Who is the only actor to win three Best Actor Oscars?

Who is the only actor to win three Best Actor Oscars? Daniel Day-Lewis is the only actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor three times.

He first won for portraying Christy Brown, an Irish artist with cerebral palsy, in My Left Foot (1989). His second win came for his intense performance as oil magnate Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007). He completed the record with Lincoln (2012), playing U.S. President Abraham Lincoln during the final months of the American Civil War.

Day-Lewis’s three victories are often confused with records for total acting Oscars. Jack Nicholson, Walter Brennan and Tom Hanks are among the other major multiple winners, but none has three Best Actor victories. Katharine Hepburn won four acting Oscars, all in the Best Actress category, while Meryl Streep has three acting wins split between lead and supporting categories.

Day-Lewis’s Lincoln victory made him the first three-time winner in the lead-actor category. He later retired from acting, making the achievement especially distinctive.