| National Board of Review Award for Best Actor | |
|---|---|
 Current recipient: Daniel Craig | |
| Awarded for | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | National Board of Review |
| First award | Ray Milland The Lost Weekend (1945) |
| Currently held by | Daniel Craig Queer (2024) |
| Website | nationalboardofreview |
The National Board of Review Award for Best Actor is one of the annual film awards given (since 1945) by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. [1]
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | Ray Milland | The Lost Weekend | Don Birnam |
| 1946 | Laurence Olivier | Henry V | King Henry V |
| 1947 | Michael Redgrave | Mourning Becomes Electra | Orin Mannon |
| 1948 | Walter Huston | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | Howard |
| 1949 | Ralph Richardson | The Fallen Idol | Baines |
| The Heiress | Austin Sloper |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | Alec Guinness | Kind Hearts and Coronets | Various |
| 1951 | Richard Basehart | Fourteen Hours | Robert Cosick |
| 1952 | Ralph Richardson | Breaking the Sound Barrier | John Ridgefield |
| 1953 | James Mason | The Desert Rats | Field Marshal Erwin von Rommel |
| Face to Face | The Captain | ||
| Julius Caesar | Brutus | ||
| The Man Between | Ivo Kern | ||
| 1954 | Bing Crosby | The Country Girl | Frank Elgin |
| 1955 | Ernest Borgnine | Marty | Marty Piletti |
| 1956 | Yul Brynner | Anastasia | General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine |
| The King and I | King Mongkut of Siam | ||
| The Ten Commandments | Pharaoh Rameses II | ||
| 1957 | Alec Guinness | The Bridge on the River Kwai | Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson |
| 1958 | Spencer Tracy | The Old Man and the Sea | The Old Man / Narrator |
| 1959 | Victor Sjöström | Wild Strawberries | Professor Isak Borg |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Robert Mitchum | Home from the Hill | Wade Hunnicutt |
| The Sundowners | Paddy Carmody | ||
| 1961 | Albert Finney | Saturday Night and Sunday Morning | Arthur Seaton |
| 1962 | Jason Robards, Jr. | Long Day's Journey Into Night | James Tyrone, Jr. |
| Tender Is the Night | Dick Diver | ||
| 1963 | Rex Harrison | Cleopatra | Julius Caesar |
| 1964 | Anthony Quinn | Zorba the Greek (Alexis Zorbas) | Alexis Zorba |
| 1965 | Lee Marvin | Cat Ballou | Kid Shelleen / Tim Strawn |
| Ship of Fools | Bill Tenny | ||
| 1966 | Paul Scofield | A Man for All Seasons | Sir Thomas More |
| 1967 | Peter Finch | Far from the Madding Crowd | William Boldwood |
| 1968 | Cliff Robertson | Charly | Charly Gordon |
| 1969 | Peter O'Toole | Goodbye, Mr. Chips | Arthur Chipping, MA (Oxon), Latin Master |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | George C. Scott | Patton | George S. Patton, Jr. |
| 1971 | Gene Hackman | The French Connection | Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle |
| 1972 | Peter O'Toole | Man of La Mancha | Don Quixote de La Mancha / Miguel de Cervantes / Alonso Quijana |
| The Ruling Class | Jack Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney | ||
| 1973 | Al Pacino | Serpico | Francesco "Frank" Serpico |
| Robert Ryan | The Iceman Cometh | Larry Slade | |
| 1974 | Gene Hackman | The Conversation | Harry Caul |
| 1975 | Jack Nicholson | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Randle "R.P." McMurphy |
| 1976 | David Carradine | Bound for Glory | Woodrow "Woody" Guthrie |
| 1977 | John Travolta | Saturday Night Fever | Anthony "Tony" Manero |
| 1978 | Jon Voight | Coming Home | Luke Martin |
