From Glenn Close to Brad Pitt: 15 A-list actors who have never won an Oscar

An Academy Award is the holy grail for any film actor. While many will claim that it’s “just an honor being nominated,” the truth is that a win can put a huge gold star on your résumé and be a major upgrade to your career. Actors get more bucks for their work once they’ve received a golden statue, not to mention the admiration of their peers and audiences.

While it’s easy to assume most big-name actors with talent have won before, that’s definitely not the case. Here’s a list of industry heavyweights who have yet to take home the big prize.

Sam Elliott

Perhaps one of the most underrated supporting actors during a career spanning 50 (!) years, Elliott finally got his first Academy Award nomination this year for his supporting role in Bradley Cooper’s musical drama A Star is Born. After racking up a long list of appearances in iconic films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Big Lebowski, will he finally get the accolades he deserves? We’ll find out come February 24.

Annette Bening

With an illustrious, decades-long career that began in theater in the 1980s and went on to include mesmerizing performances in hit films, Bening hasn’t yet had the chance to dust off her mantle and make room for a golden statue. She has, however, been nominated four times, including for The Grifters (1990), American Beauty (1999), Being Julia (2004), and The Kids Are All Right (2010). With several projects in the works, including a role in the upcoming film The Report, about CIA agents using extreme interrogation tactics on suspects in the wake of 9/11, 2020 could be her year.

Will Smith

Smith got his start as a rapper, of course, which eventually led to his role as the titular Fresh Prince of Bel Air on TV. Smith eventually worked his way up the Hollywood A-list, delivering buzzworthy performances in blockbuster hit franchises like Men in Black and Bad Boys, becoming one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. Smith has also shown serious acting chops in films like Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness, both of which earned him Academy Award nominations. Yet, despite those honors and plenty of attempts at critic-pleasing roles, Smith has never won the coveted gold statue.

Glenn Close

Holding the dubious record for the living actor with the most nominations but no wins, Close has seven nods to her name dating back to 1983’s The World According to Garp. She’s been nominated again this year for her role in The Wife. Prior to that, she got a nod for Albert Nobbs in 2012, among others, including her iconic role as a spurned lover in Fatal Attraction in 1988, when she was beaten out by Cher for Moonstruck. She has plenty of other awards to her name, including a Golden Globe for The Wife, which resulted in a passionate acceptance speech. If all goes well for the actress come the big day, she might finally be adding that Oscar to her long list of awards.

Johnny Depp

A leading man known as a tremendous character actor, Depp couldn’t snag a statue for some of his most iconic roles. Nominated three times, once for playing Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2004), then again for Finding Neverland (2005), and finally for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2008), he hasn’t gotten any Oscar recognition for a decade. With his stock trending heavily downward for both personal and professional reasons, one wonders if he’ll ever make it to the podium.

Brad Pitt

In fairness, Pitt does have a statue occupying his mantel at home. But it’s for producing 12 Years a Slave in 2014. His acting chops have led to a few nods from the Academy, including nominations for his supporting role in 12 Monkeys (1996) and lead roles in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2009) and Moneyball (2012). Alas, he was left clapping for the winners, not walking onto the stage.

Jake Gyllenhaal

Wait, Gyllenhaal doesn’t have an Oscar? Nope. And he’s actually only been nominated once, back in 2006 for Brokeback Mountain. The actor hasn’t won a Golden Globe either, which means he’s ripe for some Hollywood respect. While he’s had plenty of impressive and challenging roles in his career, how he didn’t win it all for Nightcrawler is beyond us.

Amy Adams

With six Oscar nods, Adams is on the list of actors who have the most nominations without a win. She has won tons of other awards, including Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences keeps passing Adams by. First, it was for Best Supporting Actress in Junebug (2006), then Doubt (2009), The Fighter (2011), and The Master (2013). She was nominated for Best Actress for 2013’s American Hustle, but she lost to Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine. Can this gal catch a break? Adams received her sixth nomination for Vice this year, so we’ll be pulling for her to break the trend.

Robert Downey Jr.

Clearly, it pays (literally) to be part of the Marvel universe, as Downey Jr. has consistently made it onto Forbes’ annual highest-paid actors list, even ranking first from 2012-2015. Yet, Oscar accolades have escaped him. He’s been twice nominated — once for Chaplin in 1993 and the second time for a very different role in the comedy Tropic Thunder in 2009. In 1993, he lost to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman, and in 2009 to the late Heath Ledger for his role in The Dark Knight. At least Downey Jr. can say that he lost out to a pair of fine actors in incredible roles.

Michelle Williams

Williams has made a name for herself among the Hollywood elite, and has racked up a total of four Academy Award nominations. But despite getting nods for her lead and supporting roles in Brokeback Mountain (2006), Blue Valentine (2011), My Week with Marilyn (2012), and Manchester by the Sea (2017), she hasn’t yet earned a win. This year, Williams is out of the running. There’s always next year?

Tom Cruise

Despite being involved in many iconic action films and franchises, Cruise has never won an Academy Award. He has, however, been nominated three times, including for Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Jerry Maguire (1996), and Magnolia (1999). It’s been almost two decades since Cruise has been seen anywhere close to the Oscar race, though. Given his focus on action-packed flicks that don’t tend to earn nods, he may just have to say goodbye to any hope for an Oscar outside a possible Lifetime Achievement award.

Joaquin Phoenix

That weird mockumentary aside, Phoenix is a great actor who has been in a number of fine films. When it comes to the Academy Awards, he’s fallen just short a few times. He has been nominated three times for an Oscar, for Gladiator (2001), Walk the Line (2006), and The Master (2013). While his co-star Reese Witherspoon won for playing June Carter Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line, Phoenix, who played Johnny Cash, lost out that year to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman for his role in Capote.

Sigourney Weaver

With a long and successful career that includes key roles in box-office hits like Aliens, Ghostbusters, and Avatar, Weaver has always taken a back seat come Oscar season. She has received three nominations, for Aliens (1987), Working Girl (1989), and Gorillas in the Mist (1989). In fact, the latter two nominations, as you’ll note, were in the same year, and she took home the Golden Globe for both roles that same year, making her the first person to accomplish that feat. An Academy Award doesn’t look to be on the horizon for Weaver anytime soon, but one can never tell when the planets will align.

Edward Norton

When you think of some of the most thought-provoking films of the past 20 years, chances are that Norton has been in a lot of them. Indeed, he has received a trio of Academy Award nominations, for Primal Fear (1997), American History X (1999), and Birdman (2015), but he hasn’t yet won. At the ceremony four years ago, the last time Norton’s face was shown in the nominee readings, he lost to J.K. Simmons for Whiplash.

Woody Harrelson

From cracking jokes on Cheers to working on shocking films like Natural Born Killers, as well as TV anthology series True Detective, Harrelson has had a long and varied career. Last year marked his third nomination, this time for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, where he competed in the Best Supporting Actor race. Unfortunately for Harrelson, he lost out to his own co-star, Sam Rockwell. Harrelson has also been nominated for Best Actor for The People vs. Larry Flynt (1997) and for Best Supporting Actor for The Messenger (2010), but has yet to make the final cut.

The 91st Academy Awards will air live on ABC at 5 p.m. PT on Sunday, February 24. A host has not yet been confirmed, following the departure of Kevin Hart.