From Anthony Hopkins in The silence of the lambs To Beatrice straight in NetworkSome shockingly short Oscar-Winning performances have proven that there are no small parts. It’s already impressive enough for an actor to deliver an Academy Award-worthy performance when they have two-and-a-half hours to chew the scenery in the spotlight. Cillian Murphy’s Oscar-winning turn Oppenheimer is incredible, but he has three full hours full of long IMAX close-ups to wow audiences with his work. It takes a special kind of actor to earn an Oscar with less than 20 minutes of screen time.
Usually, the Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards go to performers who get so much screen time that they’re practically a lead, so they have more to connect with the audience (and with Oscar voters) than a true supporting player. For example, Mahershala Ali won Best Supporting Actor for his piano playing Green Book, Although it is more than an hour of screen time. But some actors received the awards with 15 minutes on screen. And it’s even more amazing when an actor wins a leading role Oscar with that amount of screen time.
10
Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs
16 minutes
One of the first names to come up in discussions of Oscar-winning performances with short screen time is Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins won Best Actor with just 16 minutes of screen time as calm, collected cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Jonathan Demme’s seminal crime thriller The silence of the lambs. Hopkins’ turn as Hannibal the Cannibal is so chilling that it feels like he’s on screen a lot more.
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Jodie Foster’s turn as FBI rookie Clarice Starling anchors the movie spectacularly, but when she shares the screen with Hopkins, he steals the show. Hopkins’ performance is full of rich details that make it extra captivating. For exampleHe uses Michael’s trick of never blinking when he’s on camera, forcing the audience to look into the hollow eyes of a heartless mass murderer.
9
David Niven in separate tables
15 minutes
David Niven won his only Academy Award for Best Actor for his turn in the 1958 drama separate tablesIn which he has only 15 minutes of screen time. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role in the same category of leading men. Niven’s meager runtime is largely due to the sprawling structure of the story. Based on a pair of one-act plays by Terence Rattigan, separate tables Revolves around several characters all staying at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth.
He’d made a career playing the kind of swaggering, debonair man’s man that he was separate tables Character Major Pollack wishes he could be.
It’s an ensemble piece — there’s no lead in the movie — but Niven took home the Oscar for a leading role. Niven caught the attention of the Academy by playing wildly against type. He’d made a career playing the kind of swaggering, debonair man’s man that he was separate tables Character Major Pollack wishes he could be.
8
Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables
15 minutes
Anne Hathaway won best supporting actress for her turn as Fantine, a struggling factory worker who resorts to sex work to provide for her daughter, in Tom Hooper’s blockbuster 2012 film adaptation of Les Miserables. Hathaway earned the award with just 15 minutes of screen time, which is even more impressive considering the movie is over two and a half hours long. Hathaway won an Oscar for a movie in which she appeared for less than 10% of the overall runtime.
Hathaway cut her hair before Les Miserablesindicating her commitment to the role. While Russell Crowe was criticized for his shaky singing in the film, Hathaway’s singing was widely praised. Her rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” was hailed as a showstopper, and one of the main reasons she made a lasting enough impression to receive an Academy Award.
7
Kim Basinger in LA Confidential
15 minutes
Kim Basinger won Best Supporting Actress for her turn as Lynn Bracken, a high-class sex worker who begins a relationship with Russell Crowe’s Officer Bud White, in Curtis Hanson’s 1997 neo-noir. LA Confidential. LA Confidential Lost almost all of its Oscar nominations to Titanicincluding Best Picture and Best Director. But Hanson and Brian Helgeland won Best Adapted Screenplay for their adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel, and Basinger beat TitanicS Gloria Stuart for Best Supporting Actress.
Basinger only has 15 minutes of screen time LA ConfidentialBut she managed to stand out in a star-studded ensemble that includes Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, and Danny DeVito. Basinger is basically cast as a stock character – the sex worker with a heart of gold – but she brings real depth and dimensionality to the archetype. It is a deeply human performance.
6
Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
15 minutes
Penelope Cruz won both the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for her turn in Woody Allen’s 2008 romantic comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona. While the entire cast was praised, Cruise was singled out for acclaim in most of the film’s positive reviews. What’s especially impressive about Cruz’s standout performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona is that she plays neither Vicky nor Christina; She managed to upset the two title stars, Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson.
