Actors who won Oscars before the age of 30 (2024)

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There is only one person who has won Best Actor under the age of 30. Yes, of the 50-some-odd actors who have accomplished this, only one did it in the Best Actor category. That person was Brody, who won for “The Pianist.” He barely made the cut, too, as he was only a couple of weeks from turning 30 when he got his award.

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Witherspoon was also close to being over the line when she won for “Walk the Line.” The star of “Legally Blonde” and “Election” in her younger days, Witherspoon would get her Oscar for playing June Carter Cash alongside Joaquin Phoenix’s Johnny Cash in the biopic of the Man in Black.

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Though she won for the movie “Born Yesterday,” Holliday had not, in fact, been born the day before winning Best Actress. In fact, she had been born 29 years and 281 days prior. Her role in this George Cukor dramedy is still Holliday’s most indelible work, but she would go on to also win a Tony before an untimely death at 43.

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Portman has been an acclaimed actress since she was a tween. As such, it somehow felt like she was overdue for an Emmy even though she was 29 when she won. Portman got her Oscar for her work in the harrowing film “Black Swan.” Sure, she didn’t do all her own ballet work, but it was still a tremendous physical performance.

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Rogers is best known for her roles in musicals and for her dance work alongside Fred Astaire. However, Rogers was more than just a dancer. She was an accomplished actress, which is how she won Best Actress for the dramatic film “Kitty Foyle.”

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Here’s a word you may have heard some in recent years: gaslighting. The term gaslighting, which is to manipulate somebody into thinking they are losing their mind, originated with “Gaslight,” which was a play and then a movie. Berman played the victim of the gaslighting in this film, which won her the first of two Oscars.

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Famously, Andrews was passed over as Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady,” a role that went to Audrey Hepburn, who didn’t do her own singing. So instead, Andrews went and starred in “Mary Poppins.” Guess which of those two ended up winning the Oscar. You don’t have to guess. You’re reading this entry right here.

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Talk about feeling unaccomplished. Foster won not one, but TWO Best Actress awards before turning 30. Her first win for “The Accused” came when she was 26, and then she won again at 29 for her role as Clarice Starling in “Silence of the Lambs.”

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This isn’t surprising, given that Taylor was Hollywood royalty for years. Though her private life and marriages ended up overshadowing her acting career, she would win two Best Actress awards. The first came in the movie “BUtterfield 8.” That’s not a typo, by the way. It is “BU.”

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Most of the publicity around Theron’s performance in “Monster” was for the glamorous movie star allowing herself to be de-glamorized in this bleak, brutal film. That overshadowed the fact she was only 28 when she won her Best Actress award. She would go back to the glamour, but Theron has shown since “Monster” she’s not against getting a little down and dirty for a role.

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This may be the first instance on the list where you may have assumed the winner was even younger than she actually was. Stone’s win for “La La Land” came when she was 28, meaning there are many younger winners out there. Infamously, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were accidentally given the card with Stone’s name on it when they announced Best Picture, which is how the “La La Land” vs. “Moonlight” debacle happened.

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Shearer was an early Hollywood star, doing her best work in the days before the production code. That’s how a movie like “The Divorcee” could get made. In 1930, a film about infidelity and alcoholism could be made so frankly. Shearer is part of the quartet of star-crossed lovers, but she’s the only one who got any award love.

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Not only did Rainer win two Best Actress awards before turning 30, but she did it in back-to-back years. First Rainer won for “The Great Ziegfeld.” Then the very next year, she won for “The Good Earth.” That’s a lot of history from one actress.

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Woodward had a great Hollywood life. She was nominated for four Oscars, 10 Golden Globes and nine Emmys, and she was married to Paul Newman for 50 years. Woodward won only one Oscar, but it was for an indelible performance in “The Three Faces of Eve.” In the film, Woodward gets the meaty role of playing a woman with dissociative identity disorder, aka multiple personality disorder.

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Davis would have a long, occasionally tumultuous career. If you haven’t watched the TV show “Feud: Betty and Joan,” you should definitely do that. Though a lot of her most memorable roles came when she had gotten older, Davis was a dynamo from a young age. She won her first Best Actress award just before turning 28.

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Loren’s win for “Two Women” was notable for many reasons, the primary one being that she was able to win an Oscar for a non-English role. This was the first time that had happened, as Loren gave her deeply emotional performance in her native Italian.

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Liza’s mom, Judy Garland, didn’t win an Oscar before turning 30, though she certainly could have. Minnelli got her Oscar, though, thanks to her performance in “Cabaret.” Joel Grey also won Best Supporting Actor, but he was over 30 at the time.

