Communities of Color
Facts and insights on specific racial/ethnic groups at the Academy Awards
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Communities of Color at the Oscars®
In addition to examining all underrepresented individuals nominated for an Academy Award®, it was also important to understand the prevalence of nominees and winners from specific racial/ethnic groups. By disaggregating the data, we provide a deeper exploration of how different communities are represented at the Oscars®.
While in other sections we provided information on individuals who were multiracial/multiethnic, in this analysis we included those people in every group with which they identified. Consistent with how we have evaluated race/ethnicity for other categories on this site, the information we obtained on racial/ethnic identification from online sources was used to guide the classification of people into the following groups. Some choices might be controversial, as they may not align with how an individual person identifies but draw on information about a person’s ancestry. In other words, the family history or origins of some nominees may lie in a group with which they do not identify. Until we hear from individuals directly, we have included people in all of the groups that their ancestry or family history might suggest are appropriate. If anything, this increases the percentage or number of nominees per group and actual estimates may be lower.
Black/African American Nominees & Winners
Only 2% percent of all nominees and 2% of all winners from 1929 to 2025 at the Academy Awards® were Black. This represents 274 nominations and 63 winners in 97 years.
Nominees
- There have been 36 years with no Black nominees at the Academy Awards® across the 19 categories we analyzed. The most recent year was 2001. There were 19 years with only one Black nominee. Most recently, that year was 2011.
- 2021 was the year with the highest percentage of Black nominees. The 24 nominations for Black artists that year were 12% of all nominations.
- Four categories accounted for 37% or 101 of the 276 Black nominees across 97 years. These are the acting categories (Best Actor/Actress in a Leading/Supporting Role).
- Of the 15 nominations for Black women in the Best Actress in a Leading Role category, only two women have been nominated more than once in this category: Viola Davis (2012, 2021) and Cynthia Erivo (2020,2025).
- Of the 32 nominations for Black women in the category of Best Actress in a Supporting Role, two women have received more than one nomination: Octavia Spencer (2012, 2017, 2018) and Viola Davis (2009, 2017). Each has won the award once.
- Denzel Washington has been nominated 7 times for Best Actor in a Leading Role (1993, 2000, 2002, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2022), with one win. Only four other actors have been nominated more than once: Morgan Freeman (1990, 1995, 2010), Will Smith (2002, 2007, 2022), Sidney Poitier (1959, 1964), and Colman Domingo (2024, 2025).
- Nineteen percent of Black nominees–51 in total–appeared in one category: Best Original Song.
- There have only been two Black nominees for Best Animated Film. They were Peter Ramsey in 2019 and most recently Kemp Powers in 2024.
- One Black woman (Joi McMillon, 2017) and one Black man (Hugh A. Robertson, 1970) were the only Black nominees for Best Editing.
- Of the 18 Black nominees for Best Picture, two were women (Oprah Winfrey, Kimberly Stewart). No Black woman has won the award. Only one Black nominee has been nominated twice for Best Picture: Jordan Peele (2018, 2019).
- Four percent of nominees in 2025 were Black. Of these 8 nominees, 3 were nominated in acting categories.
Winners
- There have been 69 years where no Academy Award® winners were Black. The most recent year was 2020.
- A Black nominee has never won the Oscar® for Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, or Best Visual Effects. In 2025, there were no black nominees in any of these categories.
- Thirty-eight percent of all 63 Black winners appeared in the four acting categories.
- Black winners in the Best Song category accounted for 19% or 12 of all Black Oscar® winners.
- Ruth E. Carter is the only Black nominee to win in the category of Best Costume Design (2019, 2023).
- The only Black winners in the Best Makeup & Hairstyling categories were Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson. They won in 2021.
- Paul Tazewell was the first Black man to win for Best Costume Design in 2025.
- Three Black men have won an Oscar® for Best Original Score: Prince (1985), Herbie Hancock (1987), and Jon Batiste (2021).
- The seven Black winners in the Best Adapted Screenplay category won for 5 different movies. Each won their award in or after 2010. All were men: Geoffrey Fletcher (2010); John Ridley (2014); Barry Jenkins (2017); Tarell Alvin McCraney (2017); Kevin Willmott (2019); Spike Lee (2019); Cord Jefferson (2024).
- There was a 62-year gap between the two wins for a Black nominee in Best Production Design (Malcolm Brown, 1957; Hannah Beachler, 2019).
