Longest gap between acting nominations at the Academy Awards

On 23 January 2024, ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, 80-year-old Robert De Niro (USA) landed a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing William King Hale in Martin Scorsese’s “sprawling” crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon (USA, 2023). On 24 February 1975, in the same category, De Niro had secured the first of his eight career acting nominations at the Oscars for his role as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II (USA, 1974), which he would go on to win at the 47th Academy Awards. The 48 years 333 days separating De Niro’s Best Supporting Actor nominations is the longest time between an actor’s first and most recent nods at the film industry’s biggest annual awards soirée.

Katharine Hepburn’s first and last Oscar nominations (and later wins) for Best Actress, for playing Eva Lovelace in Morning Glory (USA, 1933) and Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond (USA/UK, 1981), spanned 47 years 350 days – from the nominations announcements ahead of the 6th Academy Awards on 26 February 1934 and the 54th Academy Awards on 11 February 1982. On 24 January 2023, almost exactly a year before De Niro’s Killers of the Flower Moon nomination, American actor Judd Hirsch secured a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing Boris Schildkraut in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans (USA, 2022) – all of 41 years 341 days after his 17 February 1981 nomination in the same category for playing Tyrone C Berger in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People (USA, 1980). In turn, a Best Supporting Actor win for De Niro at the 96th Academy Awards on 10 March 2024 would surpass Hepburn’s record for the longest gap between acting wins at the Oscars (currently 48 years 13 days, between 16 March 1934 and 29 March 1982). De Niro would extend this to 48 years 337 days (8 April 1975 to 10 March 2024).