The Big Picture

• Justin Henry was the youngest Oscar nominee at 8 years old for Best Supporting Actor.
• Tatum O'Neal holds the record as the youngest Oscar winner at just 10 years old.
• Damien Chazelle won Best Director at 32 years old, breaking a record held for 86 years.

The Oscars are maybe the most prestigious honor in film, with the gold Oscar trophy being ubiquitous with critical acclaim and success. The near century’s worth of history for this award ceremony has seen a plethora of different winners and nominees, some of whom were much younger than the rest of their competition. Of all the youngest Oscar winners to date, the trophy holder who won her award at the earliest age was Tatum O'Neal for Paper Moon. Let’s take a look at the five most popular and competitive categories at the Academy Awards – Best Director, Best Actor/Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role — and see who took home the trophy in the earlier years of their lives.

As a note, the youngest winners are determined by their age at the time they received their award. The youngest nominees are based on the date of their nomination. These are used as the measuring point since they are single dates, rather than accounting for the length of production or varying theatrical releases.

Which Actors Received Their Oscar Nominations Before Turning 10 Years Old?

The youngest Academy Award nominee for any category was Justin Henry, who was only 8 years old when he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Kramer vs. Kramer, released in 1979. What is even more impressive is that this was Henry’s debut acting role! His performance won him several Young Artist Awards for performance and though he didn’t take home the Oscar, his record as the Academy’s youngest nominee has held firm. In the 43 years since Henry was nominated, nobody younger has been nominated for an Oscar.

There have been other fantastic performers who were nominated for Academy Awards even before they reached double-digit ages. Quvenzhané Wallis was only 9 years old when she was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Wallis earned her nomination for her role in Beasts of the Southern Wild, showing the impressive talent to be nominated for a lead role at such a young age. For the other category focused on starring positions, Jackie Cooper was also just 9 years old when he was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in Skippy, a 1931 comedy that also featured one of the youngest recipients of Best Director, Norman Taurog. Cooper held this record for nearly half a century before he was overtaken by Justin Henry.

Who Are the Youngest Winners in Each Major Category?

Going in a similar order to the ceremony itself, let’s start with the Best Supporting Actor category. Not even old enough to legally drink in the United States, Timothy Hutton won Best Supporting Actor at just 20 years old. The young actor earned recognition for his performance in Ordinary People and has held the record since 1981. The youngest recipient of the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role goes to Adrien Brody, who was 29 years old, just a few weeks shy of turning 30 when he earned recognition for his performance in 2002’s The Pianist. In the 20 years since, there have been some other nominees under the age of 30, but the record has yet to be broken.

Marlee Matlin was even younger than Brody, at only 21 years old when she won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Children of a Lesser God. Matlin has held her record for 36 years, though others have come close. The next youngest winner of Best Actress was Jennifer Lawrence, who nearly beat the record at 22 years old when she won for Silvers Lining Playbook.

The director is one of the most important factors in a film’s success; it’s a role that carries a lion’s share of the responsibility, as well as the blame or praise that the movie receives. At only 32 years old, Damien Chazelle took home the award for Best Director for La La Land at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017. He had usurped the aforementioned Taurog, who had held the record for 86 years! With such a breadth of knowledge and love for the history and legacy of Hollywood, Chazelle's success at the Academy Awards felt inevitable.

Who Is the Youngest Oscar Winner of All Time?

The record for the youngest Academy Award winner of all time goes to the brilliantly talented Tatum O’Neal. At a mere ten years and 148 days old, she won Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Addie Loggins in 1973’s Paper Moon, becoming the youngest Oscar winner of any competitive category. This comedy-drama follows O’Neal playing an orphaned young girl who forms a bond with a con man during the Great Depression. The con man was played by O’Neal’s actual parent, Ryan O’Neal, and the father-daughter duo earned immense praise for their performances. The younger O'Neal was likely able to perform so effectively thanks to the collaboration with her family, but that doesn't diminish how much credit she deserves. Film critic Roger Ebert praised her skills, commending the young actress and the "astonishing confidence and depth that Tatum brings to what’s really the starring role.” O’Neal’s record as the youngest Oscar winner has stood for nearly 50 years, though Anna Paquin came close, as she was 11 years old when she won the same award for her role in The Piano.

Who Are the Youngest Multiple-Time Oscar Winners?

If the speedrunning of these winners wasn’t impressive enough, there is also the exclusive group of people who have won two Oscars by the age of 30 or younger. These outstanding performers all won their awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Luise Rainer won her two Best Actress awards in back-to-back years in 1936 and 1937, winning her second Oscar at 27 years old. Jodie Foster was 29 when she won her second Oscar for Silence of the Lambs at the 64th Academy Awards in 1992. Hilary Swank won her first Oscar in 1999 then, 5 years later, joined this exclusive club when she won the trophy again for Million Dollar Baby while she was still only 30.

The Academy Awards have been in the spotlight of film awards for nearly a century, and these immensely talented artists have shown that winning is not determined by age or having extensive filmography. From young visionary directors to upstart performers, excellence begets recognition. And, younger than all her competitors, Tatum O'Neal deserves all the praise for submitting a performance so engaging that she took home an Oscar before even attending middle school.

Paper Moon is now available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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