The Cinema Reel Awards for Best Supporting Actor

Claude Rains, quite possibly the greatest character actor of all time. He wins Supporting Actor three times over a period of eight years, for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Casablanca (pictured), and Notorious.

• 1911-1927: Donald Crisp (Broken Blossoms)

*Note: Donald Crisp wins the first award for Best Supporting Actor for a film that also wins Best Actress. Only eight more times will one film win both awards. This also makes him the only winner in this pre-Oscar year to eventually win an Oscar (the others – Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish, and Zasu Pitts – never won an acting award competitively), which he was honored with in 1941 (while coming in 2nd for the Reel).

• 1928: William Powell (The Last Command)
• 1929: Wallace Beery (Beggars of Life)

*Note: This is the last performance in a silent film to win the Reel for Supporting Actor,

• 1930: Robert Montgomery (The Big House)

*Note: At 26 years of age, Robert Montgomery will hold the record for the youngest winner for the next fifty years.

• 1931: Leslie Howard (A Free Soul)
• 1932: Boris Karloff (Five Star Final)

*Note: Because I have a tough time deciding which film he was better in, Karloff may instead win for his performance as the Monster in Frankenstein. Either way, he wins this by a long way.

• 1933: John Barrymore (Dinner at Eight)
• 1934: Edward Everett Horton (The Gay Divorcee)

*Note: The Gay Divorcee is the first film to win in both Supporting categories.

• 1935: Charles Laughton (Les Miserables)

*Note: Because he also wins Best Actor this year for his performance in Mutiny on the Bounty, Laughton is the first actor to receive double nominations, and the only to win on both of them.

• 1936: Walter Brennan (Come and Get It)

*Note: 1936 was the year that the Academy introduced categories designed to specifically honor supporting performances. Walter Brennan, a great actor and a favorite among Academy members, would go on to win three times within the category’s first five years in existence.

• 1937: Joseph Schildkraut (The Life of Emile Zola)
• 1938: Erich von Stroheim (Grand Illusion)

*Note: Grand Illusion is the first film to win both Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor. von Stroheim is the only Supporting Actor winner to have also won for Directing (Greed, 1927), and the first to win in this category without also receiving an Oscar nomination.

• 1939: Claude Rains (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington)

*Note: As noted in the photo above, Claude Rains is probably the greatest character actor of all time and one of the best actors period. This is his first win, but not his last.

• 1940: Cary Grant (The Philadelphia Story)

*Note: The Academy never did appreciate Cary Grant. He received two nods during his great career, both for weepy melodramas, and passed up his perfect performance in this classic comedy.

• 1941: Sydney Greenstreet (The Maltese Falcon)

*Note: The first debut performance to win Supporting Actor. Strangely, unlike most actors who win on their first time out, Greenstreet was hardly a spring chicken, with 62 years under his belt.

• 1942: Walter Huston (Yankee Doodle Dandy)
• 1943: Claude Rains (Casablanca)

*Note: Claude Rains becomes the first to win Supporting Actor twice.

• 1944: Clifton Webb (Laura)
• 1945: James Dunn (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)

*Note: This ends the longest streak of disagreeance between myself and the Academy, from 1938 to 1944.

• 1946: Claude Rains (Notorious)

*Note: Claude Rains becomes the first and, as of 2013, only to win three times in the Supporting categories. He is also the only actor to win for a Hitchcock film.

• 1947: Edmund Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street)
• 1948: Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)

*Note: Walter Huston becomes the second to win Supporting Actor twice.

• 1949: Ralph Richardson (The Heiress)

*Note: These last two wins are rather strange in that both Treasure and The Heiress won Best Picture, despite Supporting Actor being the least likely of the acting categories to correspond with that award.

• 1950: George Sanders (All About Eve)

*Note: On a darker note, George Sanders is the only acting winner to have committed suicide.

• 1951: Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire)
• 1952: Anthony Quinn (Viva Zapata!)
• 1953: Frank Sinatra (From Here to Eternity)
• 1954: Karl Malden (On the Waterfront)

*Note: Karl Malden’s win here makes him the third actor to win Supporting Actor twice.

• 1955: Jack Lemmon (Mister Roberts)
• 1956: Robert Stack (Written on the Wind)
• 1957: Lee J. Cobb (12 Angry Men)
• 1958: Burl Ives (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)

*Note: I like to think of this as the Mary Astor Syndrome. She deservedly won the Oscar in 1941, but she won it for the wrong film. This doesn’t happen very often, only once or twice in each category. Ives won the Oscar for The Big Country, and is both my #1 and #2 for this year.

