At 29, Adrien Brody set a new Oscar record as the youngest Best Actor winner in 2003 and 22 years later, that record has yet to be beat. He’s nominated again this year for “The Brutalist” and so is Timothée Chalamet, who might become the only other male actor under thirty to score the prize for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.”
In Hollywood, it’s not uncommon for actresses, including Marlee Matlin, Jennifer Lawrence and Audrey Hepburn to win in their 20s, but leading such as Paul Newman, Al Pacino and Brad Pitt had to wait until much later in their career to finally take home the gold statuette.
Here are the 10 Youngest Best Actor winners in Oscar history. (Note: The year listed is when the Oscar was awarded, not when the film was released.)
10. Charles Laughton, 34 years, 258 days for “The Private Life of Henry VIII” (1934)
The British actor and director, whose best-known films include “Witness for the Prosecution,” “Spartacus” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” won Best Actor at the 6th Academy Awards for playing Henry VIII. His competition for the awards, which spanned 1932 to 1933, included Lionel Barrymore and John Barrymore, as well as James Cagney and the previous year’s winner Wallace Beery.
9. Clark Gable, 34 years, 26 days, “It Happened One Night” (1935)
Gable’s win for the Frank Capra romantic comedy was part of a historic sweep of the top categories: Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Actress (Claudette Colbert), and Best Adapted Screenplay. He held the record for youngest winner in the category for six years. Five years later he was nominated again for his most famous role as Rhett Butler in “Gone With the Wind,” but was not one of the film’s eight Oscar wins.
8. Eddie Redmayne, 33 years, 47 days, “The Theory of Everything” (2015)
At the 87th Oscars, Redmayne collected the trophy for his portrayal of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.” He was nominated again the following year for “The Danish Girl,” but lost to Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Revenant.”
7. Daniel Day-Lewis, 32 years, 331 days, “My Left Foot” (1990)
The now-retired acting legend won the first of his three Best Actor Oscars in 1990 for his portrayal of Christy Brown in “My Left Foot.” He followed that up with a statuette for 2007’s “There Will Be Blood” and for playing Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg’s 2012 biopic.
6. James Stewart, 32 years, 283 days, “The Philadelphia Story” (1941)
Stewart’s role in “The Philadelphia Story” was really more supporting, but many consider this win to be retroactive for his lead performance the year before in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” He held record for 14 years until 1955. Ginger Rogers, who costarred with Stewart in “Vivacious Lady,” won Best Actress that year for “Kitty Foyle.”
5. Nicolas Cage, 32 years, 78 days, “Leaving Las Vegas” (1996)
Despite coming from a showbiz family — his uncle is Francis Ford Coppola — Cage carved out his own path as an intense, chameleon-like performer in often quirky roles such as “Vampire’s Kiss” and “Raising Arizona.” He won the Oscar with his first nomination, a role in which he played a hopeless alcoholic. He was nominated again for his dual role in 2002’s “Adaptation.”
4. Maximilian Schell, 31 years, 122 days, “Judgment at Nuremberg” (1962)
The Swiss actor, who was born in Austria, was brilliant as an attorney who ruthlessly interrogates Holocaust survivors played by Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift in Stanley Kramer’s drama about the Nuremberg trials of 1947. He beat out his “Judgment at Nuremberg” costar Spencer Tracy and Paul Newman in his third acting nomination (out of an eventual 9) for “Hud.”
3. Marlon Brando, 30 years, 361 days, “On the Waterfront” (1955)
Brando won the first of his two Oscars for his role as former boxer Terry Molloy, who “coulda been somebody,” until a mob boss convinced him to throw a fight. He attended the 1955 ceremony in person, but famously sent Sacheen Littlefeather to accept in his place when he won Best Actor for “The Godfather” in 1973. He was the youngest winner in the category for 23 years, until Richard Dreyfuss in 1978.
2. Richard Dreyfuss, 30 years, 156 days, “The Goodbye Girl” (1978)
The “Jaws” star set a new record when he was named Best Actor on April 3, 1978. In the Herbert Ross film, he played struggling off-Broadway actor Elliot Garfield who finds romance with the single mom (Marsha Mason) whose room he’s renting. Mason was nominated for Best Actress while Quinn Cummings, who played her daughter, became one of the youngest Best Supporting Actress nominees at 10 and a half.
1. Adrien Brody, 29 years, 343 days, “The Pianist” (2003)
Brody has held the record as the youngest Best Actor winner for 21 years. He played pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman in the 2002 biopic from Roman Polanski, who also won a Best Director Oscar. Brody’s nominated again for Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” in which he stars as László Tóth, an emigré architect who survived the Holocaust.
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