Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

The Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor is an annual award given by the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
The 2024 recipient: Adrien Brody
Awarded for	Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Country	United States
Presented by	Chicago Film Critics Association
First award	Jeremy Irons Dead Ringers (1988)
Currently held by	Adrien Brody The Brutalist (2024)
Website	www.chicagofilmcritics.org

Winners

1980s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role
1988	Jeremy Irons	Dead Ringers	Beverly Mantle / Elliot Mantle
1989	Tom Cruise	Born on the Fourth of July	Ron Kovic
	Kenneth Branagh	Henry V	Henry V
	Daniel Day-Lewis	My Left Foot	Christy Brown
	Martin Landau	Crimes and Misdemeanors	Judah Rosenthal
	James Spader	Sex, Lies, and Videotape	Graham Dalton

1990s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role
1990	Jeremy Irons	Reversal of Fortune	Claus von Bülow
1991	Anthony Hopkins	The Silence of the Lambs	Hannibal Lecter
	Warren Beatty	Bugsy	Bugsy Siegel
	William Hurt	The Doctor	Dr. Jack MacKee
	Val Kilmer	The Doors	Jim Morrison
	Joe Mantegna	Homicide	Bobby Gold
	Nick Nolte	The Prince of Tides	Tom Wingo
	John Turturro	Barton Fink	Barton Fink
1992	Denzel Washington	Malcolm X	Malcolm X
	Robert Downey Jr.	Chaplin	Charlie Chaplin
	Clint Eastwood	Unforgiven	William 'Will' Munny
	Al Pacino	Scent of a Woman	Frank Slade
	Tim Robbins	The Player	Griffin Mill
1993	Liam Neeson	Schindler's List	Oskar Schindler
	Jeff Bridges	Fearless	Max Klein
	Daniel Day-Lewis	The Age of Innocence	Newland Archer
	Laurence Fishburne	What's Love Got to Do with It	Ike Turner
	Tom Hanks	Philadelphia	Andrew Beckett
	Anthony Hopkins	The Remains of the Day	James Stevens
1994	Tom Hanks	Forrest Gump	Forrest Gump
	Johnny Depp	Ed Wood	Ed Wood
	Samuel L. Jackson	Pulp Fiction	Jules Winnfield
	Tommy Lee Jones	Cobb	Ty Cobb
	John Travolta	Pulp Fiction	Vincent Vega
1995	Nicolas Cage	Leaving Las Vegas	Ben Sanderson
	Morgan Freeman	Seven	Detective Lt. William Somerset
	Anthony Hopkins	Nixon	Richard Nixon
	Sean Penn	Dead Man Walking	Matthew Poncelet
	Denzel Washington	Devil in a Blue Dress	Easy Rawlins
1996	Billy Bob Thornton	Sling Blade	Karl Childers
	Kenneth Branagh	Hamlet	Hamlet
	William H. Macy	Fargo	Jerry Lundegaard
	Liam Neeson	Michael Collins	Michael Collins
	Geoffrey Rush	Shine	David Helfgott
	Denzel Washington	Courage Under Fire	Lt. Colonel Nathaniel Serling
1997	Robert Duvall	The Apostle	Euliss Dewey/The Apostle
	Peter Fonda	Ulee's Gold	Ulysses 'Ulee' Jackson
	Ian Holm	The Sweet Hereafter	Mitchell Stephens
	Jack Nicholson	As Good as It Gets	Melvin Udall
	Al Pacino	Donnie Brasco	Benjamin 'Lefty' Ruggiero
1998	Ian McKellen	Gods and Monsters	James Whale
	Roberto Benigni	Life Is Beautiful	Guido Orefice
	Jim Carrey	The Truman Show	Truman Burbank
	Tom Hanks	Saving Private Ryan	Captain John H. Miller
	Edward Norton	American History X	Derek Vinyard
1999	Kevin Spacey	American Beauty	Lester Burnham
	Jim Broadbent	Topsy-Turvy	W. S. Gilbert
	Russell Crowe	The Insider	Jeffrey Wigand
	Richard Farnsworth	The Straight Story	Alvin Straight
	Denzel Washington	The Hurricane	Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter

