Mahershala Ali has received numerous awards and nominations throughout his career, including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.
As a part of the ensemble cast of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) earned him a nomination for the SAG Award for Outstanding Cast, which he would later win for Hidden Figures (2016). He received Primetime Emmy and SAG Award nominations for his role in House of Cards (20132016).
Ali received critical acclaim and won Academy Awards and SAG Awards for Best Supporting Actor for Moonlight (2016) and Green Book (2018), as well as a BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for the latter. He's the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar, as well as the second black actor to win multiple acting Oscars and the only black actor to win twice in the same acting category.
Ali was nominated for the Primetime Emmy and SAG Award for Outstanding Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for playing Wayne Hays in the third season of the HBO crime anthology True Detective (2019). The next year, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program for producing ' (2020), and received another Emmy nomination for his role in the second season of Ramy (2020). He received nominations for the BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his role in the science fiction romance Swan Song (2021). His narration of the Netflix documentary Chimp Empire (2023) earned him his fifth Emmy nomination.