30 LGBT Oscar Nominated Roles In 40 Years

Since the Stonewall riots of 1969, 30 men and women have been nominated for an Academy Award for playing LGBT on film. In anticipation of this Sunday’s Oscars, The Advocate takes a look back at these superb, often career-making performances.

1971

Peter Finch

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Sunday Bloody Sunday

Role: Dr. Daniel Hirsh, who is competing with a woman for the affections of a bisexual artist.

1975

Al Pacino

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Dog Day Afternoon

Role: Sonny Wortzik, a man who robs a bank to pay for his male lover’s gender-reassignment surgery.

1975

Chris Sarandon

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Dog Day Afternoon

Role: Leon Shermer, a pre-op trans woman who is in love with a bank robber.

1977

Marcello Mastroianni

Best Actor in a Leading Role, A Special Day

Role: Gabriele, a gay man repulsed by fascism who strikes up a friendship with a neighbor (Sophia Loren) on the day Hitler travels to Rome to meet with Mussolini in 1938.

1981

James Coco

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Only When I Laugh

Role: Jimmy Perino, a gay theater actor relegated to supporting roles in off-off-Broadway shows.

1982

John Lithgow

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The World According to Garp

Role: Roberta Muldoon, a transsexual ex-football player who becomes best friends with Garp (Robin Williams).

1982

Robert Preston

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Victor/Victoria

Role: Carroll “Toddy” Todd, owner of a tawdry nightclub who poses as struggling female impersonator Victoria’s (Julie Andrews) gay lover.

1983

Cher

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Silkwood

Role: Dolly Pelliker, the lesbian best friend and coworker of plutonium plant whistle-blower Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep). 1985

William Hurt

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Kiss of the Spider Woman

Role: Luis Molina, a man in prison for having sex with an underage boy. Hurt won the Oscar for his work. 1990

Bruce Davison

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Longtime Companion

Role: David, an affluent gay man living in New York in the 1980s, who loses his lover to AIDS.

1991

Tommy Lee Jones

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, JFK

Role: Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman who is sleeping with a male hustler (Kevin Bacon) and is alleged to have participated in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

1992

Jaye Davidson

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The Crying Game

Role (SPOILER ALERT): Dil, the girlfriend of a murdered British soldier who, in the film’s big reveal, turns out to be a man. 1993

Tom Hanks

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Philadelphia

Role: Andrew Beckett, a gay lawyer who successfully sues his former employer in one of the first AIDS discrimination suits. Hanks won the Oscar for his work

1997

Greg Kinnear

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, As Good as It Gets

Role: Simon Bishop, a gay artist who forms an unlikely bond with his homophobic neighbor (Jack Nicholson).1998

Ian McKellen

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Gods and Monsters

Role: James Whale, the gay director of Frankenstein who befriends (and ultimately becomes obsessed with) his gardener (Brendan Fraser).

1998

Kathy Bates

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Primary Colors

Role: Libby Holden, a nutty campaign adviser to a fictional presidential candidate based on Bill Clinton (John Travolta).

1999

Hilary Swank

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Boys Don't Cry

Role: Brandon Teena, a trans man who was raped and murdered by his friends after they found out he was born female. Swank won the Oscar for her work.

2000

Javier Bardem

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Before Night Falls

Role: Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban poet and novelist who is imprisoned for being gay. 2002

Ed Harris

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The Hours

Role: Richard Brown, a writer dying of AIDS struggling to stay alive for a dinner party his friend Clarissa (Meryl Streep) is throwing in his honor.

2002

Nicole Kidman

Best Actress in a Leading Role, The Hours

Role: Novelist Virginia Woolf, who was known for her many relationships with women; the film chronicles her life and eventual suicide. Kidman won the Oscar for her work.

2002

Julianne Moore

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, The Hours

Role: Laura Brown, a deeply unhappy suburban housewife on the verge of suicide, who has feelings for women.

2003

Charlize Theron

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Monster

Role: Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute and rape victim turned serial killer who nonetheless finds love with Selby (Christina Ricci). Theron won the Oscar for her work2005

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Capote

Role: Truman Capote, the flamboyant gay author of the best-selling true-crime book In Cold Blood. Hoffman won the Oscar for his work.

2005

Felicity Huffman

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Transamerica

Role: Bree Osbourne, a pre-op trans woman who goes on a road trip with her long-lost son (Kevin Zegers).

2005

Heath Ledger

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Brokeback Mountain

Role: Ennis Del Mar, a ranch hand who falls in love and carries on a secret relationship with a rodeo cowboy (Jake Gyllenhaal).

2005

Jake Gyllenhaal

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Brokeback Mountain

Role: Jack Twist, a rodeo cowboy who falls in love and carries on a secret relationship with ranch hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger).

2006

Judi Dench

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Notes on a Scandal

Role: Barbara Covett, a bitter schoolteacher who forms an unhealthy obsession with a new young art instructor (Cate Blanchett).

2008

Sean Penn

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Milk

Role: Harvey Milk, the San Francisco politician who kick-started the city’s gay rights movement before being assassinated in 1978. Penn won the Oscar for his work.

2008

Penélope Cruz

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Role: Maria Elena, a mentally unbalanced woman who, with her ex-husband (Javier Bardem), takes a lover (Scarlett Johansson).

2009

Colin Firth

Best Actor in a Leading Role, A Single Man

Role: George Falconer, a gay British university professor struggling to find his way after the death of his lover (Matthew Goode).