• 1959: George C. Scott (Anatomy of a Murder)
• 1960: Peter Ustinov (Spartacus)
• 1961: Jackie Gleason (The Hustler)
• 1962: Ed Begley (Sweet Bird of Youth)
• 1963: Melvyn Douglas (Hud)
• 1964: Sterling Hayden (Dr. Strangelove)

*Note: Sterling Hayden was never nominated for an Academy Award, and he gave his best performance in a controversially perverse comedy classic. Some people just can’t get a break.

• 1965: Martin Balsam (A Thousand Clowns)
• 1966: Walter Matthau (The Fortune Cookie)
• 1967: George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke)
• 1968: Jack Albertson (The Subject Was Roses)
• 1969: Henry Fonda (Once Upon a Time in the West)

*Note: Fonda is the first actor to win in Supporting after previously winning for Lead (The Grapes of Wrath, 1940). As with the majority of his great performances, the Academy failed to recognize this one.

• 1970: John Mills (Ryan’s Daughter)
• 1971: Ben Johnson (The Last Picture Show)
• 1972: Al Pacino (The Godfather)
• 1973: John Houseman (The Paper Chase)
• 1974: Robert De Niro (The Godfather Part II)
• 1975: George Burns (The Sunshine Boys)

*Note: At 79, George Burns becomes the oldest winner ever. This record will later be beaten by Jessica Tandy in 1989, Christopher Plummer in 2011, and Emmanuelle Riva in 2012.

• 1976: Jason Robards (All the President’s Men)
• 1977: Alec Guinness (Star Wars)

*Note: The first actor to win for a performance in a science-fiction film (the only other actor to do so is Don Ameche).

• 1978: Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter)
• 1979: Robert Duvall (Apocalypse Now)
• 1980: Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People)

*Note: Timothy Hutton breaks Robert Montgomery’s record for the youngest winner by six years.

• 1981: John Gielgud (Arthur)
• 1982: James Mason (The Verdict)
• 1983: Jack Nicholson (Terms of Endearment)
• 1984: Haing S. Ngor (The Killing Fields)

*Note: The only non-professional actor to win in this category.

• 1985: Don Ameche (Cocoon)
• 1986: Michael Caine (Hannah and Her Sisters)
• 1987: Sean Connery (The Untouchables)
• 1988: Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda)
• 1989: Denzel Washington (Glory)
• 1990: Joe Pesci (Goodfellas)
• 1991: Alan Rickman (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)

*Note: Alan Rickman was not Oscar-nominated for his performance.

• 1992: Gene Hackman (Unforgiven)
• 1993: Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive)
• 1994: Martin Landau (Ed Wood)
• 1995: Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects)
• 1996: William H. Macy (Fargo)
• 1997: Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting)
• 1998: James Coburn (Affliction)
• 1999: Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules)

*Note: Michael Caine is the fourth actor to win twice in this category.

• 2000: Bruce Greenwood (Thirteen Days)

*Note: To date, this is the last time the Reel winner does not correspond to the Oscar winner. To make matters worse, Greenwood was not even nominated for the Oscar.

• 2001: Jim Broadbent (Iris)
• 2002: Chris Cooper (Adaptation)
• 2003: Tim Robbins (Mystic River)
• 2004: Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby)
• 2005: George Clooney (Syriana)
• 2006: Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine)
• 2007: Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
• 2008: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
• 2009: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
• 2010: Christian Bale (The Fighter)
• 2011: Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

*Note: Christopher Plummer, at 82, a full three years older than previous record-holder George Burns, is the oldest winner in the category.

• 2012: Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

*Note: Christoph Waltz becomes the fifth actor to win Supporting Actor twice. Unlike the other four actors who achieved this, he has no other nominations.

As is the case with the Lead Actor category, the men who win in Supporting are decidedly older than their female counterparts. Their average age is fifty, eight years higher than the average for Supporting Actress.

The Supporting Actor Oscar winners are perhaps the group with the highest number of winners that, while deserving, weren’t necessarily the best. Melvyn Douglas (the second time), Jason Robards (again, the second time), Benicio del Toro, Jack Palance, Anthony Quinn (the second time), Harold Russell, Walter Brennan (the third time, and, to a lesser extent, the second), Thomas Mitchell, Gig Young, and Van Heflin are just a few examples of deserving Oscar winners who happen to miss out on the Reel in favor of better performances. Honestly, this category does not contain one undeserving Oscar winner, even if I do disagree here more than I do with any other acting category. In other words, the Academy chooses well, but not always correctly.