Actors With Most Oscar Nominations Without a Win: Full Rankings

Actors with most Oscar nominations without a win represent one of the Academy’s most stubborn statistical anomalies: performers the acting branches repeatedly shortlist — sometimes across six decades — yet voters never crown with a competitive statuette in Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, or Best Supporting Actress. Peter O’Toole and Glenn Close share the modern record with eight competitive acting nominations and zero wins. Richard Burton follows with seven. Deborah Kerr, Thelma Ritter, and Amy Adams each reached six. Albert Finney and Irene Dunne sit at five. This ranking is ordered strictly by nomination totals, not fan popularity or cultural impact — a narrower lens than our broader actors who never won an Oscar snub guide.

Below we rank every major performer on the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win leaderboard using official Academy records, explain how honorary Oscars interact with competitive droughts, and note which active stars could still climb or exit the list. For contrast with Hollywood’s win side, see most Oscars won by an actor all time and who has won the most Oscars ever. Current-season context lives in our Oscar nominees 2026 breakdown.

Actors With Most Oscar Nominations Without a Win: How We Rank

When researchers compile actors with most Oscar nominations without a win, they count only competitive acting categories — the four performance slots filled annually since the Academy expanded its structure in the mid-20th century. Honorary Oscars, Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Awards, and technical prizes do not reduce nomination totals or erase zero-win streaks from this specific ranking. Peter O’Toole received an Honorary Award in 2003 yet still appears atop the list because his eight Best Actor nominations produced no competitive victory. Deborah Kerr accepted an Honorary Oscar in 1994 while her six competitive acting nods remained winless.

USA Celebs orders the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win chart by nomination count first, then alphabetical surname, then career span. We cite the Academy Awards Database and cross-check against widely published records. Anything not confirmed in official archives is labeled reportedly. This article does not duplicate outfit analysis or red-carpet fashion breakdowns — those angles belong elsewhere. Here we track numbers, ceremony history, and voter patterns.

Eight Nominations, Zero Competitive Wins: O’Toole and Close

Peter O’Toole and Glenn Close anchor the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win record books with eight competitive acting nominations each — the highest totals in Academy history without a corresponding win in the four performance categories.

Peter O’Toole — Eight Best Actor Nominations

O’Toole’s eight Best Actor nominations span Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and Venus (2006). He lost to rivals including Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Cliff Robertson, and Forest Whitaker across five decades of eligibility. The Academy presented him an Honorary Oscar in 2003 while he remained competitively nominated — he received an eighth nod three years later for Venus, extending his actors with most Oscar nominations without a win tenure even after the lifetime prize.

Glenn Close — Eight Nominations Across Lead and Supporting

Close matched O’Toole’s total with a different path: three Supporting Actress nominations in the 1980s (The World According to Garp, The Big Chill, Hazard) and five Best Actress nods (Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Albert Nobbs, The Wife, Hillbilly Elegy). Her most recent loss came in 2019 when Olivia Colman won for The Favourite in a year many pundits expected Close to break through. As of the 98th Academy Awards cycle in 2026, she remains tied for the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win summit with no competitive statuette.

Richard Burton — Seven Best Actor Nominations

Richard Burton ranks third on the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win list with seven Best Actor nominations and zero competitive victories. His nods include My Cousin Rachel (1953), The Robe (1954), Becket (1964), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Equus (1977), and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). Burton never received an Honorary Oscar before his death in 1984, unlike O’Toole and Kerr — making his placement on the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win chart especially stark because neither competitive nor honorary prizes arrived.

Burton’s Shakespearean stage pedigree and tabloid visibility with Elizabeth Taylor kept him Oscar-night adjacent for decades. His 1964 loss for Becket came the same year O’Toole was nominated for the same film — a split-vote scenario that recurs throughout actors with most Oscar nominations without a win history.

The Six-Nomination Tier: Kerr, Ritter, and Adams

Three performers share six competitive acting nominations without a win on the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win leaderboard — two Golden Age legends and one active star still adding campaigns.

Deborah Kerr — Six Nominations, Honorary 1994

Deborah Kerr earned six competitive acting nominations between 1950 and 1961 — all Best Actress except none crossed into wins. Titles include Edward, My Son, From Here to Eternity, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, Separate Tables, The Sundowners, and The Innocents. The Academy honored her with an Honorary Oscar in 1994, acknowledging a career that epitomizes the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win paradox: sustained voter admiration without a competitive victory.

Thelma Ritter — Six Supporting Actress Nominations

Character actress Thelma Ritter remains the Supporting Actress benchmark among actors with most Oscar nominations without a win. She received six Best Supporting Actress nominations from 1950 through 1962 for films including All About Eve, The Mating Season, With a Song in My Heart, Pickup on South Street, Pillow Talk, and Birdman of Alcatraz — never winning. Ritter proves the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win list is not limited to above-the-title stars; supporting specialists can accumulate near-record totals too.

