Albert Finney - Awards and Honours

Awards and Honours

Albert Finney turned down the offer of a CBE in 1980 and a Knighthood in 2000. He has criticised the honours system for "perpetuating snobbery".

He has five Oscar nominations but has never won. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor four times, for Tom Jones (1963), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Dresser (1983), and Under the Volcano (1984); and was nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Erin Brockovich (2000).

Julia Roberts mentioned Albert Finney in her Oscar acceptance speech for Best Actress in Erin Brockovich, thanking him and sharing the Oscar with him.

Finney received a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles in 1961 for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). He was also nominated for Best British Actor for the same film. He was nominated nine more times before he finally won again, for the telefilm The Gathering Storm (2002). He has 13 BAFTA nominations in total, and also received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2001.

He won an Emmy Award, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Made for TV Movie, for his performance as Winston Churchill in HBO's The Gathering Storm. He had previously been nominated for the HBO telefilm The Image (1990).

He has received Golden Globe nominations for:

Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama

• Shoot the Moon
• The Dresser
• Under the Volcano

Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical

• Tom Jones (he received two nominations, winning for "Most Promising Newcomer". See below.)
• Scrooge, WINNER. His portrayal of both the old miser and the young Ebenezer Scrooge earned him "The Best Motion Picture Actor in a Musical/Comedy" for 1971.

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture

• Erin Brockovich
• Big Fish

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

• The Gathering Storm, WINNER.

Most Promising Newcomer - Male.

• Tom Jones, WINNER.

For his work on Broadway, Finney has been nominated for two Tony Awards, both for Best Actor in a Play, for Luther in 1964, and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg in 1968. For the London stage, he won two Olivier Awards, both for Best Actor, for A Flea in Her Ear and Orphans.

Other awards include: a Golden Laurel for his work on Scrooge (1970) and for his work on Tom Jones, for which he was the 3rd Place Winner for the "Top Male Comedy Performance" for 1964. He was honoured by the Los Angeles Film Critics' Association as Best Actor for Under the Volcano (which he tied with F. Murray Abraham for Amadeus), the National Board of Review Best Actor award for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and the New York Film Critics' Circle Best Actor award for Tom Jones.

Finney has won two Screen Actors' Guild Awards, for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, for Erin Brockovich, and as a member of the acting ensemble in the film Traffic. He was also nominated for The Gathering Storm, for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries, but did not win.

He won the Silver Berlin Bear award for Best Actor, for The Dresser, at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival in 1984.

He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, for Tom Jones, at the Venice Film Festival.