About this chart race
Leonardo DiCaprio has 1 competitive acting Oscar, Denzel Washington 2 and Meryl Streep 3. Katharine Hepburn finishes above them all with 4. This race follows career wins as they accumulated by ceremony year, from the first Oscars in 1929 through the ceremony held on March 15, 2026.
Walter Brennan becomes the first performer to reach three acting wins at the 1941 ceremony. Hepburn draws level with three in 1969 and reaches four in 1982. By 2026, seven performers have three: Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Daniel Day-Lewis, Frances McDormand, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn and Meryl Streep. Penn's third win was presented in 2026 for One Battle after Another; it is often indexed under the film year 2025.
Only wins in the four competitive acting categories are counted: leading actor, leading actress, supporting actor and supporting actress, including their historical names. Honorary awards, nominations, producing, directing and other categories are excluded. For example, a Best Picture award received as a producer does not add to an acting total. Shared acting-category wins count as one win per recipient. The first acting awards recognized multiple performances, but Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor each receive one award here, not one per credited film.
The selected field contains all 46 performers with at least two competitive acting wins by the 2026 ceremony, plus the first two acting recipients and two one-time winners for comparison: Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael B. Jordan. It is a selected field of 50, not a complete list of every one-time winner. Ten competitors are visible at once; identical win totals are ties and screen position does not establish an additional merit ranking.
All 105 included award events were checked against the Academy's official ceremony records. The repeat-winner list was used as a second compilation check. Ceremony dates determine when counts rise; film or eligibility years are not substituted. Annual values are cumulative year-end totals, including zero before a selected performer's first win. No ceremony was held in 1933; existing totals simply carry forward. Movement between yearly snapshots is animation, not fractional Oscars or extra awards.
Official records: https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies
Latest ceremony: https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2026
First ceremony: https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1929
Compilation cross-check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actors_with_two_or_more_Academy_Awards_in_acting_categories
This animated ranking shows how career competitive acting oscars changed across 50 series between 1929 and 2026. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2026, Katharine Hepburn leads with 4 wins.
Included in this race
Katharine Hepburn, Walter Brennan, Sean Penn, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman, Frances McDormand, Daniel Day-Lewis, Vivien Leigh, Tom Hanks, Spencer Tracy, Shelley Winters, Sally Field, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Peter Ustinov, Olivia de Havilland, Michael Caine, Melvyn Douglas, Marlon Brando, Mahershala Ali, Maggie Smith, Luise Rainer, Kevin Spacey, Jodie Foster, Jessica Lange, Jason Robards, Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Hilary Swank, Helen Hayes, Glenda Jackson, Gene Hackman, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Emma Stone, Elizabeth Taylor, Dustin Hoffman, Dianne Wiest, Denzel Washington, Christoph Waltz, Cate Blanchett, Bette Davis, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Hopkins, Adrien Brody, Michael B. Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Janet Gaynor, Emil Jannings.
Source
Data from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Check the stated period and methodology. Animated transitions between source observations are visual interpolation, not additional measurements.
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