List of Academy Award winners and nominees of Asian descent

This is a list of Academy Award winners and nominees who are of Asian descent. This list is current as of the 98th Academy Awards.

Best Picture Best PictureYearNameCountryFilmStatusMilestone / Notes 1973 William Peter Blatty / The Exorcist Lebanese descent.First American of Asian descent to be nominated for Best Picture. 1980 Ronald L. Schwary Ordinary People Lebanese descent.Schwary's paternal grandmother Sophia Schwary Fliofel (1865-1955) was born in Zahle, Lebanon as can be seen in her death certificate in 1955 His paternal grandfather Louis M. Schwary was from Beirut, Lebanon and his uncle was born there as well .

His maternal grandfather Abraham J Ablan was from Batroun, Lebanon and his maternal grandmother Nezzera Zlaket and granduncle Kalil Zlaket were from Zahle, Lebanon. Marriage certificate of Ronald Schwary's parents in 1940. Information from the National Archives, United States. Scans of official acts of Ronald L. Schwary paternal and maternal grandparents on familysearch.org.First American of Asian descent to win for Best Picture. 1984 A Soldier's Story 1986 Ismail Merchant / A Room with a View Indian descent. 1988 Hank Moonjean / Dangerous Liaisons Armenian descent. 1989 Tony Thomas / Dead Poets Society Lebanese descent. A. Kitman Ho / Born on the Fourth of July Chinese descent.First Asian-American nominated for Best Picture 1991 JFK 1992 Ismail Merchant / Howards End Indian descent. 1993 The Remains of the Day Indian descent. 1996 Richard Sakai / Jerry Maguire Japanese-American. 2000 Ang LeeWilliam KongHsu Li-kong Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon All three are of Chinese descent. 2011 Thomas Langmann / The Artist Lebanese descent. 2012 Ang Lee Life of Pi Taiwanese. 2019 Kwak Sin-aeBong Joon-ho Parasite Korean.First Best Picture win by Asian filmmakers. 2020 Christina Oh / Minari Korean-American. Chloé Zhao Nomadland Chinese descent. 2021 Teruhisa Yamamoto Drive My Car Japanese. Tanya Seghatchian / The Power of the Dog Armenian descent. 2022 Jonathan Wang /Everything Everywhere All at Once rowspan=2 Both are of Chinese descent. Daniel Kwan // 2024 Samantha Quan / Anora Vietnamese descent.Shared with Alex Coco and Sean Baker.2025Zinzi Coogler//Sinners Filipino and Chinese descent.

Best Director Best DirectorYearNameCountryFilmStatusNotes 1965 Hiroshi Teshigahara Woman in the Dunes Japanese descent.First Asian nominated for Best Director. 1985 Akira Kurosawa Ran Japanese descent.1997Atom Egoyan//The Sweet Hereafter Of Armenian descent. 1998 Terrence Malick / The Thin Red Line Lebanese and Assyrian descent. 1999 M. Night Shyamalan / The Sixth Sense Indian descent.First Asian-American director to be nominated. 2000 Ang Lee Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2005 Brokeback Mountain First Asian to win Best Director. 2011 Terrence Malick / The Tree of Life 2012 Ang Lee Life of Pi First Asian to win Best Director multiple times. 2019 Bong Joon-ho Parasite First Korean director to be nominated and win Best Director. 2020 Lee Isaac Chung / Minari Korean descent. Chloé Zhao Nomadland Chinese descent.First Asian woman to win Best Director. 2021 Ryusuke Hamaguchi Drive My Car 2022 Daniel Kwan // Everything Everywhere All at Once Chinese descent.2025Chloé ZhaoHamnet First Asian woman to be nominated twice in the category.

Best Actor Best ActorYearNameCountryFilmRoleStatusMilestone / Notes 1956 Yul Brynner The King and I King Mongkut Buryat (Mongol) descent as wellFirst Asian (and first Asian-American, overall) to be nominated for Best Actor,First Asian (and first Asian-American) to win Best Actor.Brynner became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1943. 1982 Ben Kingsley / Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi Half-Indian descent (father is Indian). 1984 F. Murray Abraham / Amadeus Antonio Salieri Half-Syrian descent (father is Syrian). 2003 Ben Kingsley / House of Sand and Fog Massoud Behrani Tied for third most Oscar-nominated Asian of all time, with four nominations. 2011 Demián Bichir / A Better Life Carlos Galindo Lebanese descent. 2020 Riz Ahmed / Sound of Metal Ruben Stone Pakistani descent.First Muslim actor to be nominated for Best Actor. Steven Yeun / Minari Jacob Yi Korean descent.First East Asian actor to be nominated for Best Actor.

