Without question, Jamie Lee Curtis is Hollywood royalty. She is not only the daughter of acclaimed performers Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, but she has been in films since her feature debut in John Carpenter’s horror masterpiece Halloween, which was released back in 1978 and catapulted her career to massive stardom. From there, it was only a matter of time until Curtis nabbed some eye-popping Oscars gold — although it certainly took her a hearty length of time to get there.
Seeing as she has been serving up stellar performances for the last four decades, it should hardly come as a huge surprise that the 65-year-old actress has been nominated for a plethora of prestigious awards. Then again, when you’ve had a career as successful and triumphant as the one that Curtis has had, it probably feels as though the accomplishments and accolades just seem to pour in. With unforgettable flicks such as Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda, and True Lies in her repertoire, a magnitude of Hollywood gold was definitely in her future.
So with a vital resume as impressive as one resume can possibly get, it’s no wonder film buffs have continued to wonder over the years just how many Academy Awards Curtis has managed to actually take home.
So, how many Oscars has Curtis won in her career?
Believe it or not, Curtis has only won one singular Oscar in her illustrious career. Just last year, she was awarded her only Oscar during the 95th Academy Awards, taking home the statuette for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Deirdre Beaubeirdre in the massively popular feature Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Truth be told, it is astonishing that she has only been nominated and won once in what is nearly half a century of great work. But just because she was not recognized by the Academy over the years does not mean that she did not see recognition for her work in other areas. Curtis has been nominated for Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards, and an Emmy. In fact, she won a BAFTA for 1983’s Trading Places, the John Landis comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. She also managed to take home Golden Globes for her roles in both Anything But Love and True Lies.
Why hasn’t she been awarded Oscars before now? It might be because for most of her career, Curtis has been doing a variety of genre projects, from Halloween to Scream Queens, to Trading Places all the way to Freaky Friday. The Academy tends to overlook genre films, especially comedy and horror movies, so that’s undoubtedly why she doesn’t have a longer list of nominations.
Last year’s Oscars seemingly changed the narrative, however, where a genre movie received all the love at the Academy Awards, and she won for the sci-fi film Everything Everywhere All at Once. She was not the only cast member to walk away with an Oscar as her co-star, Ke Huy Quan, also managed to win Best Supporting Actor while the film managed to garner a total of 11 nominations, the highest for any of the nominated films in 2023.
And with Curtis’ Oscar finally secure, folks have started to question whether or not she could receive an award for her performance as Donna Berzatto in FX’s The Bear — a performance that was praised by critics and fanatics of the series alike. Despite sadly missing the cutoff for the 2023 Emmys, it’s worth noting that she’ll certainly be eligible to be nominated for this year.