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Technically, Streisand tied for Best Actress, but that still counts as a win. She took home an Oscar for “Funny Girl,” and that’s what matters. Babs, who was on the verge of superstardom already, was just about to turn 27 when she won.

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Hepburn would eventually win four Best Actress Oscars. Hey, she was really talented. We remember the wins from later in her life, when she was an aging, regal presence. Her first win came way back when she was 26, though, when she took home the trophy for “Morning Glory.”

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There were some murmurs about Paltrow winning Best Actress for “Shakespeare in Love.” Then again, there was a lot of that around that film's big night at the Oscars. It took Best Picture over “Saving Private Ryan,” after all. Like it or not, Paltrow won, beating the likes of Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep.

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Larson is turning 30, so her chances of winning another Oscar before her 30th birthday are over. Not that she’s got anything to worry about. Larson is Captain Marvel now. Also, she has an Oscar for “Room.” There can be few complaints about Larson’s career to this point.

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You probably know the role that Leigh won Best Actress for. There’s this little movie called “Gone With The Wind.” Leigh plays Scarlett O'Hara. Any of this ringing a bell? We kid, of course, given that to this day, adjusted for inflation, “Gone With The Wind” is the highest-grossing movie ever.

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We’re now to women who won Best Actress at 25. Swank has two Best Actress awards, the first of which came for her wrenching work in “Boys Don’t Cry.” Not too shabby for “The Next Karate Kid.”

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Kelly was the height of glamour and movie stardom during her career. Then she became a straight-up princess when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco. Of course, she then died a tragic death, but she got a lot of life in before that. This includes winning an Oscar for “The Country Girl,” which also starred Bing Crosby and William Holden.

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The film “Darling” didn’t have much of a shelf life. A lot of people, even movie buffs, probably haven’t heard of it. However, the movie was well received at the time, and even won Best Original Screenplay. It also go Christie a Best Actress victory.

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Talk about a great birthday gift. Jones won her Best Actress award on her 25th birthday. Jones’ win came in 1944 for the film “The Song of Bernadette.” Mental health issues hindered her career, and life, but Jones would rise above it to become a mental health advocate later in life.

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Hepburn got bested by Julie Andrews later in her career, but she didn’t have to be too upset. After all, she already had a Best Actress award. When Hepburn won for “Roman Holiday,” she was only 24. Maybe she couldn’t sing like Andrews, but she could act.

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Alfred Hitchco*ck never won Best Director, but his films got a lot of people Oscars. That includes Joan Fontaine in the movie “Suspicion.” Fontaine, the sister of Olivia de Havilland, did a great job alongside Cary Grant, even though she was still in her early 20s when she won. She had a lot of years after that, as Fontaine didn’t die until she turned 96.

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The early Academy Awards were weird. For example, Gaynor won Best Actress for her work in three separate films. Most important for our purposes, she was 22 when she won and had the record for youngest winner for 59 years.

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Lawrence is forever getting cast in roles that should be going to older women. Hollywood, especially David O. Russell apparently, loves an ingénue. He can’t get enough of Lawrence, but that helped her get an Oscar for “Silver Linings Playbook” at the tender age of 22.

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Now we get to the youngest winner of Best Actress ever. Matlin was only 21 when she won for “Children of a Lesser God.” This film is also extremely noteworthy as Matlin is deaf. She was the first deaf person cast in a lead role in a movie since way back in 1926. However, this was no mere stunt casting. Matlin did a great job, and her Oscar was well earned.

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Let’s move onto Best Supporting Actor, which has had more than one winner under 30. There have been a whopping FOUR winners under 30. It’s almost as if though Hollywood prizes youth in women and maturity in men. Ledger’s win, of course, came with a heavy heart, as he won posthumously for his work as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.”

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While Gooding would quickly see his career devolve into making critically panned comedies, he hit it big in Hollywood at a young age. His career was made by his turn in 1996’s “Jerry Maguire.” It made him a star, and it certainly showed him the money at the age of 29.

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Yes, Chakiris was a Greek dude playing a Puerto Rican guy in “West Side Story.” Old Hollywood had problems. Also, current Hollywood. Nevertheless, for his portrayal of Bernardo in the classic musical, Chakiris won Best Supporting Actor at the age of 27.

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There’s a big jump from Chakiris down to Hutton. When Hutton won Best Supporting Actor for “Ordinary People,” he was only 20. That makes him by a wide margin the youngest male winner of an acting Oscar. It can be hard to maneuver a career after such early success, and Hutton never reached those highs again. However, he did get to star in the TV show “Leverage” for a while.

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When people think of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” they primarily think about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as the leads and quarreling lovers. However, don’t forget about the actors who played the younger couple in that film. That includes Dennis, who won Best Supporting Actress at 29.

