| 2026 |
Wagner Moura — The Secret Agent | Jessie Buckley — Hamnet |
| 2025 |
| Fernanda Torres — I'm Still Here |
| 2024 |
| Lily Gladstone — Killers of the Flower Moon |
| 2023 |
Austin Butler — Elvis | Cate Blanchett — Tár |
| 2020 |
Joaquin Phoenix — Joker | Renée Zellweger — Judy |
| 2019 |
Rami Malek — Bohemian Rhapsody | |
| 2018 |
Gary Oldman — Darkest Hour | Frances McDormand |
| 2017 |
| Isabelle Huppert — Elle |
| 2016 |
Leonardo DiCaprio — The Revenant | Brie Larson — Room |
| 2011 |
| Natalie Portman — Black Swan |
| 2007 |
Forest Whitaker — The Last King of Scotland | Helen Mirren — The Queen |
| 2006 |
Philip Seymour Hoffman — Capote | Felicity Huffman — Transamerica |
| 2005 |
Leonardo DiCaprio — The Aviator | |
| 2004 |
Sean Penn — Mystic River | |
| 2003 |
Jack Nicholson — About Schmidt | |
| 2002 |
Russell Crowe — A Beautiful Mind | |
| 2001 |
Tom Hanks — Cast Away | |
| 1998 |
Peter Fonda — Ulee's Gold | |
| 1996 |
Nicolas Cage — Leaving Las Vegas | |
| 1995 |
Tom Hanks — Q134773 | |
| 1994 |
Tom Hanks — Philadelphia | |
| 1993 |
Al Pacino — Scent of a Woman | |
| 1992 |
Nick Nolte — The Prince of Tides | |
| 1990 |
Tom Cruise — Born on the Fourth of July | Michelle Pfeiffer — The Fabulous Baker Boys |
| 1984 |
| Shirley MacLaine — Terms of Endearment |
| 1976 |
Jack Nicholson — One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | |
| 1975 |
Jack Nicholson — Chinatown | Gena Rowlands — A Woman Under the Influence |
| 1974 |
Al Pacino — Serpico | Marsha Mason — Cinderella Liberty |
| 1973 |
Marlon Brando — The Godfather | Liv Ullmann — The Emigrants |
| 1966 |
Omar Sharif — Doctor Zhivago | |
| 1963 |
| Geraldine Page — Sweet Bird of Youth |
| 1962 |
Maximilian Schell — Judgment at Nuremberg | Geraldine Page — Summer and Smoke |
| 1960 |
| Elizabeth Taylor — Suddenly, Last Summer |
| 1956 |
| Anna Magnani — The Rose Tattoo |
| 1952 |
| Jane Wyman — The Blue Veil |
| 1951 |
| Gloria Swanson — Sunset Boulevard |
| 1950 |
Broderick Crawford — All the King's Men | |
| 1949 |
| Jane Wyman — Johnny Belinda |
| 1948 |
Ronald Colman — A Double Life | Rosalind Russell — Mourning Becomes Electra |
| 1947 |
| Rosalind Russell — Sister Kenny |