Although the Academy Awards recently had their fair share of controversy, receiving an Oscar is still considered the most significant achievement in the world of acting. Even just being nominated for an Academy Award is a success. This is why we decided to take a trip through the Academy Awards history and see which actors and actresses had the most success when it comes to the number of nominations. Let’s check it out.
Bette Davis
10 Nominations: 2 Wins
Actress Bette Davis received a total of 10 Academy Awards nominations for her acting work, all in the Best Actress category. Her nominations resulted in two Oscars for her work in movies Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938).
Jack Nicholson
12 Nominations: 3 Wins
Jack Nicholson has a reputation for being one of the best actors of all time, and his Academy Award track record shows that. He was nominated for the most prestigious acting award 12 times. He won the Oscar three times, including the Best Actor award for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and As Good as It Gets (1997), and Best Supporting Actor award for Terms of Endearment (1983).
Katharine Hepburn
12 Nominations: 4 Wins
No actor and actress besides Katharine Hepburn managed to win four Academy Awards. To make her feat even more impressive, Hepburn won all her Oscars in the Best Actress category for movies Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). Hepburn had a total of 12 nominations.
Meryl Streep
21 Nominations: 3 Wins
There is a reason why we all have a feeling that Meryl Streep is being nominated for an Oscar every year; it’s because she usually is. Streep has a total of 21 Academy Award nominations, including 17 in the Best Actress category and four in the Best Supporting Actress category. She has two wins in the former category for movies Sophie’s Choice (1983) and The Iron Lady (2012), and one win in the latter category for the 1980’s legal drama Kramer vs. Kramer.
