Communities of Color
Facts and insights on specific racial/ethnic groups at the Academy Awards
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
©2026 Dr. Stacy L. Smith & the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. All Rights Reserved.
Facts and insights on specific racial/ethnic groups at the Academy Awards
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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.
Only 2% percent of all nominees and 2% of all winners from 1929 to 2026 at the Academy Awards® were Black. This represents 289 nominations and 63 winners in 98 years.
Across all 98 years of nominees, 2% or 273 have been Hispanic/Latino. Similarly, 2% or 59 winners have been Hispanic/Latino.
Two percent of all nominees and 2% of winners across 98 years at the Academy Awards® were Asian. This reflects 266 nominations and 64 wins.
0.5% of all nominees and 0.4% all winners were Middle Eastern/North African– 66 nominees and 10 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 98 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.
