The Academy Awards have gone out to many skilled and talented actors over the years. Though many of the recipients are up-and-coming young performers, others have worked long and hard to gain their crowning achievement. Some actors don’t receive the recognition they deserve until the end of their careers, sometimes even posthumously.
For this list, the award recipients are those who won in the Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress categories. It’s also worth noting that the respective ages of each winner are determined on the day they received the Award, not the age they were when appearing in the nominated picture.
Updated on March 2nd, 2022, by Shawn S. Lealos: Age is just a number, and with the Oscars swiftly approaching, this list could change again with three actors older than several of these past winners. While there are many young actors vying for Oscars this year, there are just as many veteran actors still turning in great performances.
In 2021, the Oscars even set a new record, with the oldest actor to ever win the biggest individual honors at the Academy Awards, with Anthony Hopkins winning for his role in The Father. Here are five more of the oldest Academy Award winners who have spent years perfecting their craft to earn recognition.
20 Morgan Freeman (67)
Morgan Freeman is 84 years old and he is still acting, appearing in four different movies in 2021 alone. Throughout his amazing career, he has also picked up five Oscar nominations, winning only one of them. The first was in Street Smart, followed by Driving Miss Daisy, in which his co-star Jessica Tandy won an Oscar at the age of 80.
As for Freeman, he picked up a third nomination for The Shawshank Redemption and then finally won for Best Supporting Actor in 2004 for Million Dollar Baby at the age of 67. He earned one more nomination a few years later for playing Nelson Mandela in Invictus.
19 Edmund Gwenn (70)
Edmund Gwenn had a long and successful filmography, but he remains known today for one iconic role, and it won him an Oscar at the age of 70. In 1947, Gwenn played Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street.
Gwenn became the only person in movie history to win an Oscar for playing Santa Claus or at least a man who believed he was Santa. What is most impressive about Gwenn winning an Oscar at the late age of 70 was that he wasn’t close to finished yet. He appeared in 23 more movies after this, and he even picked up one more Oscar nomination for Mister 880.
18 Helen Hayes (70)
The 1970 movie Airport was a disaster movie and one of the earlier success stories in the genre. Today, it is a movie rarely talked about outside of the fact it was the basis for the spoof movie Airplane!, which itself is considered a cult classic.
However, Airport was a box office success and critics loved it. The movie even picked up 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. The only award that it won was for Best Supporting Actress, which went to 70-year-old Helen Hayes for playing a stowaway. Hunt was the first person to win the Triple Crown of Acting, with an Oscar, Emmy and Tony win.
17 James Coburn (70)
James Coburn was a very prolific actor, appearing in 70 movies and over 100 television episodes over his career. Many of his appearances were as a tough guy in westerns and war movies, but it was for a later role that he picked up his only Oscar win at the age of 70.
The movie was Affliction in 1997 and starred Nick Nolte as a sheriff investigating a hunting accident while dealing with personal issues. Coburn played his father Glen, a man who constantly pushed his son and was at least partially responsible for his problems. He would continue acting for five more years before dying at 74.
16 John Houseman (71)
John Houseman was 71 years and 192 days when he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase (1973). Houseman held the record for the oldest winner for two years from 1974 to 1976. The comedy-drama also received nominations in Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The story is about James Hart, a first-year law student at Harvard, and his relationship with Kingsfield, who is somewhat eccentric and demanding. Hart also has a relationship with the professor’s daughter. The film was so successful that it was turned into a television series that followed Hart’s three years at law school. Houseman reprised his role, while Timothy Bottoms was replaced by James Stephens.
15 Margaret Rutherford (71)
In 1963, Margaret Rutherford appeared in V.I.P.s, a British drama film with an all-star ensemble cast. Other cast members include Orson Welles, Maggie Smith, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Rod Taylor, Elsa Martinelli, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Rutherford portrayed the Duchess of Brighton, who is on her way to Florida for a job that will save her historic home. The film itself is set primarily in Heathrow Airport as a fog delays everyone’s flights. The VIPs in question are all dealing with some sort of personal or financial crisis, and their stories are intertwined.
14 Ruth Gordon (72)
Roman Polanski’s 1968 cult horror flick, Rosemary’s Baby, was nominated for Best Screenplay (Based on Material from Another Medium) and Best Supporting Actress, which Ruth Gordon won at the age of seventy-two.
Gordon is one member of an extensive all-star cast. The film follows a young pregnant woman in Manhattan, who comes to fear that her neighbors are part of a Satanic cult and preparing to take her baby to use in their rituals. The film is based on the eponymous novel by Ira Levin and was later adapted into a miniseries starring Zoe Saldana.
13 Alan Arkin (72)
One of the more recent entries on this list, Alan Arkin was seventy-two when he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Little Miss Sunshine in 2006.
The movie centers around the Hoover family when their daughter Olive (Abigal Breslin) decides she wants to participate in a beauty pageant. They pack up their things and travel around the country, unaware of what the journey has in store for them. Arkin plays Olive’s grandfather, alongside Paul Dano, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, and Bryan Cranston.
12 Jack Palance (73)
City Slickers is a 1991 Western comedy about three married men who begin to experience midlife crises. They move from the comfort of their urban environments and decide to rediscover their masculinity by taking a cattle drive around southwestern America.
Jack Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Curly Washburn, the trail boss at the ranch these three men visit. Curly has a tough exterior but ends up revealing more of himself as the film progresses.
