Entertainment
These 2 Actors Have Appeared in More Best Picture Nominees Than Anyone Else in History
Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro have often been associated with one another because of their shared connection with Martin Scorsese. Due to the consistent quality of DiCaprio’s current output, he is considered to be the “De Niro” of his generation. Both men have been highly awarded by the Oscars; De Niro has a total of nine nominations (including Best Picture as a producer on The Irishman) and two wins, and DiCaprio has eight nominations (including Best Picture as a producer on The Wolf of Wall Street) and one single victory in the Best Actor category for The Revenant. Perhaps more impressive is the fact that both DiCaprio and De Niro have been in twelve films that were nominated for Best Picture. De Niro first appeared in a Best Picture-nominated film with The Godfather: Part II (for which he also won Best Supporting Actor), and DiCaprio was in Titanic, which tied the record for the most wins with eleven (alongside Ben-Hur and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), even though he was not personally nominated.
De Niro and DiCaprio are not the only actors to have picked up significant attention from the Academy; Jack Nicholson has been in ten Best Picture nominees, earned the most nominations of any male actor with twelve, and tied the record for most individual wins for a male actor (alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Penn). Other actors with a significant number of appearances in Best Picture nominees include Tom Hanks (nine), Brad Pitt (nine), Gregory Peck (eight), Harrison Ford (eight), and, curiously enough, Jesse Plemons with seven, including his role alongside De Niro and DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon. However, DiCaprio and De Niro have shown a consistent interest in working with great directors, which explains why they’ve been in so many classics.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro Have Impressive Filmographies
De Niro has the benefit of being older than DiCaprio, and has been appearing in great films for over half a century. His filmography is not nearly as consistent as he has certainly been in disasters like Righteous Kill and Dirty Grandpa, but De Niro has evolved as a star who has been relevant in every generation. Some of his contemporaries, such as Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, started their careers off very strong, but didn’t appear in as many acclaimed films in the latter half of their resumes in the 21st century. De Niro has never failed to do interesting work, and hasn’t cared about the size of his role; his performance in the Best Picture nominee American Hustle was little more than a cameo. De Niro’s name is enough to signify that the Academy should take notice, given that his Oscar-winning role in the Best Picture winner The Godfather: Part II was also his breakout. Playing a younger version of Marlon Brando’s character from the original The Godfather seemed like an impossible task, but De Niro pulled it off, making Vito Corleone the first character to be portrayed in two Oscar-winning performances (a record that would be tied by the Joker and West Side Story’s Maria).
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DiCaprio has a slightly more complicated history with the Academy, given that he was nominated for his breakthrough child performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, but would be snubbed for over ten years for his excellent roles in Titanic, The Basketball Diaries, Catch Me if You Can, and Gangs of New York. While the Internet took an interest in the fact that he hadn’t won, DiCaprio’s physical transformation in The Revenant was impossible to ignore. Since winning the Oscar, DiCaprio has only been more selective in his roles, as the last film he was in that didn’t get a Best Picture nomination was The Great Gatsby thirteen years ago.
De Niro and DiCaprio Have Been in 3 Films Together
Although they both developed longstanding partnerships with Scorsese, DiCaprio and De Niro finally shared the screen in Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic which earned an impressive ten nominations, despite zero wins. It was a major comeback for De Niro, who received his first acting nomination since Silver Linings Playbook for one of the most terrifying roles of his entire career. While DiCaprio was unfortunately snubbed in a tight Best Actor race, his efforts to promote the film certainly helped it perform better at the box office and allowed for a breakout moment for Lily Gladstone, who stole the film with her heartbreaking performance. Now that it has finally been issued on physical media with the Criterion 4K, Killers of the Flower Moon is being more broadly accepted as the modern masterpiece that it is.
DiCaprio and De Niro also appeared in two other films together that haven’t received as much fanfare, although both are quite good. This Boy’s Life was a powerful domestic drama featuring DiCaprio as a young boy and De Niro as his abusive stepfather, and has held up as a great coming-of-age story; they also appeared together in the generational family melodrama Marvin’s Room, which earned Diane Keaton a nomination for Best Actress. It’s not clear yet if they will be reuniting anytime soon, as DiCaprio is currently filming the new Scorsese film What Happens At Night with Jennifer Lawrence, and De Niro will next be seen in the comedy sequel Focker-In-Law. However, DiCaprio does appear to be fulfilling a different part of the De Niro legacy because of his involvement in the new Michael Mann film Heat 2, where it is strongly rumored that he will be playing Neil, the character that De Niro played in the 1995 classic. The original Heat was snubbed by the Oscars, but DiCaprio’s involvement might be enough to generate more awards attention for the sequel.
Killers of the Flower Moon is available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S.