Most Recent Best Actress Oscar Winner and Key Facts
The most recent best actress oscars winner in the main acting categories is Emma Stone for her role in Poor Things at the 2024 ceremony, where the Academy honored films from the 2023 season. Stone became the third performer in history to win back-to-back best actress trophies, following Luise Rainer and Katharine Hepburn, according to the Academy's official records and industry summaries available on the Oscars website Oscars.org. The ceremony took place in March 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with the film earning multiple awards including best adapted screenplay and best production design.
Emma Stone's win was based on her performance as Bella Baxter, a character created through science fiction and body horror elements in the film Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. The film was produced by Searchlight Pictures, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Company, and distributed by Searchlight Pictures in the United States and by 20th Century Studios in international markets. The movie received 11 nominations at the 96th Academy Awards, the most of any film that season, and its win in the best actress category was widely covered by major outlets such as Forbes Forbes and The New York Times.
Historical Context and Record Holders for Best Actress
Katharine Hepburn holds the record for the most best actress wins with four Academy Awards, followed by Meryl Streep with three wins and Ingrid Bergman with three wins in the lead actress category. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, founded in 1927 and headquartered in Beverly Hills, California, administers the Oscars and updates its official statistics on its website oscars.org. The best actress category has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards in 1929, with the rules and voting procedures governed by the Academy's own guidelines and subject to change by its board of governors.
In the modern era, the best actress oscars race often features performances from films distributed by major studios including Warner Bros. Discovery, Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures, and Sony Pictures. The 2024 ceremony highlighted a shift toward independent and international productions, with Searchlight Pictures and A24 earning multiple acting nominations. According to industry analysis published by Forbes Forbes, the box office and streaming performance of a film can influence its visibility among Academy voters, though the final decision rests with the approximately 10,000 members of the Academy.
2024 Best Actress Race, Nominees, and Voting Process
The 2024 best actress nominees included Emma Stone for Poor Things, Sandra Huller for Anatomy of a Fall, Carey Mulligan for Maestro, Margot Robbie for Barbie, and Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here. The film Anatomy of a Fall made history as the first non-English language best actress nominee in over a decade, and its director Justine Triet became only the third woman to be nominated for best director in the same year. The ceremony was produced by the Academy and broadcast by ABC, with the voting for acting categories conducted by the Actors Branch of the Academy using a ranked-choice ballot system.
Emma Stone's win was confirmed after several rounds of voting by the roughly 10,000 eligible Academy members, with the final tabulation overseen by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has