It’s a club with very strict membership rules. Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier sit alone at the top, having earned nine Best Actor nominations each. That is a staggering amount of critical attention over a career. Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, and Peter O’Toole trail closely behind, sitting at the eight-nomination mark. Denzel Washington, Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, and Dustin Hoffman have all accumulated seven. Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Burton, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Paul Muni round out the top tier with six nods each.
But here’s the catch. Nominations don’t always equal victory.
While most of these legends eventually took home the gold, two names stand out for their absence: Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton. Despite being widely regarded as two of the greatest actors of their generation, neither ever won a competitive Academy Award for acting. O’Toole’s eight nominations stretched from 1960 to 1981. Burton’s six came between 1952 and 1974. It remains one of the Academy’s most persistent oversights.
Did they deserve it? Probably. Did they get it? No.
O’Toole eventually received an honorary Oscar in 2003. It was a nod to his body of work, but it wasn’t the competitive win that many fans and critics felt he had earned. Burton died before he could receive similar recognition.
So, who has the most Best Actor Oscar nominations? Tracy and Olivier lead with nine. Nicholson, Newman, and O’Toole are next with eight. Washington, Brando, Lemmon, and Hoffman have seven. DiCaprio, Burton, Day-Lewis, and Muni have six. Only Tracy and Olivier have reached nine.
What does that say about the Academy’s voting patterns? About who they consider “winnable” versus “legendary”?
Burton and O’Toole remain the only actors with six or more nominations and zero wins. That’s a stark distinction. Most of the others crossed the finish line. These two did not.
