Oscar winners with the longest and shortest screen time

Longest screen time

Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind (1939)

Film duration 3 hours 58 minutes
Screen time 2 hours 23 minutes
Execution time percentage 60 percent

Vivien Leigh holds the record for longest-running Oscar-winning performance, although the work took a deep toll on her physically and mentally. The film itself is also the longest to win Best Picture. At the 12th Academy Awards Victor Fleming Gone with the Wind also won Best Supporting Actress for Hattie McDaniel, who became the first African-American woman to win an Oscar. Lee was nominated along with Bette Davis (Dark Victory), Irene Dunn (Romance novel), Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) and Greer Garson (Goodbye Mister Chips).

Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur (1959)

Film duration 3 hours 32 minutes
Screen time 2 hours 1 minute
Execution time percentage 57.1 percent

Charlton Heston appeared in more than half of William Wyler’s religious epic, which also won awards for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (for Hugh Griffith) and Best Director, among others. Bye Ben-Hur revered for its thrilling chariot racing sequence, Heston’s performance as the titular Judas Ben-Hur is also considered one of his best. He was nominated alongside Laurence Harvey (Room upstairs), Jack Lemmon (Some people like it hot)Paul Mooney (The Last Angry Man) and James Stewart (Anatomy of a Murder).

Barbra Streisand, funny girl (1968)

Film duration 2 hours 35 minutes
Screen time 2 hours 1 minute
Execution time percentage 78.1 percent

Wyler’s film was adapted from Isobel Lennart’s book into a musical of the same name. Barbra Streisand, who played the iconic Fanny Brice here and on Broadway, had a screen presence of more than two hours in her film debut. She shared an Oscar with Katharine Hepburn from Lion in winter. (This is the only time two people have shared the Best Actress title.) Streisand and Hepburn beat Patricia Neal (The theme was roses), Vanessa Redgrave (Isadora) and Joanne Woodward (Rachel, Rachel).

Daniel Day Lewis There Will Be Blood (2007)

Film duration 2 hours 38 minutes
Screen time 1 hour 57 minutes
Execution time percentage 74.1 percent

For Paul Thomas Anderson There Will Be BloodDaniel Day-Lewis, often considered one of the best films of the 21st century, won the second of his three Oscars (after the 1989 film). My left leg and until 2012 Lincoln). WITH Will Bloodreceiving a total of eight nominations, Day-Lewis was nominated alongside George Clooney (Michael Clayton), Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), Viggo Mortensen (Eastern promises) and Tommy Lee Jones (In the Elah Valley).

Shortest screen time

Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Film duration 2 hours 13 minutes
Screen time 22 minutes
Execution time percentage 16.5 percent

Some feel that Louise Fletcher’s role as Nurse Ratched should have been classified as a supporting role, although she did play one of the most brutal movie villains to ever grace the big screen. The psychological drama, directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd in supporting roles, won all five major Academy Awards (best picture, director, screenplay, actor and actress) and became the first film since 1934. It Happened One Night accomplish this feat.

Patricia Neal Hood (1963)

Film duration 1 hour 48 minutes
Screen time 21 minutes
Execution time percentage 19.4 percent

Neil’s win marked the shortest on-screen performance for best actress. She won for her role as Alma Brown, the abused housekeeper in Martin Ritt’s morality-focused western. She was nominated in the Best Actress category along with Leslie Caron (L-shaped room), Shirley MacLaine (Irma la Douce), Rachel Roberts (This sporting life) and Natalie Wood (Love with a suitable stranger). Neal received another Best Actress nomination for her riveting performance in 1968. The theme was roses.

Anthony Hopkins Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Film duration 1 hour 58 minutes
Screen time 16 minutes
Execution time percentage 13.5 percent

This is another win that some felt should have been relegated to the supporting category, although Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter did get extra minutes in his voiceover, beating out Robert De Niro (Cape Fear), Robin Williams (Fisher King), Nick Nolte (Prince of Tides) and Warren Beatty (Bugsy) on Oscar night. Jonathan Demme’s film also won all five major Oscars, including Best Actress, and Jodie Foster had 56 minutes of screen time.

David Niven, Separate tables (1958)

Film duration 1 hour 40 minutes
Screen time 15 minutes
Execution time percentage 15 percent

David Niven won his only Oscar for playing a war veteran with secrets in Delbert Mann’s drama set in an English seaside hotel. Co-star Wendy Hiller won Best Supporting Actress that year – and she appeared in less than 22 minutes. Niven is the only actor to win an Oscar in the same year he hosted the Academy Awards. He was nominated along with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier (both Rebellious), Paul Newman (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and Spencer Tracy (The old man and the sea).

This story appeared in the November 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.