Silver Bear for Best Actor

The Silver Bear for Best Actor (German: Silberner Bär/Bester Darsteller) was an award presented at the Berlin International Film Festival from 1956 to 2020. It was given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance and was chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition slate at the festival. Beginning with the 71st Berlin International Film Festival, the award was replaced with two gender-neutral categories: the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance and the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance.

Silver Bear for Best Actor
Silberner Bär/Bester Darsteller (German)
Sidney Poitier was the first actor to win the award twice
Awarded for	Best Performance by an Actor
Country	Germany
Presented by	Berlin International Film Festival
First award	1956
Final award	2020
Currently held by	Elio Germano Hidden Away (2020)
Website	www.berlinale.de

At the 6th Berlin International Film Festival held in 1956, Burt Lancaster was the first winner of this award for his performance in Trapeze, and Elio Germano was the last winner in this category, for his role in Hidden Away at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival in 2020.

History

The award was first presented in 1956 and can be for lead or supporting roles. The prize was not awarded on three occasions (1969, 1973, and 1974). In 1970, no awards were given as the festival was called off mid-way due to the controversy over the official selection film, o.k. by Michael Verhoeven, which led to the resignation of the international jury. In 2011, the entire male cast of A Separation received the award. Sidney Poitier, Jean Gabin, Fernando Fernán Gómez, and Denzel Washington have won the most awards in this category, each winning twice.

The last of this award was given out in 2020, after which it was replaced with two gender-neutral categories, Best Leading Performance and Best Supporting Performance, the following year.

Winners

Burt Lancaster, the first winner of the Berlin Film Festival Award for Best Actor

Sidney Poitier won twice for The Defiant Ones (1958) and Lilies of the Field (1963)

James Stewart won for Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962)

Denzel Washington won twice for Malcolm X (1993) and The Hurricane (2000)

Tom Hanks won for Philadelphia (1993)

Sean Penn won for Dead Man Walking (1995)

Leonardo DiCaprio won for Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Samuel L. Jackson won for Jackie Brown (1998)

Tom Courtenay and his co-star Charlotte Rampling won for 45 Years (2015)

Elio Germano, the last winner of the Berlin Film Festival Award for Best Actor

1950s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
1956	Burt Lancaster	Mike Ribble	Trapeze	[1]
1957	Pedro Infante	Tizoc	Tizoc	[2]
1958	Sidney Poitier	Noah Cullen	The Defiant Ones	[3]
1959	Jean Gabin	Joseph Hughes Guillamume Boutier-Blainville / Archimède	Archimède le clochard	[4]

1960s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
1960	Fredric March	Matthew Harrison Brady	Inherit The Wind	[5]
1961	Peter Finch	Johnnie Byrne	No Love for Johnnie	[6]
1962	James Stewart	Roger Hobbs	Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation	[7]
1963	Sidney Poitier	Homer Smith	Lilies of the Field	[8]
1964	Rod Steiger	Sol Nazerman	The Pawnbroker	[9]
1965	Lee Marvin	Kid Shellen and Tim Strawn	Cat Ballou	[10]
1966	Jean-Pierre Léaud	Paul	Masculin Féminin	[11]
1967	Michel Simon	Pépé	The Two of Us	[12]
1968	Jean-Louis Trintignant	Jan Robin / Boris Varissa	The Man Who Lies	[13]

1970s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
1971	Jean Gabin	Julien Bouin	Le Chat	[14]
1972	Alberto Sordi	Giusseppe Di Noi	In Prison Awaiting Trial	[15]
1975	Vlastimil Brodský	Jakob Heym	Jacob the Liar	[16]
1976	Gerhard Olschewski	Cioska	A Lost Life	[17]
1977	Fernando Fernán Gómez	Fernando Tobajas	The Anchorite	[18]
1978	Craig Russell	Robin Turner	Outrageous!	[19]
1979	Michele Placido	The Man	Ernesto	[20]

