Which actress won the Best Actress Oscar for "As Good as It Gets"?

Helen Hunt won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in “As Good as It Gets.”

Hunt played Carol Connelly, a waitress and single mother whose relationship with obsessive-compulsive novelist Melvin Udall gradually changes both characters. The 1997 romantic comedy was directed by James L. Brooks and starred Jack Nicholson, Greg Kinnear, and Hunt.

At the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, Hunt won Best Actress over Helena Bonham Carter, Julie Christie, Judi Dench, and Kate Winslet. Jack Nicholson also won Best Actor for the same film, making “As Good as It Gets” one of the relatively small number of films to win both lead acting Oscars.

A common mix-up is confusing Hunt’s Oscar with the film’s other major awards or with Julia Roberts’s Best Actress win for “Erin Brockovich,” which came two years later. Hunt’s performance also earned her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.