6 Actresses with the most Oscar wins (1929 - 2024)

 

It is known that The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given 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 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Janet Gaynor receiving the award for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise. Currently, nominees are 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.

katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years.

It's no surprise that Katharine Hepburn holds the record as the actress who has won the most Academy Awards. Hepburn received four Academy Awards in total for her roles over a career spanning almost 50 years. She won her first Oscar in 1934 for the romantic drama Morning Glory, about a woman who wants to become an actress. Her second Oscar was for the iconic drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), in which she plays a mother who discovers that her daughter wants to marry an African-American doctor.

Only a year later, Hepburn won another Oscar for the historical drama The Lion in the Winter where she plays a real-life historical figure, the English queen Eleanor. Her final Academy Award came in 1982 for the drama On Golden Pond about marital issues of an older couple.

Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman (29 August 1915 – 29 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.

She's best known for her romantic war drama Casablanca (1942), but won her three Oscars for different roles.

Read more: The first 6 best actress Oscar winners in the history (1929 - 1935)

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Often described as "the best actress of her generation", is one of the living legends of Hollywood, universally hailed as one of the greatest actresses who has ever lived. Streep has been nominated for record-breaking 21 Academy Awards for her work and has won three of them, in 1980, 1982 and 2012. Her first Oscar was for the drama movie Kramer vs. Kramer, where she starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in a tale about the break-up of a marriage.

Hilary Swank

Hilary Ann Swank (born July 30, 1974) is an American actress and film producer. She first became known in 1992 for her role on the television series Camp Wilder and made her film debut with a minor role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992).

Though Hilary Swank has appeared in many movies of different genres, both of her Oscar nominations and wins belong in the drama genre. The first one was for the 1999 movie Boys Don't Cry, inspired by real events. Swank received her second Oscar for the box drama Million Dollar Baby (2004), which was directed by Clint Eastwood.

Read more: 6 Actresses were sexually assaulted when they were young with pics

Vivien Leigh

Vivien Leigh (5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949.

Maggie Smith

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. With an extensive career on screen and stage beginning in the mid-1950s, Smith has appeared in more than sixty films and seventy plays. She was nominated for an Oscar six times and won two of them.

Smith received her first Oscar for the drama movie The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) about an unconventional teacher and her relationships with her pupils and the people around her. Her second Oscar was for the comedy movie California Suite (1979), about a group of people who meet in a hotel and all experience different adventures.