When the 2020 Oscar nominations were announced, Scarlett Johansson attracted attention by earning two for acting. With inclusions in both the Best Actress (“Marriage Story”) and Best Supporting Actress (“Jojo Rabbit”) categories, she was the first actor in 12 years who had a chance at winning two acting Academy Awards on the same night. She ultimately lost both bids, but the feat placed her in the rare company of only 11 others who have achieved it since the supporting categories were introduced at the Oscars in 1937.
Here is a screen-time based analysis of all of them, from earliest to most recent. We note the names and screen time of key rival nominees and the winners in each race as well.
Fay Bainter (1939)
Best Actress nominee for “White Banners” (47 minutes, 50 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress winner for “Jezebel” (28 minutes, 7 seconds)
Combined: 1 hour, 15 minutes, 57 seconds
Just four years after beginning her film acting career, Bainter earned her first two Oscar nominations in the same year, becoming the first actor to pull off the achievement. Her performance in “Jezebel” became the longest to win in the Best Supporting Actress category up to that point. Her “Jezebel” co-star, Bette Davis, won the Best Actress award with 56 minutes and 32 seconds of screen time. Though Davis’s was the second longest performance nominated in the category that year, her screen time was over 44 minutes below that of “Marie Antoinette” star Norma Shearer.
Teresa Wright (1943)
Best Actress nominee for “The Pride of the Yankees” (39 minutes, 8 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress winner for “Mrs. Miniver” (34 minutes, 51 seconds)
Combined: 1 hour, 13 minutes, 59 seconds
After receiving her first nomination for “The Little Foxes” in 1942, Wright gained two more the very next year and followed in Bainter’s footsteps by winning in the supporting category. The four-minute, 17-second difference between her two nominated performances is by far the smallest among all dual nominees. One of the actresses she triumphed over was her on-screen grandmother, May Whitty, who delivered a performance 13 minutes and 30 seconds shorter than hers. Wright lost the Best Actress prize to another “Mrs. Miniver” castmate, Greer Garson, who clocks in at one hour, 25 minutes, and 55 seconds.
Barry Fitzgerald (1945)
Best Actor nominee for “Going My Way” (50 minutes, 23 seconds)
Best Supporting Actor winner for the same film
When Fitzgerald became the first man to be nominated for two acting awards in the same year, there was immediate controversy due to the fact that both nominations were for the same role. Academy voting rules at the time freely allowed for the occurrence, but the optics surrounding Fitzgerald’s double nominations inspired the implementation of a new rule to prevent similar outcomes in the future. His performance as curmudgeonly Father Fitzgibbon was both the shortest nominated for Best Actor and the longest nominated for Best Supporting Actor that year. He only won in the latter category, while the lead award was given to Bing Crosby for his one-hour, 20-minute, and seven-second performance in the same film.
2021 Oscar Predictions: Best Actor
Jessica Lange (1983)
Best Actress nominee for “Frances” (1 hour, 44 minutes, 4 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress winner for “Tootsie” (29 minutes, 28 seconds)
Combined: 2 hours, 13 minutes, 32 seconds
After Fitzgerald’s controversial double nominations, it took 38 years for another actor to garner two in the same year. Lange followed her harrowing portrayal of the titular Frances Farmer with a comedic role in “Tootsie,” resulting in academy recognition for both. She won for “Tootsie” in the supporting category, defeating her co-star, Teri Garr, as well as Kim Stanley, who played her mother in “Frances.” Meryl Streep was named the winner in the lead category, with a screen time of one hour, 41 minutes, and 14 seconds in “Sophie’s Choice.” Lange’s performance in “Frances” was nearly three minutes longer and, at the time, ranked among the 10 longest ever nominated for Best Actress.
Sigourney Weaver (1989)
Best Actress nominee for “Gorillas in the Mist” (1 hour, 29 minutes, 40 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress nominee for “Working Girl” (22 minutes, 18 seconds)
Combined: 1 hour, 51 minutes, 58 seconds
Weaver has the dishonorable distinction of being the first actor to be nominated twice in the same year and go home empty-handed. Her leading dramatic work was overlooked in favor of Jodie Foster’s shorter performance in “The Accused” (51 minutes, 44 seconds), while her supporting comedic turn lost to Geena Davis’s shorter one in “The Accidental Tourist” (29 minutes, 30 seconds). What seemed like an anomaly at the time has since happened on four more occasions, including the most recent two.
Al Pacino (1993)
Best Actor winner for “Scent of a Woman” (1 hour, 35 minutes, 48 seconds)
Best Supporting Actor nominee for “Glengarry Glen Ross” (34 minutes, 22 seconds)
Combined: 2 hours, 10 minutes, 10 seconds
After receiving six nominations over 18 years, Pacino collected a seventh and eighth simultaneously. In the six weeks between the announcement of the nominations and the awards ceremony, he held the record for most acting nominations without a win, but his Best Actor victory changed that. Unlike every preceding case of double nominations, no other actor was nominated for either of Pacino’s films. In the Best Supporting Actor category, he and Jack Nicholson (“A Few Good Men”) made history by competing against each other for a fourth time. They both ended up losing to Gene Hackman (who has never competed against anyone more than once) for his 30-minute, 57-second performance in “Unforgiven.”
