The Academy Awards (known interchangeably as the Oscars) first took place on 16 May 1928 to honour the best films of the past year. The event took place over private dinner and the ceremony lasted 15 minutes. The event has grown exponentially in scale over the years and is invariably guaranteed to be one of the most glamorous nights of the year, in which the stars turn out in all their finery
An actor or creative being able to bill themselves as an "Oscar winner" or "Oscar nominee" comes with huge cachet. There is crossover between the West End and the Oscars, spanning from 1939 when West End ingenue Vivien Leigh became the first British woman to win Best Actress for Gone with the Wind, to Irish stage star’s Jessie Buckley’s nomination for Hamnet this year.
The 98th Academy Awards take place on Sunday 15 March 2026, hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien. Read on to learn more about the links between the West End and the Oscars.
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A history of musicals at the Oscars
The first “talkie” to win the Oscar for Best Picture (or “Outstanding Picture” as it was then) was the now little-seen Broadway Melody of 1929, the first in a franchise of “Broadway Melody” films. The musical to win the top prize in 1937 was The Great Ziegfeld, a biopic celebrating the Ziegfeld Follies impresario Florenz Ziegfeld. While not directly related, the musical Ziegfeld at the London Palladium in 1988 proved one of the West End’s most notorious flops.
An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, with a score comprising a patchwork of compositions by the late George Gershwin, took the top prize in 1951. Christopher Wheeldon’s sumptuous stage adaptation of the film was performed in the West End in 2017.
The 1950s and 1960s marked the heyday of the blockbuster of stage-to-screen musical. Arguably the most successful of all was West Side Story (1961), which won ten of its 11 nominations. The musical was first performed in the West End at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1958 and was most recently seen in London at Sadler’s Wells in 2013.
My Fair Lady arrived at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1958 starring Rex Harrison, who went on to win an Oscar when he reprised the role of Henry Higgins in the 1964 film version (the film won eight trophies in total). Julie Andrews lost the role of Eliza Doolittle to Audrey Hepburn, but she had the last laugh when she starred in Mary Poppins the same year and was crowned Best Actress. A perennial favourite, Harry Hadden-Paton and Amara Okereke played Higgins and Eliza at the London Coliseum in 2022.
In The Sound of Music (which had five wins) the following year, Andrews gave another performance for the ages (though on this occasion she lost the Oscar to Julie Christie). The Rodgers and Hammerstein favourite was first performed in the West End at the Palace Theatre in 1961 and was most recently seen in London at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2013.
In 2002, Chicago became the most recent musical to be crowned Best Picture, with six trophies in total. The Kander and Ebb classic was first performed in the West End in 1979 but was more successful in its 1997 revival, which ran for almost 15 years. A limited return engagement took place in 2018.
Oliver! is the only British musical to win Best Picture
The only British-produced musical to win the Best Picture Oscar to date is Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, which won six trophies in 1969, including Best Director for veteran Carol Reed. West End character actor Ron Moody, who originated the role of Fagin on stage, immortalised his performance on screen and was nominated for Best Actor. Oliver! can currently be seen at the Gielgud Theatre in Matthew Bourne’s magnificent production, starring Simon Lipkin as Fagin.
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Cabaret set a record (without winning Best Picture)
In 1973, Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret, directed by Bob Fosse, set a record in becoming the film to win the most Oscars (eight in total, including Best Actress for Liza Minnelli) without winning Best Picture (that went to The Godfather). The stage musical is quite a different entity to the film and was first performed in the West End in 1968, starring future Oscar winner Judi Dench.
In Rebecca Frecknall’s revival, currently playing at the Kit Kat Club, the roles of the Emcee and Sally Bowles were originated by Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley – Redmayne won Best Actor for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything in 2016, and Buckley is a favourite to win Best Actress this year for Hamnet (the lead roles at the Kit Kat Club are currently inhabited by Matt Willis and Katie Hall).
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Only Laurence Olivier has won an Oscar for a Shakespearean role
To date, only one actor has won an Oscar for a Shakespearean role: Laurence Olivier for Hamlet in 1948, which he himself directed. It was also the first British film to win Best Picture. Olivier was nominated again for Shakespearean roles in Richard III (1955) and Othello (1965).
Other theatre actors to have been Oscar-nominated nominated for performances in film versions of Shakespeare plays include Frank Finlay, Maggie Smith, and Joyce Redman for Othello (1965), and Kenneth Branagh for Henry V (1988). And, while not a Shakespeare play, Judi Dench won a Best Supporting Actress gong for her brief but show-stealing turn as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. Plus, this year, Hamnet is up for eight trophies, including Best Picture.
Read more about how Hamnet relates to real history.
West End directors have enjoyed success at the Oscars
The aforementioned Laurence Olivier achieved enormous success on stage and screen as an actor and director. Other theatre directors who have been honoured by the Oscars include Mike Leigh (nominated for Best Director for Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake), Sam Mendes (winner for American Beauty), and Kenneth Branagh (nominated for Henry V and Belfast, pictured above).
Stars who have won an Oscar and an Olivier
The Oscar is the most prestigious award for film and the Olivier is its equivalent for the West End. The Olivier Awards were established in 1976 (originally known as the SWET Awards). Actors Peggy Ashcroft, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Rylance (pictured above), Rachel Weisz, and Eddie Redmayne have been honoured with Oscar and Olivier trophies. If Jessie Buckley, who won an Olivier for Cabaret in 2022, wins an Oscar this year for Hamnet, she will join this exclusive club alongside her Cabaret co-star Redmayne.
Actors who have won Oliviers and been nominated for Oscars include Angela Lansbury, Ian McKellen, Joan Plowright, Jonathan Pryce, Imelda Staunton, John Lithgow, Bryan Cranston, Julie Walters, Lesley Manville, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Paul Mescal. And actors who have won Oscars and been nominated for Oliviers include Paul Scofield, Glenda Jackson, Ben Kingsley, and Adrien Brody. Oscar winners Alec Guinness and Maggie Smith never won competitive Oliviers but were rewarded with lifetime achievement awards.
Read on for shows with Oscars connections that are currently running in the West End...