Best Actress Best ActressYearNameCountryFilmRoleStatusMilestone / Notes 1935 Merle Oberon / The Dark Angel Kitty Vane Part-Sri Lankan and Māori (Polynesian) descent.First Asian nominated for any Academy Award.First actress of Asian (Burgher) descent to be nominated for Best Actress. 1987 Cher / Moonstruck Loretta Castorini Born in the United States, is of Armenian descent. 2002 Salma Hayek / Frida Frida Kahlo Lebanese descent. 2010Natalie Portman/ Black Swan Nina Israeli descent. 2016 Jackie Jacqueline "Jackie" Kennedy 2022 Michelle Yeoh Everything Everywhere All at Once Evelyn Quan Wang Malaysian-Chinese descent.First Southeast Asian actress nominated for and to win Best Actress.Second person of color to win Best Actress.

Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actor Year Name Country Film Role StatusMilestone / Notes1936Akim Tamiroff/The General Died at DawnGeneral Yang Armenian descent.First Asian to be nominated in a supporting acting category.First Asian with multiple nominations in acting categories. 1943 For Whom the Bell Tolls Pablo 1957 Sessue Hayakawa The Bridge on the River Kwai Colonel Saito Japanese descent. 1962 Omar Sharif / Lawrence of Arabia Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish Syrian descent. 1966 Mako Iwamatsu The Sand Pebbles Po-Han Japanese descent. 1984 Haing S. Ngor The Killing Fields Dith Pran Born in Cambodia, is of Chinese descent. Pat Morita / The Karate Kid Mr. Miyagi Japanese descent.First Asian American to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. 1991 Ben Kingsley / Bugsy Meyer Lansky 2001 Sexy Beast Don Logan 2003 Ken Watanabe The Last Samurai Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu Japanese descent. 2016 Dev Patel / Lion Saroo Brierley Indian descent. 2022 Ke Huy Quan / Everything Everywhere All at Once Waymond Wang Born in Vietnam, is of Chinese descent.

Best Supporting Actress Best Supporting ActressYearNameCountryFilmRoleStatusMilestone / Notes 1957 Miyoshi Umeki / Sayonara Katsumi Kelly She was a shin Issei, or post-1945 immigrant from Japan.The first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for acting. 1983 Cher / Silkwood Dolly Pelliker Armenian descent. 1985 Meg Tilly / Agnes of God Sister Agnes Half-Chinese descent.First Asian American and first Chinese American to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. 1994 Jennifer Tilly Bullets Over Broadway Olive Neal Half-Chinese descent. 1999 Catherine Keener / Being John Malkovich Maxine Lund Lebanese descent. 2003 Shohreh Aghdashloo / House of Sand and Fog Nadereh "Nadi" Behrani Iranian descent. 2004 Natalie Portman / Closer Alice Ayres / Jane Jones Israeli descent. 2005 Catherine Keener / Capote Nelle Harper Lee 2006 Rinko Kikuchi Babel Chieko Wataya First Japanese actress to be nominated for an Academy Award in 50 years. 2010 Hailee Steinfeld /True GritMattie Ross Filipino descent (maternal grandfather was of half Filipino and half African-American descent).Youngest Asian American to be nominated for acting (age 14). 2020 Youn Yuh-jung Minari Soon-ja First South Korean actor to be nominated and win an Academy Award. 2022 Hong Chau / The Whale Liz Vietnamese descent.First time two Asian American actresses nominated in the same year. Stephanie Hsu / Everything Everywhere All at Once Joy Wang/Jobu Tupaki Chinese descent.First time two Asian American actresses nominated in the same year.

