -- Ronee Blakley and Lily Tomlin
• Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) -- Jane Alexander and Meryl Streep
• Tootsie (1982) -- Teri Garr and Jessica Lange
• The Color Purple (1985) -- Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey
• Working Girl (1988) -- Joan Cusack and Sigourney Weaver
• Enemies, A Love Story (1989) -- Anjelica Huston and Lena Olin
• Bullets over Broadway (1994) -- Jennifer Tilly and Dianne Wiest
• Almost Famous (2000) -- Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand
• Gosford Park (2001) -- Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith
• Chicago (2002) -- Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Babel (2006) -- Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi
• Doubt (2008) -- Amy Adams and Viola Davis
• Up in the Air (2009) -- Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick
• The Fighter (2010) -- Amy Adams and Melissa Leo
• The Help (2011) -- Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer
• The Favourite (2018) -- Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz
• Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) -- Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu

Characters Nominated More Than Once

Sometimes, the same character from different movies gets nominated!

• Anita from West Side Story (Rita Moreno, 1961) & West Side Story (Ariana DeBose, 2021)
• Sofia from The Color Purple (Oprah Winfrey, 1985) & The Color Purple (Danielle Brooks, 2023)

See also

• All Academy Award acting nominees
• BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female
• Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress
• Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
• Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor