Since the Stonewall riots of 1969, 30 men and women have been nominated for an Academy Award for playing LGBT on film. In anticipation of this Sunday’s Oscars, The Advocate takes a look back at these superb, often career-making performances.

Peter Finch

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Sunday Bloody Sunday

1971

Role: Dr. Daniel Hirsh, who is competing with a woman for the affections of a bisexual artist.

Al Pacino

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Dog Day Afternoon

1975

Role: Sonny Wortzik, a man who robs a bank to pay for his male lover’s gender-reassignment surgery.

Chris Sarandon

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Dog Day Afternoon

1975

Role: Leon Shermer, a pre-op trans woman who is in love with a bank robber.

Marcello Mastroianni

Best Actor in a Leading Role, A Special Day

1977

Role: Gabriele, a gay man repulsed by fascism who strikes up a friendship with a neighbor (Sophia Loren) on the day Hitler travels to Rome to meet with Mussolini in 1938.

James Coco

Beast Actor in a Supporting Role, Only When I Laugh

1981

Role: Jimmy Perino, a gay theater actor relegated to supporting roles in off-off-Broadway shows.

John Lithgow

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The World According to Garp

1982

Role: Roberta Muldoon, a transsexual ex-football player who becomes best friends with Garp (Robin Williams).

Robert Preston (pictured at right)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Victor/Victoria

1982

Role: Carroll “Toddy” Todd, owner of a tawdry nightclub who poses as struggling female impersonator Victoria’s (Julie Andrews) gay lover.

Cher

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Silkwood

1983

Role: Dolly Pelliker, the lesbian best friend and coworker of plutonium plant whistle-blower Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep).

William Hurt

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Kiss of the Spider Woman

1985

Role: Luis Molina, a man in prison for having sex with an underage boy. Hurt won the Oscar for his work.

Bruce Davison

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Longtime Companion

1990

Role: David, an affluent gay man living in New York in the 1980s, who loses his lover to AIDS.



Tommy Lee Jones

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, JFK

1991

Role: Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman who is sleeping with a male hustler (Kevin Bacon) and is alleged to have participated in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

Jaye Davidson

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The Crying Game

1992

Role (SPOILER ALERT): Dil, the girlfriend of a murdered British soldier who, in the film’s big reveal, turns out to be a man.

Tom Hanks

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Philadelphia

1993

Role: Andrew Beckett, a gay lawyer who successfully sues his former employer in one of the first AIDS discrimination suits. Hanks won the Oscar for his work.

Greg Kinnear

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, As Good as It Gets

1997

Role: Simon Bishop, a gay artist who forms an unlikely bond with his homophobic neighbor (Jack Nicholson).

Ian McKellen

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Gods and Monsters

1998

Role: James Whale, the gay director of Frankenstein who befriends (and ultimately becomes obsessed with) his gardener (Brendan Fraser).

Kathy Bates

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Primary Colors

1998

Role: Libby Holden, a nutty campaign adviser to a fictional presidential candidate based on Bill Clinton (John Travolta).

Hilary Swank

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Boys Don't Cry

1999

Role: Brandon Teena, a trans man who was raped and murdered by his friends after they found out he was born female. Swank won the Oscar for her work.

Javier Bardem

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Before Night Falls

2000

Role: Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban poet and novelist who is imprisoned for being gay.

Ed Harris

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The Hours

2002

Role: Richard Brown, a writer dying of AIDS struggling to stay alive for a dinner party his friend Clarissa (Meryl Streep) is throwing in his honor.

Nicole Kidman

Best Actress in a Leading Role, The Hours

2002

Role: Novelist Virginia Woolf, who was known for her many relationships with women; the film chronicles her life and eventual suicide. Kidman won the Oscar for her work.

Julianne Moore

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, The Hours

2002

Role: Laura Brown, a deeply unhappy suburban housewife on the verge of suicide, who has feelings for women.

Charlize Theron

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Monster

2003

Role: Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute and rape victim turned serial killer who nonetheless finds love with Selby (Christina Ricci). Theron won the Oscar for her work.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Capote

2005

Role: Truman Capote, the flamboyant gay author of the best-selling true-crime book In Cold Blood. Hoffman won the Oscar for his work.



Felicity Huffman

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Transamerica

2005

Role: Bree Osbourne, a pre-op trans woman who goes on a road trip with her long-lost son (Kevin Zegers).

Heath Ledger

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Brokeback Mountain

2005

Role: Ennis Del Mar, a ranch hand who falls in love and carries on a secret relationship with a rodeo cowboy (Jake Gyllenhaal).

Jake Gyllenhaal

Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Brokeback Mountain

2005

Role: Jack Twist, a rodeo cowboy who falls in love and carries on a secret relationship with ranch hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger).

Judi Dench

Best Actress in a Leading Role, Notes on a Scandal

2006

Role: Barbara Covett, a bitter schoolteacher who forms an unhealthy obsession with a new young art instructor (Cate Blanchett).

Sean Penn

Best Actor in a Leading Role, Milk

2008

Role: Harvey Milk, the San Francisco politician who kick-started the city’s gay rights movement before being assassinated in 1978. Penn won the Oscar for his work.

Penélope Cruz

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2008

Role: Maria Elena, a mentally unbalanced woman who, with her ex-husband (Javier Bardem), takes a lover (Scarlett Johansson).

Colin Firth

Best Actor in a Leading Role, A Single Man

2009

Role: George Falconer, a gay British university professor struggling to find his way after the death of his lover (Matthew Goode).