- In both 2019 and 2021, seven Black nominees won an Academy Award®. This was the highest number of Black winners across any other year. The two years combined account for almost a quarter of all Black winners.
- Of the 28 years with a Black winner, almost half (12) saw only one Black nominee receive the Oscar®. This was most recently the case in 2023, when Ruth E. Carter was the only Oscar winner.
Hispanic/Latino Nominees & Winners
Across all 97 years of nominees, 2% or 257 have been Hispanic/Latino. Similarly, 2% or 59 winners have been Hispanic/Latino.
Nominees
- There were 33 years with no Hispanic/Latino nominees at the Academy Awards®. The most recent year was 2024.
- The most nominations for Hispanic/Latinos occurred in 2007. That year, 17 nominations went to Hispanic/Latinos– 11% of all nominations. Of those 17 nominations, 15 of those nominations went to 3 films: Pan’s Labyrinth (7 nominations), Babel (5 nominations), and Children of Men (3 nominations).
- Nearly two-thirds of all nominations for Hispanic/Latinos have occurred since 2003. That was the first year Alfonso Cuarón was nominated.
- Forty-eight nominations, or 19% of the total for Hispanic/Latinos have been in the four acting categories (Best Actor/Actress in a Leading/Supporting Role).
- The 22 nominees for Best Sound are accounted for by 9 people. Frank A. Montaño has been nominated 9 times in this category but has never won. Only 1 Hispanic/Latina woman has been nominated for Best Sound (Michelle Couttolenc). She also won the award.
- The largest percentage of Hispanic/Latino nominees appeared in the Best Production Design category. Twelve percent of all nominees or 29 Hispanic/Latino artists were nominated for this award.
- In 2025, 5% of all nominations were given to Hispanic/Latinos.
Winners
- There have been 62 years without any Hispanic/Latino Oscar® winners, including 2011, 2012 and 2024, the most recent years when this occurred.
- Nineteen percent (11) of all Hispanic/Latino winners were three men: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro. All are international filmmakers. To put this into perspective, only 15 Oscar® wins have gone to Latinas in 97 years. Two of those wins were awarded to Hilary Swank, who may not even identify with this community according to popular press articles. If we remove Hilary Swank, the number is 13. This means no Latina has won an Oscar® for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
- Of the 35 years with any Hispanic/Latino winners, there were 22 when only 1 Hispanic/Latino won an award. The last year this happened was 2025.
- The categories with the largest share of Hispanic/Latino winners are: Best Production Design (9 wins); Best Makeup & Hairstyling (6 wins); Best Directing (5 wins; to the same three men), and Best Animated Film (5 wins).
- Of the 4 winners for Best Original Screenplay, 3 were associated with the same film (Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)): Alejandro G. Iñárritu; Nicolás Giacobone; Armando Bo. Pedro Almodóvar was the only other Hispanic/Latino winner in this category. Every win for an Hispanic/Latino writer in this category has come in the 21st Century.
- There are three categories where there has never been an Hispanic/Latino winner: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Documentary Film and Best Actress in a Leading Role (if Hilary Swank is not included). Of those three categories, only Best Actress in a Leading Role has a Hispanic/Latino nominee in 2025.
Asian Nominees & Winners
Two percent of all nominees and 2% of winners across 97 years at the Academy Awards® were Asian. This reflects 243 nominations and 64 wins.
Nominees
- There have been 35 years without any Asian nominees at the Academy Awards®. The most recent year when this occurred was 1999. Of the 62 years with an Asian nominee, there were 20 when only 1 Asian nominee appeared. The most recent year was 2010.
- 2023 had the highest number and percentage of Asian nominees– 20 nominations, or 8% of all Asian nominees were named in 2023. Eleven, or more than half of those nominees, were associated with one film (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once). The nominees associated with this film won a total of 6 Academy Awards.
- In 2024, of the 10 nominations for Asian individuals (5% overall), four were in Best Visual Effects and due to one film: Godzilla Minus One.
- There were 6 years with double-digit nominations for Asian nominees: 2001, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024. Of the 80 nominations to Asian nominees in these years (34% of all nominations), 30 or 38% were accounted for by 3 films: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (11 nominations), Parasite (8 nominations), and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (11 nominations– every nomination that year).