2021 Oscar Predictions: Best Actress
Holly Hunter (1994)
Best Actress winner for “The Piano” (1 hour, 8 minutes, 1 second)
Best Supporting Actress nominee for “The Firm” (7 minutes, 24 seconds)
Combined: 1 hour, 15 minutes, 25 seconds
In 1994, two actresses received dual nominations, meaning that only 18 people competed for the year’s acting Oscars. Hunter’s two bids resulted in one win in the lead category, while she lost the supporting award to 11-year-old Anna Paquin, who played her daughter in “The Piano” and appeared in the film for 36 minutes and 56 seconds. Hunter’s much shorter performance in “The Firm” remains the 17th shortest ever nominated in either supporting category.
Emma Thompson (1994)
Best Actress nominee for “The Remains of the Day” (42 minutes, 5 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress nominee for “In the Name of the Father” (13 minutes, 7 seconds)
Combined: 55 minutes, 12 seconds [SHORTEST]
Thompson, 1994’s other double acting nominee, lost in both categories to the actresses from “The Piano.” Both of her nominated performances are relatively short, and she remains the only one of the double nominees whose two screen times add up to less than one hour. Thompson previously won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in “Howards End” the year before, and received double nominations again in 1996 for writing and acting in “Sense and Sensibility.”
Julianne Moore (2003)
Best Actress nominee for “Far from Heaven” (1 hour, 18 minutes, 15 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress nominee for “The Hours” (27 minutes, 41 seconds)
Combined: 1 hour, 45 minutes, 56 seconds
Moore’s Oscar nomination total grew to four when the decision to make a run as a supporting player in “The Hours” in addition to a more obvious lead run for “Far from Heaven” paid off. In the end, however, the two nominations were her reward. Catherine Zeta-Jones won the Best Supporting Actress prize for her 29-minute, 55-second performance in “Chicago,” while Moore’s “The Hours” co-star, Nicole Kidman, prevailed in the lead category. At 23 minutes and 30 seconds, Kidman’s became the third shortest Best Actress-winning performance of all time, and stands over four minutes shorter than Moore’s in the same film.
2021 Oscar Predictions: Best Supporting Actor
Jamie Foxx (2005)
Best Actor winner for “Ray” (1 hour, 39 minutes, 35 seconds)
Best Supporting Actor nominee for “Collateral” (1 hour, 4 minutes, 13 seconds)
Combined: 2 hours, 43 minutes, 48 seconds [LONGEST]
15 years ago, Jamie Foxx became the second man to be nominated for two different acting roles in the same year, and remains the most recent one to do so. His pair of nominations is also the last to result in a win, and his two screen times are the only ones to both pass one hour. His supporting bid for “Collateral” was met with confusion, especially since Tom Cruise was campaigned as the film’s lead for a performance over 17 minutes shorter. Foxx’s contentious placement evidently eased the decision to reward him in the lead category, while Morgan Freeman took the supporting award for his 36-minute, 24-second role in “Million Dollar Baby.”
Cate Blanchett (2008)
Best Actress nominee for “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (51 minutes, 39 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress nominee for “I’m Not There” (27 minutes, 9 seconds)
Combined: 1 hour, 18 minutes, 48 seconds
Oscar history was made in 2008 when Blanchett became the first and only woman to be nominated for playing the same character twice. Her first two Best Actress nominations came for her portrayals of Queen Elizabeth I, and both resulted in losses. The second time, she was defeated by Marion Cotillard’s one-hour, 21-minute, and 14-second performance in “La Vie en Rose.” She was more favored to win in the supporting category, having won the same year’s Golden Globe, but was bested there as well by Tilda Swinton, whose performance in “Michael Clayton” clocks in at 18 minutes and 34 seconds.
Scarlett Johansson (2020)
Best Actress nominee for “Marriage Story” (1 hour, 5 minutes, 19 seconds)
Best Supporting Actress nominee for “Jojo Rabbit” (15 minutes, 36 seconds)
Combined: 1 hour, 20 minutes, 55 seconds
Decades after she made her film debut at age nine, Johansson made regular appearances on lists of actors who had been most egregiously overlooked by Oscar voters. The calls to recognize her were finally answered when, at age 35, she received two nominations. Though she was said to have been close to winning in both categories, she unsurprisingly lost to two actresses who dominated the entire 2020 awards season. Renée Zellweger triumphed for her one-hour, 27-minute, and 29-second lead role as the title character in “Judy,” while Laura Dern, Johansson’s “Marriage Story” castmate, won the supporting award for her 18 minutes and 36 seconds of screen time. After 12 years, this instance proved that dual acting nominations are still possible, and that the current academy may be willing to add more actors to the list soon.
2021 Oscar Predictions: Best Supporting Actress
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