1980s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
1980	Andrzej Seweryn	Adam Pietryk	The Orchestra Conductor	[21]
1981	Jack Lemmon	Scottie Templeton	Tribute	[22]
	Anatoly Solonitsyn	Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky	Twenty Six Days from the Life of Dostoyevsky
1982	Michel Piccoli	Bertrand Malair	Strange Affair	[23]
	Stellan Skarsgård	Sven	The Simple-Minded Murderer
1983	Bruce Dern	George Sitkowski	That Championship Season	[24]
1984	Albert Finney	Sir	The Dresser	[25]
1985	Fernando Fernán Gómez	Don Leopoldo Contreras de Tejada	Stico	[26]
1986	Tuncel Kurtiz	Hilmi	The Smile of the Lamb	[27]
1987	Gian Maria Volonté	Aldo Moro	The Moro Affair	[28]
1988	Manfred Möck	Hubertus Koschenz	Bear Ye One Another's Burden	[29]
	Jörg Pose	Josef Heiliger
1989	Gene Hackman	Rupert Anderson	Mississippi Burning	[30]

1990s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
1990	Iain Glen	Larry Winters	Silent Scream	[31]
1991	Maynard Eziashi	Mister Johnson	Mister Johnson	[32]
1992	Armin Mueller-Stahl	Baron Kaspar Joachim von Utz	Utz	[33]
1993	Denzel Washington	Malcolm X	Malcolm X	[34]
1994	Tom Hanks	Andrew Beckett	Philadelphia	[35]
1995	Paul Newman	Donald Sullivan	Nobody's Fool	[36]
1996	Sean Penn	Matthew Poncelet	Dead Man Walking	[37]
1997	Leonardo DiCaprio	Romeo Montague	Romeo + Juliet	[38]
1998	Samuel L. Jackson	Ordell Robbie	Jackie Brown	[39]
1999	Michael Gwisdek	Peschke	Nightshapes	[40]

2000s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
2000	Denzel Washington	Rubin "Hurricane" Carter	The Hurricane	[41]
2001	Benicio del Toro	Javier Rodriguez	Traffic	[42]
2002	Jacques Gamblin	Jean Devaivre	Safe Conduct	[43]
2003	Sam Rockwell	Chuck Barris	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind	[44]
2004	Daniel Hendler	Ariel Makaroff	Lost Embrace	[45]
2005	Lou Taylor Pucci	Justin Cobb	Thumbsucker	[46]
2006	Moritz Bleibtreu	Bruno	Atomised	[47]
2007	Julio Chávez	Juan Desouza	The Other	[48]
2008	Reza Naji	Karim	The Song of Sparrows	[49]
2009	Sotigui Kouyaté	Ousmane	London River	[50]

2010s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
2010	Grigoriy Dobrygin	Pavel Danilov	How I Ended This Summer	[51]
	Sergei Puskepalis	Sergei Gulybin
2011	Payman Maadi [A]	Nader	A Separation	[52]
	Shahab Hosseini [A]	Hodjat
	Ali-Asghar Shahbazi [A]	Nader's Father
	Babak Karimi [A]	Judge
2012	Mikkel Følsgaard	King Christian VII of Denmark	A Royal Affair	[53]
2013	Nazif Mujić	Nazif	An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker	[54]
2014	Liao Fan	Zhang Zili	Black Coal, Thin Ice	[55]
2015	Tom Courtenay	Geoff Mercer	45 Years	[56]
2016	Majd Mastoura	Hedi	Hedi	[57]
2017	Georg Friedrich	Michael	Bright Nights	[58]
2018	Anthony Bajon	Thomas	The Prayer	[59]
2019	Wang Jingchun	Liu Yaojun	So Long, My Son	[60]

2020s

Year	Actor	Role(s)	Title	Ref.
2020	Elio Germano	Antonio Ligabue	Hidden Away	[61]

Multiple winners

The following individuals have received multiple Best Actor awards:

Wins	Actor	Nationality	Films
2	Sidney Poitier	United States	The Defiant Ones (1958), Lilies of the Field (1963)
	Jean Gabin	France	Archimède le clochard (1959), Le Chat (1971)
	Fernando Fernán Gómez	Spain	The Anchorite (1977), Stico (1985)
	Denzel Washington	United States	Malcolm X (1993), The Hurricane (2000)

See also

• Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor
• Volpi Cup for Best Actor

Notes

A^ : The entire male and female cast of A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین) was recipient of this award.