Bob Dylan won several prestigious awards in his lifetime. The iconic songwriter and musician scored his breakthrough with his 1963 second album The Free Bob Dylan and is known for songs such as "Like a Rolling Stone", "The Times They Are a-Changin'" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". Some of Bob Dylan's most iconic albums include his 1975 Blood on the tracks and 1997 Time out of mind as well as the 1965 albums Bringing it all back home and Highway 61 revisitedfor which he initially generated controversy for bringing electric instrumentation to folk music.
Dylan's life has been brought to the screen several times in films, including Martin Scorsese's documentary No direction home and Todd Haynes' experimental drama I'm not therein which Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Marcus Carl Franklin play different facets of Dylan. One of the most recent films to adapt his life is the 2024 James Mangold-directed biopic A complete strangerin which Timothée Chalamet plays Bob Dylan during his early years in the 1960s. The film's cast also includes Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash.
Bob Dylan won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for best original song
2000's Wonder Boys brought him two of his biggest awards
Although there have been several Bob Dylan films, the one that won him an Oscar – cinema's most prestigious award – is the one in which he does not appear, neither as himself nor as a character. The film in question is from the 2000s Wonder Boysdirected by Curtis Hanson and starring Michael Douglas as a teacher with writer's block who finds himself involved in the lives of some of his students. Hanson included many singer-songwriter songs on the soundtrack, including several by Dylan, invited the artist to record the original song "Things Have Changed" for the film.
Wonder Boys It ended up being nominated for three Oscars, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing, but the only award it won was Best Original Song. earning Dylan his first and so far only Oscar. It also only won one Golden Globe, in the same category, despite also being nominated for Best Screenplay, Best Film - Drama and Best Actor (Michael Douglas). Despite the film's losses in other categories, Dylan took home two of its most prestigious awards that season, besting other nominees including Randy Newman (for Meet the parents) and Sting (for The Emperor's New Groove).
Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature
He is one of the few Nobel Prize-winning composers
Another prestigious award Bob Dylan received from outside the music industry was a Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to him in 2016making him only the 12th Nobel laureate from the United States of America. He is one of the only composers to have won this honor, which is normally given to authors such as The remains of the dayKazuo Ishiguro (awarded in 2017), poet Pablo Neruda (1971), The Good EarthPearl S. Buck (1938), The sun also rises'Ernest Hemingway (1954), and Lord of the Flies'William Golding (1983).
Although Bob Dylan has sometimes been cited as the first composer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, previous winners who won the Nobel Prize are also composersamong other disciplines. These include Indian polymath Rabindranath Tagore (1913) and Italian playwright Dario Fo (1997).
Every Grammy Bob Dylan Won
He has been nominated more than three dozen times
Over the years, several of Bob Dylan's songs and albums have won Grammys. The Grammys began giving awards for musical achievement in 1959, so he has been eligible since the beginning of his career as a recording artist. In fact, their first album, from 1962 Bob Dylanearned him his first Grammy nomination just five years after the annual awards ceremony began. However, he would not win a Grammy until a decade later, an achievement that marked his first 10 total Grammy wins. Below, see a breakdown of each Grammy won by Bob Dylan and when it was awarded:
Award |
Year |
Named Work |
---|---|---|
Album of the Year |
1973 |
The concert for Bangla Desh |
Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male |
1980 |
"I have to serve someone" |
Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals |
1990 |
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 |
Best Traditional Folk Album |
1995 |
The world went wrong |
Album of the Year |
1998 |
Time out of mind |
Best Contemporary Folk Album |
1998 |
Time out of mind |
Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male |
1998 |
"Cold Irons Trapped" |
Best Contemporary Folk Album |
2002 |
Love and robbery |
Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance |
2007 |
"Someday, darling" |
Best Folk/Contemporary American Album |
2007 |
Modern Times |
General, Bob Dylan has been nominated for 38 Grammy Awardsso he won about a quarter of the awards he was nominated for. The musician won his tenth and so far last Grammy in 2007, although he has been nominated five more times since then, the most recent nomination being for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album of 2017. Triplicate. Dylan was also honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991, when he had only won three of his 10 Grammys.
Bob Dylan Won Album by a Secular Artist GMA Dove Award
In 1980, the same year he won his second Grammy - for "Gotta Serve Somebody" - Award-Winning Gospel Music Association Slow train arriving (in which "Gotta Serve Somebody" was the opening track) with the award for Secular Artist Album. That year, his competition was Wings to fly by Jeannie C. Riley and You gave me love (when no one said a prayer to me) by BJ Thomas.
Bob Dylan was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame
He was one of the first honored
Another great honor for the artist was the fact that, in 1988, Bob Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During the ceremony, which was the third year the artists were inducted (and the first for which he was eligible), its introduction was performed by Bruce Springsteenwho would later become an inductee himself in 1999. Alongside Dylan, inductees in 1988 included iconic groups The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Drifters and The Supremes.
Other Awards Bob Dylan Won
He is in several halls of fame
Dylan has won a large number of additional awards and has been honored with many other awards. This includes having three songs and five albums inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012, during a ceremony in which the award – the highest possible honor given to American civilians – was also awarded to Toni Morrison, Madeline Albright, Dolores Huerta and others. Below, see a breakdown of the other important awards and honors Dylan has received:
Award/Honor |
Year |
Named Work |
---|---|---|
Tom Paine Award |
1963 |
N/A |
Songwriters Hall of Fame |
1982 |
N/A |
Commander of Arts and Letters |
1990 |
N/A |
Grammy Hall of Fame |
1994-2016 |
"Blowin' in the Wind" (in 1994), "Like a Rolling Stone" (in 1998), Blonde on Blonde (in 1999), "Mr. Homem Pandeiro" (in 2002), Highway 61 revisited (in 2002), Bringing it all back home (in 2006), Blood on the tracks (in 2015), The basement tapes (in 2016) |
Kennedy Center Honors |
1997 |
N/A |
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award |
1997 |
N/A |
Polar Music Prize |
2000 |
N/A |
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame |
2002 |
N/A |
American Academy of Achievement Gold Plaque Award |
2003 |
N/A |
Prince of Asturias Award |
2007 |
N/A |
Special Pulitzer Prize |
2008 |
N/A |
National Medal of Arts |
2009 |
N/A |
Presidential Medal of Freedom |
2012 |
N/A |
Officer of the Legion of Honor |
2013 |
N/A |
UK Music Video Awards – Best Interactive |
2014 |
"Like a Rolling Stone" |
Webby Awards - Film and Online Video - Best Editing |
2014 |
"Like a Rolling Stone" |
MusiCares Person of the Year[ |
2015 |
N/A |
Additionally, while Bob Dylan himself is not eligible for any awards for the movie A Complete Unknown, which features his music but does not include an original song penned by the artist, the movie is a strong contender in the 2024-2025 awards season. It already has three 2025 Golden Globe nominations, for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Actor (Timothée Chalamet), and Best Supporting Actor (Edward Norton). It has also been shortlisted in one Academy Awards category, competing against buzzy titles such as Emilia Pérez and Wicked for a Best Sound nomination.