They meet a handsome artist, played by Javier Bardem, who falls for them both. The love triangle becomes even more complicated when his emotionally unstable ex-wife MarÃa Elena, played by Cruz, shows up and turns it into a love quadrangle. The story is well below the time Cruz shows up, but she steals the entire movie with 15 glorious minutes of acting.
5
Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine
14 minutes
Alan Arkin was nominated for Best Actor twice in the late 1960s – for The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming In 1967 and before The heart is a lonely hunter in 1969 – but he didn’t win an Oscar until 2007, 40 years after his first nomination. Arkin won Best Actor for his turn as the grumpy grandfather, Edwin Hoover, in the tragicomic road movie Little Miss Sunshine. While Edwin is a miserable curmudgeon to most people, he is sweet and loving to his granddaughter, Olive.
Arkin only has 14 minutes of screen time Little Miss SunshineBut he made an unforgettable impression in the 14th minute. Everyone can see the grandfather in Arkins Little Miss Sunshine character; He’s big, but deep down he’s really soft. His monologue about winners and losers is arguably the most moving scene in the movie.
4
Gloria Grahame in The Bad and the Beautiful
9 minutes
Gloria Gramme took home Best Supporting Actress for her turn as Rosemary, the uncomfortable Southern belle wife of Dick Powell’s James Lee Bartlow, in the 1952 melodrama. The bad and the beautiful. Rosemary doesn’t show up until about two-thirds of the way through the movie and is on screen for just over nine minutes. at the timeIt was the shortest Oscar-winning performance of all time, and Grahame held that record for more than two decades before a five-minute performance won in the same category in 1977.
It won Best Screenplay (before it was split into two separate categories) and Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design in the black-and-white categories.
Kirk Douglas is great in the lead role, but Grahame was the clear standout. In addition to Grahame’s Best Supporting Actress win, The bad and the beautiful took home four other Oscars. It won Best Screenplay (before it was split into two separate categories) and Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design in the black-and-white categories.
3
Anthony Quinn in Lust for Life
8 minutes
Anthony Quinn won Best Supporting Actor for playing Vincent van Gogh’s friend and fellow painter Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 biopic Desires to live. Kirk Douglas won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his turn as Van Gogh, but it was Quinn who scored at the Oscars. Not only did Quine manage to draw attention away from van Gogh into his own life story; He did it with only eight minutes of screen time.
There is a lot to admire about this biopic. Douglas captures Van Gogh’s neuroticism brilliantly, While Minnelli’s choices of color reflect the unmistakable aesthetic of his subject’s art. But Quinn is one of the highlights of the film. Quinn previously won Best Supporting Actor for 1952’s Viva Zapata!And later received best actor nods for Wild is the wind And Zurba the Greek.
2
Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love
8 minutes
Thanks to an aggressive awards campaign by now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, Shakespeare in love swept the Oscars in 1999. It controversial hit Saving Private Ryan to Best Picture, and also won Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow, Best Original Screenplay for Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, and Best Original Score for Stephen Warbeck. The film’s seven Oscar wins included Best Supporting Actress for Judi Dench’s turn as Queen Elizabeth I.
Much like Queen In Desires to liveDench only had eight minutes of screen time in her Oscar-winning performance. But that turned out to be more than enough; The Academy loves when an actor brings an iconic historical figure to life, Especially when the actor is a revered screen legend like Dench. Dench’s screen time may be short, but she lives and breathes Elizabeth I whenever she’s on screen.
1
Beatrice Straight in Network
5 minutes
The record for the shortest Oscar-winning performance in film history has been held by Beatrice Strait for almost 50 years. Straight won Best Supporting Actress with just five minutes of screen time as Louise Schumacher in Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satirical drama Network. Strait is one of three Oscar winners in the cast of Network; Faye Dunaway won Best Actress and Peter Finch posthumously won Best Actor.
But Strait’s Oscar win is arguably the most impressive of the three, as she took home the gold with just over five minutes on screen. Four of the minutes are taken up by a rousing emotional monologue when you learn that her husband is having an affair with a much younger woman. Strait’s delivery of the mixed emotions in this soliloquy is so powerful that the monologue alone earns her an A Oscar.