Who are the oldest Oscar nominees?

Actors and directors can choose to retire. Gene Hackman did it. So did Cameron Diaz. Or did she? However, show business is where people often work beyond the traditional retirement age. Some character actors have worked until they were over 100 years old. Some in the film industry have found great success in advanced years. 

These are the oldest Academy Award nominees in five major categories. With all due respect to the makeup artists and editors, we only readily had information on Best Director and the four main acting awards. Each person is only listed once, even if they got multiple nominations.

Bruce Dern had put together an acclaimed career, often playing villainous sorts. He once shot John Wayne in a film! However, in Nebraska, he plays a father dealing with dementia. It earned him a Best Actor nomination, though he did not win. However, Bruce lived long enough to see his daughter Laura Dern win an Oscar for Marriage Story.

The bulk of this list is supporting performances, which perhaps makes sense. It might be tricky to ask a 77-year-old like Whitty to carry a film. Whitty’s nomination came for 1942’s Mrs. Miniver, and she held the record for the oldest person to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor for 38 years.

The whole point of Cocoon is that the cast is full of older actors (and Wilfred Brimley, who was not as old as he appeared). Out of that cast, it’s Ameche who emerged. Perhaps it was a bit of a career achievement award, but Ameche nevertheless got the Best Supporting Actor win.

Comedies don’t often win Oscars, but when they do, it’s usually for a supporting performance. Also, it’s usually an ingenue-type woman, a la Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny. Gielgud was no ingenue. He was an acclaimed British theater and screen actor who won for being the deadpan performing partner of Dudley Moore in Arthur.

Crichton is the first director on this list. He had directed Ealing Studios comedies in London in the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s but had not directed a film since 1965. John Cleese was a fan, though, and he and Crichton worked together on A Fish Called Wanda. The Monty Python star used his sway to get Crichton the gig, and Crichton responded with a late-in-life Oscar nomination.

Douglas was a leading man of the 1930s, but by 1981, he was in a different stage of his career. He plays an infirmed wealthy man who becomes intrigued by Peter Sellers’ Chance, a gardener mistaken for a sage genius. While it’s very much Sellers’ film, Douglas still won Best Supporting Actor for his performance.

We’ll admit we had never heard of the film The Whales of August. Apparently, it stars former screen legends Bette Davis and Lillian Gish as sisters. This 1987 film was a showcase for older actors, but Sothern got a nomination for the film.

Farnsworth starred in perhaps the strangest thing we can imagine: A G-rated film from David Lynch. Not only that, he got a Best Actor nomination for the movie. The Straight Story may not be remembered to the same degree as Lynch’s Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet, but Farnsworth was the oldest Best Actor nominee for two decades.

This is the last director on this list. Apparently, directing is more of a young person’s game than acting. Huston is one of the all-time iconic directors. He was nominated for 1985’s Prizzi’s Honor. He didn’t win, but his daughter, Anjelica, won an acting award in his film.

Finally, Pacino and Martin Scorsese worked together in The Irishman. By the way, Scorsese would have been No. 26 on this list for his directing nomination for this same film. Pacino plays Jimmy Hoffa in this lengthy crime epic, a reminder that Pacino can still show off the chops after years of hammy performances and Jack and Jill appearances.

Evans had a fascinating career. After years on stage, she got into films. In her career, she received three Oscar nominations, but all of them came after she turned 75. The last of those was a Best Actress nomination for The Whisperers, which is why she is here.

Burns is primarily remembered as a comedian, but he did some acting in his 100 years of life. The Sunshine Boys was up his alley, given he got to play an aging comedy legend. It may have been art imitating life, but it won Burns a surprise Best Supporting Actor award.

De Niro has had a reputation for, shall we say, phoning it in during the later stages of his career, after he had solidified his status as one of the greatest actors to ever do it. When Martin Scorsese comes calling, though, the two-time Oscar winner can still turn it on. He earned his ninth Oscar nomination for "Killers of the Flower Moon." Not only that, but the 80-year-old overcame a quads injury during filming to finish the movie.

Scorsese is now the oldest-ever nominee for Best Director. While he could have stepped aside years ago and gone down as perhaps the most-acclaimed director ever, the man's love of film has always been clear. "Killers of the Flower Moon" earned Scorsese his whopping 10th nomination for Best Director.