Amy Adams — Six Nominations and Counting

Amy Adams is the highest active total on the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win ranking as of 2026: three Supporting Actress nods (Junebug, Doubt, The Master) and three Best Actress nominations (American Hustle, Arrival, Hillbilly Elegy). She lost to Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa Leo, Anne Hathaway, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, and Anthony Hopkins’s co-nominee field respectively. Adams could eventually exit the list with one victory — or climb toward O’Toole and Close if voters keep nominating her without awarding her.

Five Nominations: Albert Finney and Irene Dunne

Albert Finney and Irene Dunne round out the headline tier of actors with most Oscar nominations without a win with five competitive acting nominations each.

Finney’s five nods span Best Actor for Tom Jones (1963), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Dresser (1983), and Under the Volcano (1984), plus Supporting Actor for Erin Brockovich (2000). He died in 2019 without an Honorary Oscar or competitive win — placing him among the most cited British actors on the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win list.

Irene Dunne collected five Best Actress nominations in the 1930s and 1940s for Cimarron, Theodora Goes Wild, The Awful Truth, Love Affair, and I Remember Mama without winning. Dunne’s screwball and melodrama versatility kept her nominated across genres, mirroring how actors with most Oscar nominations without a win often excel in multiple styles yet never capture voter consensus in a single year.

Honorary Oscars vs. Competitive Droughts

Confusion around actors with most Oscar nominations without a win frequently stems from honorary prizes. An Honorary Award celebrates lifetime achievement; it does not count toward competitive acting win totals tracked on our most Oscars won by an actor all time page. O’Toole, Kerr, and other honorees remain on the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win ranking because their competitive columns still read zero wins despite Academy recognition elsewhere.

Some performers on related snub lists — Samuel L. Jackson, Cary Grant — received honorary prizes after shorter competitive droughts. This article focuses on nomination volume, not every famous name without a win. For the broader cultural snub conversation, see actors who never won an Oscar.

Why Nomination Records Outpace Wins

Academy acting branches nominate within categories; the full membership votes on winners — a two-step process that produces the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win phenomenon. Common patterns include:

• Split fields — two strong performances in the same year dividing voter blocs (Burton and O’Toole both nominated for Becket in 1964).
• Genre preferences — voters historically favor biopics and social-issue dramas over comedy and thriller work that fueled Close and Adams campaigns.
• Overdue fatigue — by the eighth nomination, some voters reportedly shift to fresher narratives, a dynamic Close experienced in 2019.
• Category spread — Adams and Close mixed supporting and lead nods, accumulating totals across slots without consolidating win momentum in either.

None of these factors diminish craft; they explain how actors with most Oscar nominations without a win can dominate Academy shortlists while the competitive mantel stays empty. Compare win-side math in who has won the most Oscars ever.

Gender and Category Breakdown

Actresses dominate the six-nomination tier among actors with most Oscar nominations without a win: Kerr, Ritter, and Adams. Men anchor the seven- and eight-nomination peaks through O’Toole and Burton. Supporting categories produced Ritter’s six-nomination streak exclusively in Best Supporting Actress — the highest supporting-only total on this chart without a win.

Best Actor’s seven- and eight-nomination droughts (O’Toole, Burton) remain unmatched in Best Actress, though Close’s eight nominations across lead and supporting equal O’Toole’s raw total. Tracking actors with most Oscar nominations without a win by category reveals how placement strategy shapes legacy: Ritter never moved lead; O’Toole never competed supporting.

Could Anyone Break the Eight-Nomination Record?

As of the 98th Academy Awards in 2026, no active performer has exceeded eight competitive acting nominations without a win. Glenn Close and Peter O’Toole (posthumously ineligible) share the ceiling. Amy Adams at six could theoretically reach eight with two more nods — whether she wins along the way would determine if she exits the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win list or merely climbs it.

Younger performers with three or four nominations still have runway, but the actors with most Oscar nominations without a win ranking rewards decades of visibility. O’Toole’s span from 1962 to 2006 and Close’s from 1983 to 2021 show how sustained excellence across eras compounds totals even when victory proves elusive.

Quick Reference: Actors With Most Oscar Nominations Without a Win

• 8 nominations: Peter O’Toole (Honorary 2003), Glenn Close
• 7 nominations: Richard Burton
• 6 nominations: Deborah Kerr (Honorary 1994), Thelma Ritter, Amy Adams
• 5 nominations: Albert Finney, Irene Dunne

Explore More Awards Coverage

• Compare droughts to triumphs in most Oscars won by an actor all time.
• See the full competitive leaderboard in who has won the most Oscars ever.
• Browse broader snub narratives in actors who never won an Oscar.
• Track current races via Oscar nominees 2026.
• Visit our Awards archive for ceremony history and records.