Best Original Screenplay Best Original ScreenplayYearNameCountryFilmStatusNotes 1986 Ken Shadie / Crocodile Dundee Lebanese descent. 1986 Hanif Kureishi / My Beautiful Laundrette Half-Pakistani descent (father is Pakistani). 1991 Callie Khouri/ Thelma & Louise Lebanese descentFirst American of Asian descent to win for Best Original Screenplay. 1999 M. Night Shyamalan / The Sixth Sense Indian descent. 2002 Steven Zaillian / Gangs of New York Armenian descent. 2006 Iris Yamashita / Letters from Iwo Jima Japanese descent.Second time a screenplay written almost entirely in an Asian language (Japanese) was nominated for a screenplay award. 2011 Asghar Farhadi A Separation Iranian descent.First screenplay written in Persian to be nominated for a screenplay award.2015 Alex Garland / Ex Machina Lebanese descent. Ronnie del Carmen Inside Out Filipino descent. 2017 Kumail Nanjiani / The Big Sick Pakistani descent. 2019 Bong Joon-hoHan Jin-won Parasite First Asian writers to win any screenwriting Academy Award. 2020 Lee Isaac Chung / Minari Korean descent. 2022 Daniel Kwan / Everything Everywhere All at Once Chinese descent. 2023 Celine Song / Past Lives Korean descent. 2025Jafar PanahiShadmehr RastinNader SaïvarMehdi MahmoudianIt Was Just an Accident Iranian descent.

Best Adapted Screenplay Best Adapted ScreenplayYearNameCountryFilmAdapted FromStatusNotes 1973 William Peter Blatty / The Exorcist The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty Lebanese descent.First American of Asian descent to win for Best Adapted Screenplay. 1990 Steven Zaillian / Awakenings Awakenings by Oliver Sacks 1993 Schindler's List Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally 1997 Hossein Amini / The Wings of the Dove The Wings of the Dove by Henry James Atom Egoyan//The Sweet HereafterThe Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks Of Armenian descent. 1998 Terrence Malick / The Thin Red Line The Thin Red Line by James Jones Lebanese and Assyrian descent. 2000 Wang Hui-lingKuo Jung Tsai Crane-Iron Pentalogy by Wang Dulu Both are of Chinese descent.First Asian-language screenplay to be nominated in a writing category. 2011 Steven Zaillian / Moneyball Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis 2019 The Irishman I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa by Charles Brandt 2020 Chloé Zhao Nomadland Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder Ramin Bahrani / The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Iranian descent. Nina Pedrad Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Borat Sagdiyev, created by Sacha Baron Cohen Iranian descent. 2021 Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe Drive My Car Short story of the same name by Haruki Murakami 2022 Kazuo Ishiguro / Living Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni 2025Chloé ZhaoHamnetNovel of the same name by Maggie O'Farrell

Best Cinematography Best CinematographyYearNameCountryFilmStatusNotes 1938 James Wong Howe / Algiers Chinese descent.First Asian to be nominated for Best Cinematography. 1940 Abe Lincoln in Illinois 1942 Kings Row 1943 Air Force The North Star 1955 The Rose Tattoo First Asian to win Best Cinematography. 1958 The Old Man and the Sea 1963 Hud First Asian to win multiple Academy Awards. 1966 Seconds 1970 Osamu FuruyaShinsaku HimedaMasamichi Satoh Tora! Tora! Tora! All three are of Japanese descent. 1975 James Wong Howe / Funny Lady Most Oscar-nominated Asian of all time, with ten nominations. 1985 Takao SaitoMasaharu UedaAsakazu Nakai Ran All three are of Japanese descent. 1993 Gu Changwei Farewell My Concubine Chinese descent. 1995 Lü Yue Shanghai Triad Chinese descent. 1996 Darius Khondji / Evita Iranian descent. 2000 Peter Pau Chinese descent. 2004 Zhao Xiaoding House of Flying Daggers Chinese descent. 2010 Matthew Libatique / Black Swan Filipino descent.First Asian American to be nominated for Best Cinematography since Howe. 2018 A Star Is Born 2022 Darius Khondji / Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Iranian descent. 2023 Matthew Libatique/ Maestro Filipino descent.2025Autumn Durald ArkapawSinnersFilipino descent.First Asian American woman to be nominated for Best Cinematography.Darius Khondji/Marty Supreme

Best Costume Design