The Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance () is an award presented at the Berlin International Film Festival for an outstanding performance in a leading role and chosen by the jury from the films in main competition at the festival.
At the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival, the Festival organization announced it would retire the Best Actor and Best Actress categories, adopting gender neutral categories alongside a Best Supporting Performance category. The move was met with controversy, but intensified the gender neutral categories debate in other awards shows and festivals.
Maren Eggert was the first recipient of this award for her role as in I'm Your Man (2021). Sandra Hüller is the most recent winner of this award for her performance in Rose (2026).
In 2023, SofÃÂa Otero became the prize's youngest winner for , at nine-year-old.