2000s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role
2000	Tom Hanks	Cast Away	Chuck Noland
	Javier Bardem	Before Night Falls	Reinaldo Arenas
	Michael Douglas	Wonder Boys	Prof. Grady Tripp
	Mark Ruffalo	You Can Count on Me	Terry Prescott
	Geoffrey Rush	Quills	Marquis de Sade
2001	Gene Hackman	The Royal Tenenbaums	Royal Tenenbaum
	Russell Crowe	A Beautiful Mind	John Nash
	John Cameron Mitchell	Hedwig and the Angry Inch	Hansel Schmidt/Hedwig Robinson
	Guy Pearce	Memento	Leonard Shelby
	Denzel Washington	Training Day	Alonzo Harris
	Tom Wilkinson	In the Bedroom	Matt Fowler
2002	Daniel Day-Lewis	Gangs of New York	William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting
	Adrien Brody	The Pianist	Władysław Szpilman
	Nicolas Cage	Adaptation	Charlie and Donald Kaufman
	Hugh Grant	About a Boy	Will Freeman
	Jack Nicholson	About Schmidt	Warren R. Schmidt
2003	Bill Murray	Lost in Translation	Bob Harris
	Johnny Depp	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	Captain Jack Sparrow
	Paul Giamatti	American Splendor	Harvey Pekar
	Ben Kingsley	House of Sand and Fog	Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani
	Sean Penn	Mystic River	Jimmy Markum
2004	Paul Giamatti	Sideways	Miles Raymond
2005	Philip Seymour Hoffman	Capote	Truman Capote
	Terrence Howard	Hustle & Flow	DJay
	Heath Ledger	Brokeback Mountain	Ennis Del Mar
	Joaquin Phoenix	Walk the Line	Johnny Cash
	David Strathairn	Good Night, and Good Luck	Edward R. Murrow
2006	Forest Whitaker	The Last King of Scotland	Idi Amin
	Leonardo DiCaprio	The Departed	Billy Costigan
	Ryan Gosling	Half Nelson	Dan Dunne
	Peter O'Toole	Venus	Maurice
	Will Smith	The Pursuit of Happyness	Chris Gardner
2007	Daniel Day-Lewis	There Will Be Blood	Daniel Plainview
	George Clooney	Michael Clayton	Michael Clayton
	Ryan Gosling	Lars and the Real Girl	Lars Lindstrom
	Frank Langella	Starting Out in the Evening	Leonard Schiller
	Viggo Mortensen	Eastern Promises	Nikolai Luzhin
2008	Mickey Rourke	The Wrestler	Randy Robinson
	Clint Eastwood	Gran Torino	Walt Kowalski
	Richard Jenkins	The Visitor	Walter Vale
	Frank Langella	Frost/Nixon	Richard Nixon
	Sean Penn	Milk	Harvey Milk
2009	Jeremy Renner	The Hurt Locker	SFC. William James
	Jeff Bridges	Crazy Heart	Bad Blake
	George Clooney	Up in the Air	Ryan Bingham
	Matt Damon	The Informant!	Mark Whitacre
	Michael Stuhlbarg	A Serious Man	Larry Gopnik

