List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees

This article lists the oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees in the directing and acting award categories.

This list is current as of the 98th Academy Awards ceremony held on March 15, 2026, and is based on statistics documented in The Official Academy Awards Database.

Superlatives

Among the oldest and youngest winners and nominees of Academy Awards in standard competitive categories, the following superlatives emerge:

Craft and Technical

At the 90th Academy Awards, James Ivory became the oldest Oscar winner in any category, at age 89, after receiving the award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Call Me by Your Name. At the 93rd Academy Awards, Ann Roth became the oldest woman to win an Oscar in any category, at age 89, after receiving the award for Best Costume Design for her work on Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

At the 95th Academy Awards, John Williams became the oldest Oscar nominee in any category, at age 90, after receiving his 53rd Oscar nomination for Best Original Score for his work on The Fabelmans. At the 96th Academy Awards, he broke the record again, at age 91, after receiving his 54th Oscar nomination for Best Original Score for his work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Multiple winners

Youngest recipients

There are only six people in Oscar history who have won two Oscars by the age of 30 or younger:

• Bette Davis for Dangerous and Jezebel
• Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth
• Jodie Foster for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs
• Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby
• Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell for the songs "No Time to Die" from No Time to Die and "What Was I Made For?" from Barbie

Davis, Rainer, Foster, and Swank won their awards in the Best Actress category, while Eilish and O'Connell won theirs in the Best Original Song category. Eilish is the youngest person to have won two Oscars in any category, aged 22 at the time of her second win.

Oldest recipients

There are only fourteen people in Oscar history who have won two or more Oscars at age of 60 or older:

• Joseph Ruttenberg for Somebody Up There Likes Me and Gigi
• Cedric Gibbons and Edwin B. Willis for Julius Caesar and Somebody Up There Likes Me
• Fred Quimby for The Cat Concerto, The Little Orphan, The Two Mouseketeers, and Johann Mouse
• Katharine Hepburn for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter, and On Golden Pond
• Edith Head for The Facts of Life and The Sting
• Melvyn Douglas for Hud and Being There
• Glen Robinson for Earthquake, The Hindenburg, King Kong, and Logan's Run
• Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby
• Michael Kahn for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan
• Thelma Schoonmaker for The Aviator and The Departed
• Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049 and 1917
• Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Nomadland
• Hayao Miyazaki for Spirited Away and The Boy and the Heron

Ruttenberg, Gibbons and Willis, Quimby, Hepburn, Head, Kahn, Schoonmaker, and McDormand are the only people who have won awards when younger than 60, and also when aged 60 or older.

Hepburn is the only actress who won her awards more than twice after her 60s in the Best Actress category.

Best Director

Oldest winners

Source: "Academy Award Statistics: Directing: Oldest/Youngest Directing Nominees/Winners", AMPAS Awards Database

Oldest nominees

Youngest winners

Youngest nominees

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Source: "Academy Award Statistics: Acting: Oldest/Youngest Winners and Nominees for Acting, By Category: Actor [in a Leading Role]", AMPAS Awards Database

Oldest winners

Oldest nominees

Youngest winners

Youngest nominees

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Source: "Academy Award Statistics: Acting: Oldest/Youngest Winners and Nominees for Acting, By Category: Actress [in a Leading Role]", AMPAS Awards Database

Oldest winners

Oldest nominees

Youngest winners

Youngest nominees

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

:Source: "Academy Award Statistics: Acting: Oldest/Youngest Winners and Nominees for Acting, By Category: Actor [in a Supporting Role]", AMPAS Awards Database

Oldest winners

Oldest nominees

Youngest winners

Youngest nominees

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Source: "Academy Award Statistics: Acting: Oldest/Youngest Winners and Nominees for Acting, By Category: Actress [in a Supporting Role]", AMPAS Awards Database

Oldest winners

Oldest nominees

Youngest winners

Youngest nominees

Honorary Awards

Source: "Academy Award Statistics: Acting: Oldest/Youngest Winners and Nominees for Acting, By Category: Acting Honorary Award Winners", AMPAS Awards Database

Academy Honorary Award

Oldest honorees

Oldest acting honorees

Honorary Juvenile Award

Youngest honorees

See also

• Academy Awards
• Academy Juvenile Award
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)
• List of Academy Award records
• List of actors with Academy Award nominations
• List of actors with more than one Academy Award nomination in the acting categories
• List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
• List of people who have won multiple Academy Awards in a single year
• List of posthumous Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of superlative Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of Millennial Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of Generation Z Academy Award winners and nominees

References

External links

• "Academy Award Statistics" – Index ("Statistics Menu") published in The Official Academy Awards Database (Awards Database), on the official AMPAS website. ("Statistics are arranged by award category and represent eighty years of Academy Awards history through the 80th Academy Awards, presented on February 24, 2008." [Documents for "Directing" and "Acting" both last updated March 2008.])
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) – Official website.