| Research on the age of Oscar-nominated actors and actresses in leading and supporting role categories 

| Shalini Kathuria Narang

| At the 2025 Academy Awards ceremony, 62-year-old Demi Moore who had secured the nomination for her role as Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance, a character struggling with aging in Hollywood, lost the statuette in the best actress in a leading role category to 25-year-old Mikey Madison, who played Ani, a young Brooklyn sex worker in the film Anora. Madison became the first Gen Z actor to win an acting Oscar and was the youngest, while Moore was the oldest of the five nominees. 

The next day, The New York Times reported audience comments about how Moore’s loss emphasized the challenges older actresses face in a Hollywood that is obsessed with young women. 

Unlike with employers assessing job candidates, no rewards are reaped by those selecting the Oscar winners. In that sense, the Oscars provide unique evidence on how people with no skin in the game judge other people’s work at the intersection of gender and age. In other words, the Oscars offer a window on ageism beyond Hollywood. 

Economics Professor Pablo Peña of University of Chicago has analyzed patterns in roles where age is an advantage versus others for which youth is the ticket to recognition. in his paper “Does age help or hurt Oscar-nominated actors’ chances of winning a statuette?” he demonstrates that among male nominees for the leading and supporting role categories, being older relative to other nominees helps the actors chances of winning, but among female nominees, age (being older relative to other nominees) neither helps nor hurts their chances. Among young nominees, women have better odds of winning than men, whereas among older nominees, men have better odds than women.

The economics professor used publicly available data from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars.org), the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and Wikipedia from 97 Academy Awards ceremonies between 1929 and 2025  that included 1846 nominations and 374 awards for best actor or actress in leading or supporting roles. 

“I love to watch old movies and discuss their philosophical meaning with friends. I am a fan of analyzing sports and entertainment because they provide detailed information that you don’t get from other sectors,” says Peña.

Oscar-winning producer Paul Brett has said, “An Oscar really is life-changing for anyone involved. It opens enormous doors—every agent and producer wants to talk to you afterwards.” 

Other researchers have found that films perform better at the box office after their actors win a statuette (Nelson et al., 2001), and winning an Oscar seems to extend the life expectancy of actors relative to non-winning nominees (Redelmeier and Singh, 2022). 

According to Peña’s research, overall, male nominees are six years older than their female counterparts, and actors in supporting roles are older than lead actors by about three years.

Let us take a look at this year’s nominees. In the main acting categories, 7 out of 20 nominations have gone to actors over 50. Nods for Amy Madigan, 75; Delroy Lindo, 73; Benicio del Toro, 58; Sean Penn, 65; Stellan Skarsgård, 74; Leonardo DiCaprio, 51; and Ethan Hawke, 55, are not only reflective of their talent, persistence and hard work in the uber competitive movie business but also inline with Professor Peña’s research findings. 

Ethan Hawke and Leonardo DiCaprio race for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Award

Ethan Hawke, 55, portraying once-famous but fading lyricist Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon, is in the running for the top prize this year. He has been nominated twice for an Academy Award in the supporting actor category. 

Also in the race is Leonardo DiCaprio, 51, who last won a best actor Oscar for The Revenant in 2016. This time, he’s cast as an aging radical trying to protect his daughter in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. 

Best Supporting Actor Nominees 

Four of the five nominations in this category have gone to actors over 50. 

Veteran Hollywood star Delroy Lindo, 73, for his role as a juke-joint pianist Delta Slim in Ryan Coogler’s horror-thriller Sinners. 

And then there is Swedish actor and two-time Golden Globe winner Stellan Skarsgård, 74, who is nominated for his performance in Sentimental Value as an ailing film director seeking reconciliation with his somewhat estranged daughters. 

Benicio del Toro, 58, and Sean Penn, 65, will also be vying for supporting actor honors for their roles in One Battle After Another. Toro for his portrayal of  Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, a karate instructor, and Penn for his role as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, a hard-line, bigoted military zealot and law enforcement officer.

Amy Madigan in Supporting Actress Category 

Already a Critics’ Choice winner for playing reclusive, eccentric and mysterious Aunt Gladys in the horror mystery movie Weapons, 75-year-old Amy Madigan’s last supporting actress Oscar nomination was in 1986 for the drama Twice in a Lifetime. Will the second time be a charm? The answer matters for more than one talented performer and her fans.

Shalini Kathuria Narang is a Bay Area-based freelance journalist. She has reported and written on health, wellness, diaspora, travel, technology and trends.