Actors who have the most acting Oscar nominations without winning

OK, so it feels a little silly to put an actress so young on this list, and an eventual win for Ronan seems inevitable. For now, though, the Irish-American actress is on the list, because in her young life she has racked up four Oscar nominations already, all before she turned 30.

Dafoe is an intense actor, which may be why he’s more of a complementary piece in many films than a star. Given that, it makes sense he’s been nominated three times for supporting roles and once for lead actor. Though he’s in his sixties, two of Dafoe’s nominations came in 2018 and 2019, so there’s still plenty of time for him to win an Academy Award.

Harris has a lot of Dafoe to him, as he too is an excellent – but intense – character actor. It’s hard to imagine him leading a romantic comedy, basically. However, his three supporting nods (out of four total) don’t come in terribly dark movies. One of them is from the Jim Carrey comedy “The Truman Show,” and another is from the crowd-pleasing “Apollo 13.”

Williams is another fairly young actress who has five nominations to her name. The fortysomething actress has three nominations for Best Actress, and two more for her work in supporting roles. She did win a Golden Globe for “My Week With Marilyn,” but an Oscar has yet to arrive.

Once upon a time, it seemed certain that Beatty would win an Oscar for acting (he won Best Director for “Reds”). He had four nominations for Best Actor by 1991. Alas, Beatty has basically retired as an actor. He’s acted once since 2001, and that was to finally get his long-gestating Howard Hughes movie “Rules Don’t Apply” off the ground in 2016. It seems like Beatty’s window to win, or even pick up another nomination, is closed. These days he's mostly a "Dick Tracy" rights squatter.

Alexander may not be as big of a name as the ones we’ve named so far, but she has four nominations like everybody else. The actress (and former chairperson for the National Endowment of the Arts) does have a Tony and two Emmy wins, however. The 84-year-old is still acting, though she has never been prolific on the big screen, as she’s been in only 24 films in her career.

Mason was married to the writer Neil Simon for a decade from 1973 through 1983. The two seemed to have a good working relationship at that time. Three of her four nominations for Best Actress came in movies written by Simon. To a younger generation, Mason is probably best known for playing Sherry, Martin’s girlfriend on “Frasier.” She was nominated for an Emmy for that role.

No, not Mickey Rourke, who may have a better reputation in terms of taking on “award bait” type roles, but Rooney. He may be thought of primarily as a guy who made light musicals with Judy Garland, but Rooney had a long career, and he picked up four acting nominations in his career. Thankfully, one of them wasn’t for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

As the opening song to “Rocky Horror Picture Show” says, Claude Rains was the Invisible Man. He also played a memorable role in “Casablanca.” Rains had a reputation for playing a gripping villain in his career, and he ended up with four nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

The Golden Globes loved Russell. She was nominated five times and won for all five of her nominations. The Academy Awards were much less kind. While Russell was nominated for Best Actress four times spanning decades of her career, she did not win once.

Clift was one of the first famed method actors, and he was nominated for Best Actor three times between 1948 and 1953. He then added a Supporting Actor nomination a few years later. Sadly, Clift passed away at the age of 45, otherwise, he may have picked up a win eventually.

Stanwyck was one of the biggest stars of her era, and she played one of the iconic femme fatales in “Double Indemnity.” She was nominated for that movie but did not win. It’s one of her four nominations for Best Actress that never came to fruition.

It’s fair if you don’t remember Boyer, given that he made his debut in 1920. His first nomination for Best Actor was for “Conquest” in 1937, while his last was for “Fanny” in 1961. In between, he also played a villainous, Oscar-nominated role in “Gaslight.” Yes, Boyer was the original gaslighter.

You likely remember Moorehead as Endora, mother of Samantha on “Bewitched.” However, Moorehead was bewitching herself. She charmed the Academy into nominating her four times for Best Supporting Actress, but she never won. Oddly, she also didn’t win an Emmy for “Bewitched,” though she was nominated twice.

We now move on to the actors who had five nominations without a win. All three in the five-timers club are no longer with us, so there shall be no eventual winners here. Finney was considered one of the best actors of his generation, wowing from the ‘60s all the way up through the 2000s. Unfortunately, he died in 2019 without a win to his credit.

Dunne was one of the first big movie stars, and four of her five nominations for Best Actress came in the 1930s. Yes, the woman nicknamed “The First Lady of Hollywood” got five nominations for Best Actress but was not able to win once. While her star has fallen a bit in the ensuing decades, her career was truly incredible.

Kennedy is a legend on the stage, as he was in the original cast for several Arthur Miller plays, including winning a Tony for playing Biff Loman in the original production of “Death of a Salesman.” He was also a fine supporting piece in the film, getting four nominations for Supporting Actor. Kennedy did also add a Best Actor nod for “Bright Victory” in 1951, losing to Humphrey Bogart.

Thanks to 2023's "Nyad," Bening now one-ups her husband Beatty in terms of nominations. Talk about a power couple. Of course, neither of them has taken home an acting Oscar just yet. Unlike Beatty, Bening is still acting, and just earned her fifth nomination. If either member of that couple is going to be winning another Oscar, it’s likely Bening.

After the success of “A Star is Born,” it seems almost as likely that Cooper could win for directing as for acting. However, we cannot overlook his five acting nominations. Oddly, he has two nominations from movies with “American” in the title: “American Hustle” and “American Sniper.” Cooper was in two films nominated for Best Picture for 2021, but was surprisingly not nominated for acting for either of them. "Maestro," starring Cooper directing himself, seemed like it had Oscar hopes, and Cooper did earn that fourth Best Actor nomination. Ultimately, though, "Maestro" picked up a goose egg at the Oscars.

We’re up to the six-time nominees without wins now. Adams is very much alive, and not even that old, so a win seems like it is coming. Interestingly, five of her nominations have come for Best Supporting Actress. She’s an excellent actor and seemed primed to – at the very least – get one of those makeup Oscars for a great career at some point.

Kerr never got a career recognition award. What she did get, though, is a staggering six nominations for Best Actress. Yes, Kerr was acknowledged a whopping six times for her lead work in film. Nobody has been nominated for Best Actress more without winning even once. While Kerr is remembered as a legendary actor, there was never an Oscar win to make that even clearer.

You could consider Ritter the ultimate team player. After all, she was nominated six times for Best Supporting Actress. You read that correctly. Ritter was never nominated for a lead role, but on a half dozen occasions, her supporting work was considered worthy of being nominated. In a way, maybe it’s fitting such a perfect complementary actor ended up not winning, though she was certainly deserving.

Burton married Elizabeth Taylor more times (twice) than he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (once). However, he supplemented that one nomination with a whopping six nods for Best Actor. One of those nominations came for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”  which he starred in with Taylor. Burton crammed a ton of life into the 58 years he lived, and one wonders if he had taken a bit better care of himself if he could have won that elusive Oscar.

By not winning for "Hillbilly Elegy," Close joined an exclusive club. She is now one of two actors to have picked up eight nominations for an Oscar without winning. Close is the only one of the two that is still alive, which means two things. One, she could win and get herself off this list. Two, she could pick up another nomination and not win, thereby becoming the ultimate runner-up in Oscars history. Hey, that's impressive in its own way.

And yet, nobody has been more snakebitten than O’Toole. Somehow, he did not end up winning a single-acting Oscar. A true pillar of cinema for decades, O’Toole was nominated eight times for Best Actor. Only five people were have been nominated more for a lead actor award. He was unable to win a single one of those. O’Toole passed away in 2013, assuring that he would hold onto this dubious distinction. There is no man alive who is close to tying or eclipsing, O’Toole’s dubious distinction.