| Laurence Olivier | The Boys from Brazil | Ezra Lieberman | |
| 1979 | Peter Sellers | Being There | Chance |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Robert De Niro | Raging Bull | Jake LaMotta |
| 1981 | Henry Fonda | On Golden Pond | Norman Thayer |
| 1982 | Ben Kingsley | Gandhi | Mahatma Gandhi |
| 1983 | Tom Conti | Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence | John Lawrence |
| Reuben, Reuben | Gowan McGland | ||
| 1984 | Victor Banerjee | A Passage to India | Dr. Aziz H. Ahmed |
| 1985 | William Hurt | Kiss of the Spider Woman | Luis Molina |
| Raúl Juliá | Valentin Arregui | ||
| 1986 | Paul Newman | The Color of Money | Fast Eddie Felson |
| 1987 | Michael Douglas | Wall Street | Gordon Gekko |
| 1988 | Gene Hackman | Mississippi Burning | Agent Rupert Anderson |
| 1989 | Morgan Freeman | Driving Miss Daisy | Hoke Colburn |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Robert De Niro | Awakenings | Leonard Lowe |
| Robin Williams | Dr. Malcolm Sayer | ||
| 1991 | Warren Beatty | Bugsy | Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel |
| 1992 | Jack Lemmon | Glengarry Glen Ross | Shelley "The Machine" Levene |
| 1993 | Anthony Hopkins | The Remains of the Day | James Stevens |
| Shadowlands | Clive "C. S." Lewis | ||
| 1994 | Tom Hanks | Forrest Gump | Forrest Gump |
| 1995 | Nicolas Cage | Leaving Las Vegas | Ben Sanderson |
| 1996 | Tom Cruise | Jerry Maguire | Jerry Maguire |
| 1997 | Jack Nicholson | As Good as It Gets | Melvin Udall |
| 1998 | Ian McKellen | Gods and Monsters | James Whale |
| 1999 | Russell Crowe | The Insider | Dr. Jeffrey Wigand |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Javier Bardem | Before Night Falls | Reinaldo Arenas |
| 2001 | Billy Bob Thornton | Bandits | Terry Lee Collins |
| The Man Who Wasn't There | Ed Crane | ||
| Monster's Ball | Hank Grotowski | ||
| 2002 | Campbell Scott | Roger Dodger | Roger Swanson |
| 2003 | Sean Penn | Mystic River | Jimmy Markum |
| 2004 | Jamie Foxx | Ray | Ray Charles |
| 2005 | Philip Seymour Hoffman | Capote | Truman Capote |
| 2006 | Forest Whitaker | The Last King of Scotland | Idi Amin |
| 2007 | George Clooney | Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton |
| 2008 | Clint Eastwood | Gran Torino | Walt Kowalski |
| 2009 | George Clooney | Up in the Air | Ryan Bingham |
| Morgan Freeman | Invictus | Nelson Mandela |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Jesse Eisenberg | The Social Network | Mark Zuckerberg |
| 2011 | George Clooney | The Descendants | Matt King |
| 2012 | Bradley Cooper | Silver Linings Playbook | Patrick "Pat" Solitano, Jr. |
| 2013 | Bruce Dern | Nebraska | Woodrow "Woody" Grant |
| 2014 | Oscar Isaac | A Most Violent Year | Abel Morales |
| Michael Keaton | Birdman | Riggan Thomson | |
| 2015 | Matt Damon | The Martian | Mark Watney |
| 2016 | Casey Affleck | Manchester by the Sea | Lee Chandler |
| 2017 | Tom Hanks | The Post | Ben Bradlee |
| 2018 | Viggo Mortensen | Green Book [2] | Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga |
| 2019 | Adam Sandler | Uncut Gems [3] | Howard Ratner |
| Year | Winner | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Riz Ahmed | Sound of Metal [4] | Ruben Stone |
| 2021 | Will Smith | King Richard [5] | Richard Williams |
| 2022 | Colin Farrell | The Banshees of Inisherin [6] | Pádraic Súilleabháin |
| 2023 | Paul Giamatti | The Holdovers [7] | Paul Hunham |
| 2024 | Daniel Craig | Queer [8] | William Lee |
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