It’s easy to assume that if an Oscar race comes down between someone who has won before and someone who hasn’t, the Academy would tend to prefer a newer winner. But when it comes to acting races, that really hasn’t been the case in the last decade, as seven of the last nine years have had at least one past winner receive a second or even a third Oscar. As such, it may be no accident that a few more past winners are projected favorites once again.
In the last nine years, the only times in which every single acting winner won for the first time were in 2021 and 2022. Otherwise, it has become a new tradition to welcome back a past winner every year.
2017: Frances McDormand’s second win for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
2018: Mahershala Ali’s second win for “Green Book”
2019: Renee Zellweger’s second win for “Judy”
2020: McDormand’s third win for “Nomadland,” Anthony Hopkins’ second win for “The Father”
2023: Emma Stone’s second win for “Poor Things”
2024: Adrian Brody’s second win for “The Brutalist”
2025: Sean Penn’s third win for “One Battle After Another“
In that context, it is no wonder that almost every acting field this year has a previous winner at or near the top of predictions. In fact, both Actress fields have someone projected to win a second Oscar, with 2014 winner Julianne Moore the Best Actress preseason favorite for “The Debut,” and 2012 Best Supporting Actress winner Anne Hathaway leading the category again for “The Odyssey.” If that wasn’t enough, 2008 Best Supporting Actress winner Penelope Cruz is regularly cited as Hathaway’s biggest threat, whether for “La Bola Negra” or for “The Invite” (she could also compete in Best Actress for “Bunker”).
The male acting fields don’t have those kinds of frontrunners, as Best Supporting Actor only has 2017 winner Sam Rockwell cited as a potential returning champion for “Wild Horse Nine.” Best Actor does have a past winner of sorts among the favorites in Matt Damon for “The Odyssey,” though his past win was for co-writing “Good Will Hunting” in 1997 instead of acting. Otherwise, except for the likes of Rami Malek, Javier Bardem and Ali as assumed longshots, all of the Best Actor frontrunners are seeking their first win after being long overdue – yet those races are more the exception than the rule in recent years.
Nowadays, it isn’t safe to assume voters will go for a newcomer or an overdue veteran over someone they’ve already picked before. Otherwise, either Stellan Skarsgard or Jacob Elordi would have beaten Penn in 2025, Timothee Chalamet or Ralph Fiennes would have beaten Brody in 2024, Lily Gladstone would have beaten Stone in 2023, Chadwick Boseman and Carey Mulligan would have beaten McDormand and Hopkins in 2020, Scarlett Johansson or Saoirse Ronan would have beaten Zellweger in 2019, Richard E. Grant or Sam Elliot would have beaten Ali in 2018. Sally Hawkins or Ronan would have beaten McDormand in 2017.
To that end, it’s no wonder pundits think Moore will win once again over a newcomer like Inde Navarrette or a winless veteran like Renate Reinsve, that Hathaway or Cruz will beat a newcomer like Mariana di Girolamo or a winless veteran like Sandra Huller, and that maybe Rockwell will take a second win regardless of whether he goes in Lead or Supporting. Yet when one looks closer at the last nine years, some patterns emerge that will be very essential for the likes of Moore, Hathaway, Cruz, Rockwell and any other former winners to match again.
Seven actors have won a second or third Oscar in the last nine years – and all but one did so for a movie that either won Best Picture, or was likely either a runner-up or no worse than in the top three. McDormand won her second for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the de facto runner-up in 2017, then won a third for “Nomadland,” which went all the way. Ali’s second and Penn’s third were for Best Picture winners in “Green Book” and “One Battle After Another,” while Hopkins, Stone and Brody won their second for movies in “The Father,” “Poor Things,“ and “The Brutalist“ that were likely second or third in the final ballot.
The one exception was Zellweger, who won for “Judy,” a film that wasn’t even a Best Picture nominee and likely didn’t come close. But the 2019 Best Actress race was a perfect storm of factors that made her win easily anyway, and one that doesn’t usually happen again. Not only was top critics’ season winner Lupita Nyong’o snubbed by the Academy for “Us,” in part because that movie didn’t get much awards season traction across the board, but no one who was nominated was from a major Best Picture contender either. Both Charlize Theron and Cynthia Erivo were nominated for films that weren’t Best Picture nominees in “Bombshell“ and “Harriet,“ and both Johansson and Ronan were nominated for films in “Marriage Story“ and “Little Women“ that faded from win-competitive contention.
In those unique circumstances, with a field of challengers from fading Best Picture films or from snubbed ones, nothing that was missing or lacking from “Judy“ derailed Zellweger in the slightest that year. Nonetheless, every other actor who has won again since 2017 absolutely needed to ride the coattails of a Best Picture winner or top runner-up to get over the hump. Otherwise, they might have ended up like Cate Blanchett in 2022 when “Tár” wasn’t strong enough to get her a third win, like past winners Bardem, Nicole Kidman and J.K. Simmons in 2021 when they were all nominated for the Best Picture nominee snub “Being the Ricardos,“ or Benicio del Toro last year when he wasn’t the only previous winner nominated in the same category for the eventual Best Picture winner.
This could be a big red flag for Moore in particular this year, as “The Debut“ is favored to win two acting Oscars for her and Paul Giamatti, but is hardly considered a threat to win Best Picture. Unless it backs up both Moore and Giamatti’s hype during fall festivals and lifts the rest of the film higher than expected, “The Debut“ probably won’t be considered a top-two or top-three contender as the season goes on.
Without this advantage that so many eventual repeat winners have counted on lately, Moore might become extra vulnerable in the long run, even if she remains the frontrunner after fall fests. And yet since no other projected Best Actress contenders are from Best Picture favorites, maybe this will be a race that turns out exactly like 2019, with challengers from lower-tier Best Picture nominees and from those that aren’t close to getting in.
However, none of the other past winners-turned-projected current contenders have this problem right now. Between Hathaway having the current Best Picture favorite “The Odyssey“ backing her up, Cruz having top projected Best Picture challenger “La Bola Negra“ as one of two possibilities to get her in, and Rockwell lurking with another possible future frontrunner in “Wild Horse Nine,“ these all fit the bill of repeat recent winners a lot easier.
Of course, depending on how “La Bola Negra“ does with audiences outside of Cannes and how “Wild Horse Nine“ fares at Venice in a matter of days, Hathaway could be the last one standing amongst this group soon enough. Since “The Odyssey“ is presumed safe as a top two or three contender all season, regardless of how long it is favored to win, Hathaway may already be the safest bet to match almost all the repeat winners before her – assuming they don’t actually move her up to Lead, or assuming someone else doesn’t seize Best Supporting Actress momentum from her at the fall festivals.
Either way, if Hathaway, Cruz, Moore, Rockwell or anyone else who won before is among this year’s nominees, history suggests it is a sure thing to bet on at least one of them to win. This isn’t a pandemic year like 2021, and this isn’t a year where a cast without a single past winner is bound to sweep like 2022. Otherwise, if this is a regular year like every other since 2017, at least one very familiar face would therefore be in the Oscar acting quartet group photo yet again.
Do you believe any of these previous acting winners will win another acting Oscar this year? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account, and check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.