11 Josephine Hull (74)
Though Josephine Hull was best known for her successful stage career, that didn’t stop her from also picking up an Oscar in 1951. At age 74, she appeared in her fifth film, Harvey. She earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for portraying a character whom she originally played on Broadway.
Harvey is a comedy-drama about a middle-aged man who is friends with a large, imaginary rabbit. It also focuses on his family members, who are worried about his mental health. Hull plays the man’s sister, Veta.
10 Katharine Hepburn (74)
While Katharine Hepburn holds the record as the actor with the most Oscar wins, she also remains one of the oldest recipients of an Academy Award. Hepburn’s first Oscar came in 1933 for Morning Glory followed by Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in 1967 and The Lion in Winter in 1968. In 1981, she nabbed her final award at the age of 74 for On Golden Pond.
The drama film focuses on a retiree and his wife, Ethel, who deal with their strained relationship with their daughter after she arrives at their New England vacation home with her fiancée and his teen son. Hepburn portrays Ethel. As it turns out, her co-star also broke a record for his performance.
9 Henry Fonda (76)
The oldest Best Actor recipient of all time is Henry Fonda. He scored this title for his performance alongside Hepburn in On Golden Pond in 1981. This came a year after he was given an Honorary Award for his five decades worth of film contributions.
Fonda had previously received a Best Actor nomination forty years earlier, for his leading performance in the drama The Grapes of Wrath. The hard work eventually paid off.
8 Peggy Ashcroft (77)
Though Peggy Ashcroft’s professional film career began in the early 30s, she didn’t receive an Academy Award nomination until 1984. This is when she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Mrs. Moore in A Passage to India.
This epic historical drama, based on the play of the same name by Santha Rama Rau, tells of a group of people who deal with a man who has been accused of raping a woman named Adela. Moore plays a woman from England who visits the fictional location with Adela.
7 Don Ameche (77)
Though Dom Ameche began professionally acting in the mid-30s, it wasn’t until 1985 that he received his first and only Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This came just a couple of years after his film revival in 1983, following a 12-year hiatus.
Ameche’s winning role was in a sci-fi comedy-drama known as Cocoon. It tells of a group of Florida residents who find a fountain of youth that has been given a revitalizing property by alien creatures.
6 John Gielgud (77)
English actor John Gielgud spent most of his life performing on stage and in films. Though he received a nomination for his performance as King Louis VII of France in the drama Becket in 1964, he didn’t receive an Oscar until he performed as Hobson in the British-American comedy Arthur in 1981.
The film tells of the titular character who plans on marrying an heiress, only to soon fall for a young, not-so-wealthy woman from Queens. While Dudley Moore played Arthur, Gielgud played his valet.
5 Melvyn Douglas (79)
Melvyn Douglas first received an Academy Award win in 1963 for his performance in Hud. After scoring a nomination for his role in I Never Sang For My Father in 1970, he scored a second Oscar at the age of 70, in 1979, for his performance in Being There.
This comedy-drama focuses on a Washington, D.C. gardener who is forced into upper-class society after a businessman makes a mistake about his identity. This businessman is played by Melvyn Douglas.
4 George Burns (80)
George Burns first appeared in the 1932 musical comedy The Big Broadcast. He continued to star in films through the mid-50s and then took a break—that is, until The Sunshine Boys came around.
This 1975 film helped revive Burns’ career, and at the time of its release, he was the oldest actor to have ever won an Oscar. The Sunshine Boys tells of two elderly comics who decide to revive their act. Burns starred alongside Walter Matthau, though he was the only one who took home an Academy Award for his performance.
3 Jessica Tandy (80)
Stage and film performer Jessica Tandy received two Oscar nominations late in her career. While she didn’t walk away with Best Supporting Actress for Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991, she did take home Best Actress for Driving Miss Daisy a couple of years earlier, in 1989. This makes her the oldest actor to receive an Academy Award for a leading role.
Driving Miss Daisy tells of an elderly woman in Atlanta who is forced to sacrifice her independence and recruit a driver after a car crash. Though her relationship with her new chauffeur, Hoke (Morgan Freeman), seems like a bump in the road, she soon begins to see the value in his friendship. Driving Miss Daisy additionally walked away with the coveted Best Picture title the year following its release.
2 Christopher Plummer (82)
For three years, the oldest actor to ever receive an Oscar was a longtime Hollywood icon, Christopher Plummer. He’s still acting at the age of 90, recently appearing in the 2020 Best Original Screenplay nominee Knives Out.
Though Plummer’s career has spanned over six decades, he’s received only three Academy Award nominations and one win. His first nomination came in 2010 for The Last Station, and his third came in 2018 for All the Money in the World. His Best Supporting Actor award arrived in 2012 for his performance in the romantic comedy-drama, Beginners.
1 Anthony Hopkins (83)
Anthony Hopkins set the record as the oldest actor to ever win an Oscar in 2021. It was considered an upset by many. The Best Actor Oscar was saved for last when that usually went to Best Picture or Best Director. The thought was that Chadwick Boseman would win a posthumous Oscar for a feel-good moment.
Instead, the Oscars ended with Anthony Hopkins winning at the age of 83 – and he wasn’t even there to accept the award. Hopkins won for portraying a man diagnosed with dementia in The Father. It was his second Oscar for Best Actor, as he already won it for Silence of the Lambs 30 years earlier.