Canada’s Biggest Oscar Wins

oscars

Torontonian Mary Pickford, the biggest star of the 1920s, won the second Best Actress award in Oscar history (the first award for an actress in a talkie) for the 1929 film, Coquette. Pickford retired from acting in 1933, but she would later receive an honorary Oscar for her contributions to the world of film at the 1976 Academy Awards ceremony.

There’s no denying that Canadian actresses dominated the early Oscars ceremonies. After Mary Pickford’s 1929 win, French-Canadian actress Norma Shearer picked up the Best Actress award at the third Academy Awards ceremony for 1930 film, The Divorcee. Then, at the fourth Academy Awards ceremony Canada’s Marie Dressler won the Best Actress award for her performance in the 1930 film, Min and Bill.

Harold Russell, a disabled World War II veteran born in Nova Scotia, won the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in the 1946 film, The Best Years of Our Lives. Russell, who lost both of his hands in combat, also took home a second Oscar that night for ''bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures.''

Toronto-born Walter Huston won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role as a wounded ship’s captain in Humphrey Bogart’s 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That same year, his son John Huston won the Best Director award for the same film.

Born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, legendary director Norman Jewison is Canada’s most recognized name at the Academy Awards. Jewison’s films have been nominated for 45 different Oscars through the years, winning 12 – including Best Picture for the controversial 1967 film, In the Heat of the Night. He has been personally honoured as a seven-time Oscar nominee and received Oscar’s prestigious Irving Thalberg Award in 1999.

Winnipeg-born actress Anna Paquin picked up her Best Supporting Actress award at the age eleven for her debut performance in the 193 film, The Piano. That night Paquin became the second-youngest Oscar winner of all time.

Acclaimed French-Canadian director Denys Arcand has received three nominations throughout his career in the Oscar's Best Foreign Film category. Quebec’s most politically outspoken filmmaker was nominated for The Decline Of The American Empire in 1986, Jesus Of Montreal in 1989 and won in 2004 for The Barbarian Invasions. Arcand is the only French-Canadian director in history to receive three Academy Award nominations, and to take home an Oscar statuette.

James Cameron is one of the most notable Canadians to take home some serious Oscar hardware. Cameron directed what was in 1997 the highest-grossing film of all time, Titanic, which received a record-breaking 11 Oscars at the 70th annual Academy Awards. The film earned Cameron statuettes for Best Picture, Best Director and Film Editing.

Canadian-born screenwriter and director Paul Haggis won accolades when he became the first screenwriter to write two Best Film Oscars back-to-back – Million Dollar Baby in 2004 and Crash in 2005, which he himself directed. For Crash, he won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

Toronto-born actor Christopher Plummer, most remembered for his role as Captain Von Trapp in the 1965 classic The Sound Of Music, finally won his first Academy Award in 2012. Plummer picked up the Best Supporting Actor award and received a standing ovation for his portrayal of an elderly man who reveals that he is gay, in the independent film, Beginners. The award made the then 82-year-old actor the oldest person to ever win an Oscar.