BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids BAFTA Award for Best Actor
The 2024 recipient: Adrien Brody
Presented by	British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Location	United Kingdom
Currently held by	Adrien Brody for The Brutalist (2024)

The Best Actor in a Leading Role is a special award given out every year at the British Academy Film Awards. These awards are often called the BAFTA Awards. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) gives this award to an actor who has done an amazing job playing a main character in a movie. It's one of the most important awards for actors in the United Kingdom!

About the Award
- How the Award Changed Over Time
Amazing Actors and Their Wins
- Actors with Many Nominations
Images for kids
See also

About the Award

This award celebrates the very best acting performances in movies. It's a big deal for actors to win a BAFTA, as it shows their talent is recognized around the world.

How the Award Changed Over Time

When the BAFTA Awards first started, from 1952 to 1967, there were actually two different Best Actor awards. One was for British actors, and the other was for actors from other countries. But in 1968, they decided to combine these two awards into just one "Best Actor" prize. Since 1995, the award has been known as "Best Actor in a Leading Role."

Amazing Actors and Their Wins

Many talented actors have won this award over the years. Some have even won it multiple times!

Peter Finch has won the Best Actor award more than anyone else, with five wins!
Daniel Day-Lewis is another record-holder, having won four times.
Actors like Marlon Brando, Anthony Hopkins, and Jack Lemmon have each won the award three times.
Some actors have won twice, including Dirk Bogarde, Colin Firth, Dustin Hoffman, Burt Lancaster, Marcello Mastroianni, Jack Nicholson, and Rod Steiger.

Actors with Many Nominations

Getting nominated for a BAFTA is a huge honor, even if you don't win. Some actors have been nominated many times, showing how consistently great their performances are.

Michael Caine, Daniel Day-Lewis, Peter Finch, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Lemmon, and Laurence Olivier have all been nominated seven times for Best Actor.
Marlon Brando, Leonardo DiCaprio, Albert Finney, and Sidney Poitier have each received six nominations.

Images for kids

Ralph Richardson was the first person to win this award for The Sound Barrier (1952).
Marlon Brando won three times for Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), and On the Waterfront (1954).
John Gielgud won for Julius Caesar (1953).
Laurence Olivier won for Richard III (1955).
Ernest Borgnine won for Marty (1955).
Peter Finch has won five times for A Town Like Alice (1956), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), No Love for Johnnie (1961), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and Network (1976).
Alec Guinness won for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
Henry Fonda won for 12 Angry Men (1957).
Sidney Poitier won in 1958 for his role in The Defiant Ones, becoming the first black actor to win in this category.
Peter Sellers won for I'm All Right Jack (1958).
Jack Lemmon won three times for Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960) and The China Syndrome (1979).
Paul Newman won for The Hustler (1961).
Peter O'Toole won for Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
Burt Lancaster won twice for his roles in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Atlantic City (1981).
Marcello Mastroianni won twice in Divorce Italian Style (1963), and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1964).
Richard Burton won for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold / Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).
Richard Attenborough won in 1968 for his roles in the films Guns at Batasi / Seance on a Wet Afternoon.
Lee Marvin won for The Killers / Cat Ballou (1965).
Paul Scofield won for A Man for All Seasons (1966).
Rod Steiger won twice in a row for his roles in The Pawnbroker (1966) and In the Heat of the Night (1967).
Spencer Tracy won for his role in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1968).
Dustin Hoffman won twice for his roles in three films Midnight Cowboy / John and Mary (1969), and Tootsie (1983).
Robert Redford won for three films in 1970: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid / Downhill Racer / Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here.
Gene Hackman won for The French Connection and The Poseidon Adventure (1972).
Walter Matthau won for his roles in Charley Varrick and Pete 'n' Tillie (1973).
Jack Nicholson won twice for The Last Detail / Chinatown (1974), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).
Al Pacino won for The Godfather Part II / Dog Day Afternoon (1975).
John Hurt won for his role in The Elephant Man (1980).
Ben Kingsley won for Gandhi (1982).
Michael Caine won for Educating Rita (1983).
Sean Connery won for The Name of the Rose (1987).
John Cleese won for A Fish Called Wanda (1988).
Daniel Day-Lewis is the first actor to win this award four times, in 1989, 2002, 2007, and 2012, for his performances in My Left Foot, Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln, respectively.
Anthony Hopkins won three times for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Remains of the Day (1993) and The Father (2020).
Robert Downey Jr. won for Chaplin (1992).
Hugh Grant won for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).
Geoffrey Rush won for Shine (1996).
Robert Carlyle won for The Full Monty (1997).
Roberto Benigni won for Life Is Beautiful (1998).
Kevin Spacey won for American Beauty (1999).
Jamie Bell won for Billy Elliot (2000).
Russell Crowe won for playing John Forbes Nash Jr. in A Beautiful Mind (2001).
Bill Murray won for Lost in Translation (2003).
Jamie Foxx won for Ray (2004).
Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote (2005).
Forest Whitaker won for The Last King of Scotland (2006).
Mickey Rourke won for The Wrestler (2008).
Colin Firth won two Best Actor awards in a row for his performances in 2009's A Single Man and 2010's The King's Speech.
Jean Dujardin won for The Artist (2011).
Chiwetel Ejiofor became the first black-British actor to win this award for his role in 12 Years a Slave (2013).
Eddie Redmayne won for The Theory of Everything (2014).
Leonardo DiCaprio won for The Revenant (2015).
Casey Affleck won for Manchester by the Sea (2016).
Gary Oldman won for Darkest Hour (2017).
Rami Malek won for Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
Joaquin Phoenix won for Joker (2019).
Will Smith won for King Richard (2021).
Austin Butler won for Elvis (2022).
Cillian Murphy won for Oppenheimer (2023).