# Oscar nominations **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 1, 2004, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864 "2004-03-01T04:53:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![silentbear1283](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@silentbear1283](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silentbear1283)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864/1 "2004-03-01T04:53:01Z")
has there ever been an actor or an actress that has been nominated for two movies in the same year? i seem to recall something like that happening a few years ago but i can’t recall. any help would be appreciated. thanks. ---
**Author:** ![richardb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@richardb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richardb)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864/2 "2004-03-01T09:14:01Z")
From the Academy’s database at [www.oscars.org](http://www.oscars.org): > [@](#): > > PERSONS NOMINATED IN TWO ACTING CATEGORIES IN THE SAME YEAR > (\* indicates winner) > > 1938 (11th) Fay Bainter > Actress – White Banners > Actress in a Supporting Role – Jezebel \* > > 1942 (15th) Teresa Wright > Actress – The Pride of the Yankees > Actress in a Supporting Role – Mrs. Miniver \* > > 1944 (17th) Barry Fitzgerald > Actor – Going My Way > Actor in a Supporting Role – Going My Way \* > [Note: Rules have since been changed not to allow a double nomination for the same performance.] > > 1982 (55th) Jessica Lange > Actress in a Leading Role – Frances > Actress in a Supporting Role – Tootsie \* > > 1988 (61st) Sigourney Weaver > Actress in a Leading Role – Gorillas in the Mist > Actress in a Supporting Role – Working Girl > > 1992 (65th) Al Pacino > Actor in a Leading Role – Scent of a Woman \* > Actor in a Supporting Role – Glengarry Glen Ross > > 1993 (66th) Holly Hunter > Actress in a Leading Role – The Piano \* > Actress in a Supporting Role – The Firm > > 1993 (66th) Emma Thompson > Actress in a Leading Role – The Remains of the Day > Actress in a Supporting Role – In the Name of the Father > > 2002 (75th) Julianne Moore > Actress in a Leading Role – Far from Heaven > Actress in a Supporting Role – The Hours An actor has never had two Best or two Supporting nominations the same year. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864/3 "2004-03-01T10:40:07Z")
> [@richardb](#): > > An actor has never had two Best or two Supporting nominations the same year. 1927/1928: Richard Barthelmess for _The Noose_ and _The Patent Leather Kid_. 1927/1928: Emil Jannings, _The Last Command_ and _The Way of All Flesh_. 1929/1930: George Arliss, _Disraeli_ and _The Green Goddess_ (he won only for the former). 1929/1930: Maurice Chevalier, _The Big Pond_ and _The Love Parade_. 1929/1930: Ronald Colman, _Bulldog Drummond_ and _Condemned_. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864/4 "2004-03-01T15:20:14Z")
And Janet Gaynor won the very first Best Actress award (1927/28) for her performances in _Sunrise_, _Seventh Heaven_ and _Street Angel_. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864/5 "2004-03-01T16:55:31Z")
The British BAFTAs appear far more forgiving in multiple nominations. This year alone, Scarlett Johansson was nominated for “The Girl with the Pearl Earring” and “Lost in Translation” and won for the later. (“Monster” was apparently not elgible for this year’s awards.) So I then expected Sean Pean to win since he was nominated for “21 Grams” and “Mystic River” but Bill Murray won instead. (“Lost in Translation” was a big winner at BAFTA. Whoo-hoo!) ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864/6 "2004-03-01T17:56:55Z")
It may not be that the BAFTAs are more forgiving but that the campaigns to win BAFTA nominations are different than Oscar campaigns. Studios/agents/publicists/whoever pick a performance for an actor in a year and push that role for a nomination. It doesn’t help the chances of a nominee to compete against him/herself in the same category as s/he’ll split the votes between two performances. ---
**Author:** ![richardb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@richardb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richardb)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-nominations/231864/7 "2004-03-02T01:36:01Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > 1927/1928: Richard Barthelmess for _The Noose_ and _The Patent Leather Kid_. > 1927/1928: Emil Jannings, _The Last Command_ and _The Way of All Flesh_. > 1929/1930: George Arliss, _Disraeli_ and _The Green Goddess_ (he won only for the former). > 1929/1930: Maurice Chevalier, _The Big Pond_ and _The Love Parade_. > 1929/1930: Ronald Colman, _Bulldog Drummond_ and _Condemned_. OK… in the first couple of years that the Academy Awards were presented, the Best Actor and Best Actress awards were for the individual actor which could include more than one movie. Both movies (or three movies, as **Otto** pointed out) were listed on the ballot, but a win meant that the actor had won, not thier performance in one or the other particular film. In the year following the 1929 -1930 awards, the rules were changed to allow only one nomination in each category, for a single movie performance. That being said, the fact that you said George Arliss “won only for” Disraeli confused me. I looked it up on IMDB, and sure enough, it says that he was nominated for The Green Goddess and won for Disreali. This flied in the face of what I thought to be true, so much so that I actually went to look it up. From _ **65 Years of the Oscar** The Official History of the Academy Awards_ by Robert Osborne (I realize this book is ten years old, but history from the 1930’s has’t changed much since 1992): > [@](#): > > Though the awards ballot listed both films in Arliss’s nomination, the award was announced for only the _Disraeli_ performance. Why this was has not been etablished; it might posibly have been because the original report from the Acting Branch Board of Judges only listed this one performance in the results of the nominations voting, or it could have resulted from voters indicating a preference for the _Disraeli_ performance over that in _Goddess_ on their final ballots. The situation was the same for Norma Shearer as Best Actresses, and the books description here also explains the rule change: > [@](#): > > The official Academy voting ballot for 1929-30 lists Miss Shearer with a single nomination encompassing two achievments (_The Divorcee_ and _Their Own Desire_) but her award was officially presented solely for the first-named film, in which she played a free-spirited woman involved with a broken marriage and her ex-husband’s best friend. How, or why, the single designation was made is now a mystery to everyone, including Academy researchers (and, in the years before her death in 1983, to Miss Shearer herself). But the following year, a rule change stated in the future “no performer shall be entitled to more that one nomination, with the achievement polling the highest vote to be listed in case the individual may have recieved enough votes for different achievements to be entitled to more than one nomination.” Both quotes from page 25 of the book. The listing of nominations for the first two years have each Actor and each Actress listed only once, with the film **or films** following their names. So even then they received only one nomination, and in subsequent years with the rules change they still received only one nomination, but then only for one film.