Academy Award for Best Actress

The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actor winner.

The Best Actress award has been presented 96 times, to 79 actresses. The first winner was Janet Gaynor for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The most recent winner is Emma Stone for her role in Poor Things (2023); she had previously won the award for her role in La La Land (2016). The record for most wins is four, held by Katharine Hepburn. Frances McDormand has won three times, and thirteen other actresses have won the award twice. Meryl Streep has received the most nominations in the category—seventeen—and has won twice. At the 41st Academy Awards, Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn received the same number of votes and thus tied for Best Actress (the only time this has occurred).

Nominations process
Nominees are currently determined by single transferable vote within the actors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy.

In the first three years of the awards, actors and actresses were nominated as the best individuals in their categories. At that time, all of their work during the qualifying period (as many as three films, in some cases) was listed after the award. Despite this, at the 3rd Academy Awards, held in 1930, only one film was cited in each winner's award regardless of how many they were eligible to be considered for during that span. The current system, in which an actress is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, was introduced for the 4th Academy Awards. Starting with the 9th Academy Awards, held in 1937, the category was limited to a maximum five nominations per year.

Winners and nominees
In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of film release in Los Angeles County; the ceremonies are always held the following year. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months, from August 1 to July 31. For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.

Multiple wins and nominations
The following individuals received two or more Best Actress awards:

The following individuals received three or more Best Actress nominations:

Films with multiple Leading Actress nominations
Winners are in bold.
 * All About Eve (1950) – Anne Baxter and Bette Davis
 * Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) – Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor
 * The Turning Point (1977) – Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine
 * Terms of Endearment (1983) – Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger
 * Thelma & Louise (1991) – Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon

Multiple character nominations
The following were nominated for their portrayals of the same fictional or non-fictional character in separate films (including variations of the original).


 * Billie Holiday from Lady Sings the Blues (Diana Ross, 1972) & The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Andra Day, 2021)
 * Josephine "Jo" March from Little Women (Winona Ryder, 1994) & Little Women (Saoirse Ronan, 2019)
 * Leslie Crosbie from The Letter (Jeanne Eagels, 1929) & The Letter (Bette Davis, 1940)
 * Marilyn Monroe from My Week with Marilyn (Michelle Williams, 2011) & Blonde (Ana de Armas, 2022)
 * Queen Elizabeth I from Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett, 1998) & Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Cate Blanchett, 2007)
 * Vicki Lester (Esther (Victoria) Blodgett) from A Star Is Born (Janet Gaynor, 1937) & A Star Is Born (Judy Garland, 1954)
 * Ally Maine (Campano) from A Star Is Born (Lady Gaga, 2018)