Le Gallienne is a stage legend. She basically changed the way Broadway works. Her repertory company gave work to the likes of Burgess Meredith and John Garfield. Truly, she was a theater person. Case in point, she only ever acted in three movies. One of those was Resurrection, which got her a nomination in 1980.

Richardson is a tricky one. He is a posthumous nomination for his work in Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. The way this is being measured is how old he would have been when he was nominated. Given how rare posthumous nominations are, and he’s one of the all-time British stage legends, we will count him here. He’d make the list either way.

Tandy is the oldest Best Actress winner, having won for Driving Miss Daisy. However, that was when she was 80. Two years later, she got another nomination for Fried Green Tomatoes. So while this isn’t the nomination where she made history, it is the nomination on this list.

Despite its impressive cast, the film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has been largely forgotten. It’s not near the top of Tom Hanks’ or Sandra Bullock’s filmography. That said, it did give the legendary von Sydow a Supporting Actor nomination.

Holbrook won an Emmy and a Tony in his life, but he never won an Oscar. In fact, he was only nominated once, and it took a while to get there. Only a couple of weeks before he turned 83, Holbrook was nominated for his supporting turn in Into the Wild. He continued to work and live for a while, as he did not pass away until 2021.

Hopkins is the oldest-ever nominee for Best Actor, and most people assumed that was where it would end. He already had an Oscar and was up for the movie The Father. Meanwhile, Chadwick Boseman had been nominated posthumously for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The director of the Academy Award broadcast was so confident Boseman would win they made Best Actor the final award of the broadcast instead of Best Picture. Then, Hopkins won. And he wasn’t even there. He became the oldest Best Actor winner as well.

Duvall is an actor that needs no introduction. He also didn’t really need another Oscar nomination. He had already won once and had been nominated five other times. Of course, that’s indicative of how good of an actor he is, which is why he was able to add another nomination for The Judge.

We go back to Nebraska! Yes, two of the all-time oldest Oscar nominees came from the same film. We already mentioned Dern, but Squibb was nominated for playing his wife. Only one movie pops up twice on this list.

People were stoked for Dee when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for American Gangster. She had won a Grammy and an Emmy, and she originated the role of Ruth Younger in A Raisin in the Sun. She was, in short, a living legend. While she did not win, the nomination was a cool tip of the hat to a great actress — and a deserving one.

Michael Haneke’s Amour is a brutal film. To be fair, he only makes brutal films. It’s emotionally draining, and it seems like it would have been hard on Riva, even though she had been in the business for decades. Hopefully, Riva feels like it paid off. At the very least, it made her the oldest-ever nominee for Best Actress. In fact, she’s the oldest-ever nominee for a lead role full stop.

Dench won Best Supporting Actress for a brief appearance in Shakespeare in Love, but she was a mere 64 at that time. Over a decade later, she got another nomination, this time for Best Actress for her turn in Philomena. Now, she's added another late-in-life nomination thanks to her supporting turn in 2021's Belfast.

The woman from Titanic. That’s how Stuart will always be known. She plays older Rose in James Cameron’s epic film. Though she had been acting for decades, Stuart did not receive her seminal role until she was in her late eighties, and she got an Oscar nomination at the same time as well. Hey, if there was ever a testament to not retiring, it’s Stuart.

Steven Spielberg barely missed this list for his Best Director nomination for "The Fablemans," he was a veritable spring chicken at a mere 76 years and some change, but Hirsch did make the cut. Best known for starring on the sitcom "Taxi," Hirsch had one of those brief, but memorable, turns in a film that often earns a supporting nomination. He had actually previously been nominated for "Ordinary People" in 1980, making this the longest gap between nominations in Oscars history.

When it comes to older actors, nobody can beat Plummer. The guy had a great career well before he turned 80. Then, at 82, he became the oldest-ever Best Supporting Actor winner for Beginners. He did not retire, though. Several years later, he became the oldest-ever nominee for All the Money in the World. Nobody older has ever been nominated for an Oscar. And he wasn’t even done! He kept working, including a fine turn in Knives Out in 2019. We lost Plummer in 2021, but he made the most out of his final years.