Who is the youngest and oldest winner of an Oscar?

Martin Scorsese has been nominated for another Oscar for his film ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. His tenth career nod for a golden statuette makes him the most nominated living director. If he wins this year, it would be his second and also make him the oldest director to have won the coveted award.

With the Oscars just days away we took a look back at the oldest and youngest winners, whose performances stood above the rest.

Best Lead and Supporting Actor and Actress

Marlee Matlin won her award for Best Actress at twenty-one for ‘Children of a Lesser God’ making her the youngest to earn a golden statuette for the category. Jennifer Lawrence comes a close second with her 2012 win at age twenty-two for ‘Silver Linings Playbook’.

Three children have received Oscar nominations for their lead roles and several have been nominated for their supporting roles. However, only two have won in the latter category, the youngest being Tatum O’Neal. In 1974, O’Neal, at ten years old, won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in ‘Paper Moon’.

On the other end of the spectrum, at eighty years old, Jessica Tandy won Best Actress for her role as Miss Daisy in the 1989 classic ‘Driving Miss Daisy’. More recently, Anthony Hopkins won the award for Best Actor at eighty-three for ‘The Father’.

As for Best Actor, Adrien Brody holds the title of youngest winner for his performance in ‘The Pianist’, winning the accolade in 2002 at age twenty-nine. In the Supporting Actor category, Timothy Hutton won at age twenty for his work in the 1980 film ‘Ordinary People’.

Youngest nominees

Quvenzhané Wallis was nine years old when she was nominated for her lead role as Hushpuppy in ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’. Way back in 1931, Jackie Cooper was was also just nine years old when he was nominated for Best Actor playing the namesake character of the film ‘Skippy’.

Justin Henry, nominated at eight for his performance in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’, did not take home the coveted award for Best Supporting Actor but still holds the record as the youngest person nominated to any Oscar category.

Directing

The youngest director to take home the Best Director award was Damien Chazelle, who was thirty-two years old when he won for ‘La La Land.’

John Singleton, who had just graduated with a degree in screenwriting two years prior, became the youngest director to be nominated for Best Director. His undergraduate senior thesis ‘Boyz N the Hood’ also made the then 24-year-old the first Black director ever nominated for an Oscar.

A seventy-four-year-old Clint Eastwood won the highest award of the night for directing for ‘Million Dollar Baby,’ in 2005. The film won the prize for Best Picture that year as well. At 81 years old, Martin Scorsese could take the title of oldest winner director away this year having gotten an Oscar nod for his ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. It is also up for Best Picture.