2010s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role
2010	Colin Firth	The King's Speech	King George VI
	Jeff Bridges	True Grit	Rooster Cogburn
	Jesse Eisenberg	The Social Network	Mark Zuckerberg
	James Franco	127 Hours	Aron Ralston
	Ryan Gosling	Blue Valentine	Dean
2011	Michael Shannon	Take Shelter	Curtis LaForche
	George Clooney	The Descendants	Matt King
	Jean Dujardin	The Artist	George Valentin
	Michael Fassbender	Shame	Brandon Sullivan
	Gary Oldman	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	George Smiley
2012	Daniel Day-Lewis	Lincoln	Abraham Lincoln
	John Hawkes	The Sessions	Mark O'Brien
	Denis Lavant	Holy Motors	Mr. Oscar
	Joaquin Phoenix	The Master	Freddie Quell
	Denzel Washington	Flight	Whip Whitaker
2013	Chiwetel Ejiofor	12 Years a Slave	Solomon Northup
	Bruce Dern	Nebraska	Woody Grant
	Oscar Isaac	Inside Llewyn Davis	Llewyn Davis
	Matthew McConaughey	Dallas Buyers Club	Ron Woodroof
	Robert Redford	All Is Lost	Our Man
2014	Michael Keaton	Birdman	Riggan Thomson / Birdman
	Benedict Cumberbatch	The Imitation Game	Alan Turing
	Jake Gyllenhaal	Nightcrawler	Lou Bloom
	David Oyelowo	Selma	Martin Luther King Jr.
	Eddie Redmayne	The Theory of Everything	Stephen Hawking
2015	Leonardo DiCaprio	The Revenant	Hugh Glass
	Christopher Abbott	James White	James White
	Michael Fassbender	Steve Jobs	Steve Jobs
	Eddie Redmayne	The Danish Girl	Lili Elbe / Einar Wegener
	Jason Segel	The End of the Tour	David Foster Wallace
2016	Casey Affleck	Manchester by the Sea	Lee Chandler
	Adam Driver	Paterson	Paterson
	Joel Edgerton	Loving	Richard Loving
	Colin Farrell	The Lobster	David
	Denzel Washington	Fences	Troy Maxson
2017	Timothée Chalamet	Call Me by Your Name	Elio Perlman
	Daniel Day-Lewis	Phantom Thread	Reynolds Woodcock
	James Franco	The Disaster Artist	Tommy Wiseau
	Gary Oldman	Darkest Hour	Winston Churchill
	Harry Dean Stanton	Lucky	Lucky
2018 [1][2]	Ethan Hawke	First Reformed	Ernst Toller
	Christian Bale	Vice	Dick Cheney
	Bradley Cooper	A Star Is Born	Jackson Maine
	Rami Malek	Bohemian Rhapsody	Freddie Mercury
	Joaquin Phoenix	You Were Never Really Here	Joe
2019 [3][4]	Adam Driver	Marriage Story	Charlie Barber
	Antonio Banderas	Pain and Glory	Salvador Mallo
	Robert De Niro	The Irishman	Frank Sheeran
	Joaquin Phoenix	Joker	Arthur Fleck / Joker
	Adam Sandler	Uncut Gems	Howard Ratner

2020s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role
2020[5]	Chadwick Boseman	Ma Rainey's Black Bottom	Levee Green
	Riz Ahmed	Sound of Metal	Ruben Stone
	Anthony Hopkins	The Father	Anthony
	Delroy Lindo	Da 5 Bloods	Paul
	Steven Yeun	Minari	Jacob Yi
2021[6]	Benedict Cumberbatch	The Power of the Dog	Phil Burbank
	Nicolas Cage	Pig	Robin "Rob" Feld
	Andrew Garfield	tick, tick... BOOM!	Jonathan Larson
	Hidetoshi Nishijima	Drive My Car	Yūsuke Kafuku
	Simon Rex	Red Rocket	Mikey Saber
2022	Colin Farrell	The Banshees of Inisherin	Pádraic Súilleabháin
	Austin Butler	Elvis	Elvis Presley
	Brendan Fraser	The Whale	Charlie
	Paul Mescal	Aftersun	Calum
	Bill Nighy	Living	Mr. Williams
2023	Paul Giamatti	The Holdovers	Paul Hunham
	Leonardo DiCaprio	Killers of the Flower Moon	Ernest Burkhart
	Cillian Murphy	Oppenheimer	J. Robert Oppenheimer
	Andrew Scott	All of Us Strangers	Adam
	Teo Yoo	Past Lives	Hae Sung
2024	Adrien Brody	The Brutalist	László Tóth
	Timothée Chalamet	A Complete Unknown	Bob Dylan
	Colman Domingo	Sing Sing	John "Divine G" Whitfield
	Ralph Fiennes	Conclave	Thomas Cardinal Lawrence
	Keith Kupferer	Ghostlight	Dan Mueller