Canadians Oscars nomination scoreboard

For those who follow our extensive Canadian film coverage, you might remember that leading up to the 89th Academy Awards, we took a look back at how Canadians had done in the major Oscars categories.

Since those charts can change, such as in the 90th Academy Awards, we wanted to create an ongoing resource to locate this information.

Looking at how Canadians have done at the Oscars

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The numbers are rather slim even for nominations over the years. There are a couple of handfuls of Canadians who can remember receiving an Oscar nomination. There are only 3 Canadians currently alive who have won Oscars in major categories: Christopher Plummer is 88 (turning 89 on December 13); James Cameron for Best Director; and Anna Paquin, who is in her 30s but only qualifies because Paquin was born in Canada and grew up in New Zealand.

Donald Sutherland received an honourary Oscar in November 2017 yet was never nominated for an award.

Oscar nominations for actual Canadian films are a much smaller list. Atom Egoyan was nominated for Best Director for The Sweet Hereafter. Sarah Polley was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for her directorial debut Away From Her. Polley adapted The Bear Went Over the Mountain, the short story by Alice Munro.

Juno is not a Canadian film, even though 2 Canadians received major Oscars nominations for the film. Michael Cera (Canadian) did tell Peter Howell of the Toronto Star: "I thought Juno was a very Canadian movie, even though it was set in the U.S."

Here is a list of those Canadians who were nominated and those who won Oscars.

Best Actor

Nominee	Film	Year	Oscar
Walter Huston	Dodsworth	1936	---
Raymond Massey	Abe Lincoln in Illinois	1940	---
Walter Huston	The Devil and Daniel Webster	1941	---
Walter Pidgeon	Mrs. Miniver	1942	---
Walter Pidgeon	Madame Curie	1943	---
Alexander Knox	Wilson	1944	---
Ryan Gosling	Half Nelson	2006	---
Ryan Gosling	La La Land	2016	---
Brendan Fraser	The Whale	2023	Won

 

Best Actress

Nominee	Film	Year	Oscar
Mary Pickford	Coquette	1928/1929	Won
Norma Shearer	The Divorcee	1929/1930	Won
Norma Shearer	Their Own Desire	1929/1930	---
Marie Dressler	Min and Bill	1930/1931	Won
Norma Shearer	A Free Soul	1930/1931	---
Marie Dressler	Emma	1931/1932	---
Norma Shearer	The Barretts of Wimpole Street	1934	---
Norma Shearer	Romeo and Juliet	1936	---
Norma Shearer	Marie Antoniette	1938	---
Geneviève Bujold	Anne of the Thousand Days	1969	---
Elliot Page	Juno	2007	---

 

Best Supporting Actor

Nominee	Film	Year	Oscar
Gene Lockhart	Algiers	1938	---
Walter Huston	Yankee Doodle Dandy	1942	---
Hume Cronyn	The Seventh Cross	1944	---
Harold Russell	The Best Years of Our Lives	1946	Won
Walter Huston	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	1948	Won
John Ireland	All the King's Men	1949	---
Jack Kruschen	The Apartment	1960	---
Chief Dan George	Little Big Man	1970	---
Dan Aykroyd	Driving Miss Daisy	1989	---
Graham Greene	Dances With Wolves	1990	---
Christopher Plummer	The Last Station	2009	---
Christopher Plummer	Beginners	2011	Won
Christopher Plummer	All the Money in the World	2017	---

 

Best Supporting Actress

Nominee	Film	Year	Oscar
Lucile Watson	Watch on the Rhine	1943	---
Meg Tilly	Agnes of God	1985	---
Anna Paquin	The Piano	1993	Won
Jennifer Tilly	Bullets over Broadway	1994	---
Kate Nelligan	The Prince of Tides	1991	---
Rachel McAdams	Spotlight	2015	---

 

Best Director

Nominee	Film	Year	Oscar
Edward Dmytryk	Crossfire	1947	---
Mark Robson	Peyton Place	1957	---
Mark Robson	The Inn of the Sixth Happiness	1958	---
Norman Jewison	In the Heat of the Night	1967	---
Arthur Hiller	Love Story	1970	---
Norman Jewison	Fiddler on the Roof	1971	---
Norman Jewison	Moonstruck	1987	---
James Cameron	Titanic	1997	Won
Atom Egoyan	The Sweet Hereafter	1997	---
Paul Haggis	Crash	2005	---
Jason Reitman	Juno	2007	---
James Cameron	Avatar	2009	---
Jason Reitman	Up in the Air	2009	---
Denis Villeneuve	Arrival	2016	---

 

photo credit: The Sweet Hereafter film