12 Talented Actors Who Have Surprisingly Never Won an Oscar

Have you ever won an Oscar? If so, you’re pretty bad-ass. If not, you should only feel slightly embarrassed about it. I have also never won either, if that makes you feel any better. In fact, I have never even been nominated. To be fair, my sole foray into acting was when I played Dopey in my 3rd grade class performance of Snow White. Anyway, there is a surprisingly high number of actors who you would have guessed are Oscar winners, but haven’t yet achieved ultimate acting glory. Take a look at our list of 12 of them.

1. Michelle Williams
Williams made a name of herself in the TV series Dawson’s Creek and has appeared in movies since she made her debut in Lassie (1994), but she didn’t truly become a Hollywood hotshot until she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Brokeback Mountain (2005). Since then, she has been nominated three more times – Best Actress in Blue Valentine (2010), Best Actress in My Weekend With Marilyn (2011), and Best Supporting Actress in Manchester By The Sea (2016). However, she does have a Golden Globe for My Weekend With Marilyn.

2. Glenn Close
Glenn Close has been acting in several modern classics including The Big Chill, The Natural, and Fatal Attraction, and has been a very durable actress for almost 40 years, but she has yet to win an Oscar. She’s been nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress three times each, her most recent being for her performance in 2012’s Albert Nobbs.

3. John Malkovich
Malkovich is another amazing actor who has never won an Oscar, as baffling as that might seem. He’s been nominated twice for Best Supporting Actor – Places in the Heart (1984) and In the Line of Fire (1993), but it has been a while. Personally, my favorite Malkovich movie was 1992’s Of Mice and Men.

4. Robert Downey Jr.
When Downey Jr. was younger, he was regarded as an actor with great potential, as indicated by his nomination for Best Actor in 1993’s Chaplin. Then he got into a whole lot of drug-related trouble in the early 2000s before achieving sobriety and making a name for himself again. Although he was nominated for a second Oscar for Tropic Thunder in 2009 and has achieved huge success as the titular character in the Iron Man franchise, he has yet to take home the statuette.