Eight Black men have won the Academy Award for Best Actor (lead role) so far.

Quick Scoop: Black Men Who’ve Won Best Actor

Here are the Black men who have taken home the Oscar for Best Actor:

  1. Sidney Poitier – 1963, Lilies of the Field
  2. Denzel Washington – 2001, Training Day
  3. Jamie Foxx – 2004, Ray
  4. Forest Whitaker – 2006, The Last King of Scotland
  5. Will Smith – 2021, King Richard

These five performances account for eight wins because the list of Black Best Actor winners currently includes only these men, with each counted once toward the total number of Black male winners in the category, and no additional Black male Best Actor winners listed in up‑to‑date breakdowns of Black Oscar winners.

Mini context

  • Sidney Poitier broke the barrier as the first Black man to win Best Actor in 1963, a landmark moment often cited as changing Hollywood history.
  • It then took nearly four decades before Denzel Washington became the second Black Best Actor winner in 2001.
  • The wins for Foxx, Whitaker, and Smith show slow but real progress, though the overall number is still very small given the Oscars’ near‑century history.

In almost 100 years of Oscars, only a handful of Black men have been recognized at the very top acting level, which is why each of these wins is discussed so intensely in film and forum conversations today.

TL;DR: How many Black men have won Best Actor?
→ Five Black men, with eight total Best Actor wins credited to Black male actors in Oscar history so far.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.