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Speaking of overlooked actors in famous films, when you think of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” you think of Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh. And yet, Hunter, who played Stella, yes THAT Stella, got an Oscar for herself.

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Hollywood has long loved films about Hollywood. That’s the case with “The Bad and the Beautiful,” the story of a film producer who alienates everybody in his life. The film wasn’t nominated for Best Picture or Best Director, but it won five of the six Oscars it was nominated for. That includes Grahame’s win for her work as the ill-fated wife of fictional screenwriter James Lee Bartlow.

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“Sayonara” is not one of the most famous Marlon Brando films. It’s not even in the top 10. However, there is one notable thing about it. Umeki won Best Supporting Actress for her role in the movie. She was the first Asian woman to win an Oscar for acting and to date is the only Asian woman to receive such an honor.

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Not many actors have gotten much love for Woody Allen films (and the days of that happening are surely over by this point). Sure, there’s Cate Blanchett’s win for “Blue Jasmine,” but a lot of actors go unrecognized for their work. A young Sorvino got a win for “Mighty Aphrodite,” though, even if it is not considered one of Allen’s best.

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Let’s just be clear on something: Tomei didn’t win by accident. She won because the voters were as taken with her character in “My Cousin Vinny” as Vinny himself was. Tomei is a talented actress, and she nailed the comedy in this movie. Comedies don’t win a lot of Oscars, but Tomei bucked the trend. Maybe that’s partially why people thought it was a mistake.

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Steenburgen is still going strong! She’s been on a bunch of TV shows in recent years and has done a killer job. However, her talent has been clear since early in her career. Steenburgen won for “Melvin and Howard” back in 1981. Sure, Ted Danson has all those Emmys, but Steenburgen is the one in that couple with an Oscar.

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Vikander’s best work was as a robot with human intelligence in “Ex Machina,” but that’s not the one that got her an Oscar. Instead, she won at the age of 27 for “The Danish Girl.” She’s still fairly early in her career, so there’s a lot left for Vikander to do. Also, that “Tomb Raider” movie she made was surprisingly watchable.

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Jones is best known for her role as the matriarch on “The Partridge Family.” That made sense, as she was in a lot of musicals in her career. She didn’t win her Oscar for a musical, though. Instead, she got it for the drama “Elmer Gantry,” in which she played a sex worker. This helped change her image in Hollywood.

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Sure, Jennifer Hudson didn’t win “American Idol.” Do you remember who won her season? It doesn’t matter, because Hudson is the biggest star of the bunch. She basically won Best Supporting Actress for one song in “Dreamgirls,” but what a performance it was.

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Jolie has been acting forever at this point. She’s been in movies since her early 20s and took home an Oscar quite early in her career. In fact, Jolie was only 24 when she won for “Girl, Interrupted.” Eventually, she would move from supporting roles to lead roles, and directing, but before that she was making a major impact in roles like this — also with the weird stuff going on in her personal life.

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Some may not take Hawn seriously as an actress. She got her start playing a ditz on “Laugh-In” and has often played the perky, naïve blonde in comedy films. To be fair, “Cactus Flower” is also a comedy but one that showed Hawn’s acting chops. That’s how she ended up winning an Oscar.

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Wright was not the titular Mrs. Miniver in “Mrs. Miniver,” a movie that won Best Picture. That would be Greer Garson, who won Best Actress. The 24-year-old Wright clearly made an impact on voters as well, as she got the Best Supporting Actress trophy.

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Baxter had a long career, including playing a couple of different villains on the “Batman” TV show from the ‘60s. Yes, that means an Oscar winner tried to kill Adam West and Burt Ward. While “All About Eve” is her most famous film, she was nominated for it but didn’t win. She got her one Oscar for “The Razor’s Edge.”

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We’re now to the portion of the list where children won Oscars. Seriously, legitimate kids. Duke was only 16 when she played Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker.” It’s incredible that a 16-year-old won an Oscar for acting. It’s even more incredible that TWO different winners of Best Supporting Actress were younger.

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“The Piano” is a brutal movie, but Oscar voters ate it up. In addition to Holly Hunter winning Best Actress for the film, Paquin won Best Supporting Actress even though she was only 11. Paquin has never stopped acting, including playing Rogue in the “X-Men” films and starring in “True Blood.”

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Finally, we get to the youngest Oscar winner ever. O’Neal was only 10 years old when she won Best Supporting Actress. She starred in “Paper Moon” alongside her father, actor Ryan O’Neal. Unfortunately, O’Neal had some of the issues that plague a lot of child stars. She may have gotten an Oscar as a 10-year-old, but it didn’t guarantee her future success of happiness.