- The largest share of nominations for Asians were in the Best Documentary Feature and Best Cinematography categories. Each category was responsible for 10% of all Asian nominations. Asians received 25 nominations in Best Documentary Feature and 23 in Best Cinematography. Ten of the nominations in Best Cinematography went to James Wong Howe and occurred between 1939 and 1976.
- Asian actors received only 25 nominations across all four acting categories (Best Actor/Actress in a Leading/Supporting Role). This reflects only 11% of all nominations for Asian nominees across 97 years.
- Only 4 Asian women were nominated for Best Picture, out of 18 total nominations for Asians in this category. All 4 were nominated in 2020, 2021 or 2025.
- No Asians received a nomination for Best Picture in 2024. Asian nominees appeared in only 8 categories in 2024: Best Animated Film, Best Cinematography, Best Documentary Feature, Best Makeup & Hairstyling, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Visual Effects.
- Celine Song is only the second Asian woman nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The first was Iris Yamashita (2007). The other 8 Asian nominees in this category were all men.
Winners
- There have been 68 years without any Asian Oscar® winners. The most recent year this occurred was 2017.
- Thirty-five percent of all Asian winners were named in three years: 2020, 2021 and 2023. The 9 Asian winners in 2023 were the most of any year in the 96-year history of the Oscars.
- There has never been an Asian winner in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay. There are no Asian nominees in this category in 2025.
- Two of the three Asian winners for best Original Screenplay won in 2020– both were responsible for Parasite (Bong Joon Ho, Han Jin-won). The third, Daniel Kwan, won in 2023 (Everything Everywhere All At Once).
- There have been 7 Asian actors who have won in their categories across 96 years. Two won for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Yul Brynner, Ben Kingsley), 1 won for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Michelle Yeoh), 2 won for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Miyoshi Umeki, Youn Yuh-jung), and 2 won for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Haing S. Ngor, Ke Huy Quan).
- Two categories were responsible for the largest share of Asian winners. The first was Best Documentary Film (6 winners or 11%) and the second was Best Song (8 winners or 14%).
Middle Eastern/North African
0.4% of all nominees and all winners were Middle Eastern/North African– 55 nominees and 10 winners.
Nominees
- There have been 64 years without any Middle Eastern/North African nominees, including as recently as 2022. There have been 64 years without a Middle Eastern/North African nominee, including 2022.
- Middle Eastern/North African nominees were missing from three categories: Best Production Design, Best Editing, and Best Makeup & Hairstyling.
- There were 8 Middle Eastern/North African nominees across all four acting categories.
- The largest share of nominations for Middle Eastern/North African nominees was in the Best Documentary Film category. Twenty-seven percent of all nominations for Middle Eastern/North African artists occurred in this arena.
Winners
- There have been 87 years when no Middle Eastern/North African nominees have won an Academy Award®.
- There have been 10 years with Middle Eastern/North African winners. Only 1 Middle Eastern/North African nominee has won in each of those 9 years. The most recent year was 2025. That year, Basel Adra won for Best Documentary Feature Film.
- Middle Eastern/North African winners were absent from 14 of 19 categories evaluated. They were present in: Best Actor in a Leading Role; Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Documentary Film; Best Original Screenplay; and Best Picture.
Indigenous Nominees & Winners
Less than one-half of one percent of all nominees (0.17%), or 23 were Indigenous. There have been 3 winners from Indigenous communities across 97 years of Oscar® history. For this analysis, Indigenous people include those who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, or with Indigenous populations of other countries. Like the other categories, we included individuals who indicated or we discovered had Indigenous heritage. These may be disputed by members of the community, but we chose to be inclusive rather than exclusive so actual estimates may be smaller.
Nominees
- There have been 82 years without an Indigenous nominee, including 2023.
- Indigenous nominees were missing from the following 10 categories: Best Animated Film; Best Production Design; Best Cinematography; Best Costume Design; Best Directing; Best Editing; Best Makeup & Hairstyling; Best Original Screenplay; Best Score; and Best Sound.
- Lily Gladstone is the first Native American woman to be nominated in the Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Winners
- No Oscars® have been awarded to Indigenous people in 93 of the 96 years studied.
- Only 3 years have seen Indigenous winners. The most recent year was 2020 when Taika Waititi won for Best Adapted Screenplay.
- Indigenous winners were missing from 16 of 19 categories, with the only wins in Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Song and Best Visual Effects.
