Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress

The Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture is an honor given annually during the Golden Globe Awards ceremony to recognize remarkable performance delivered by an actress in a supporting role in a film. The Golden Globe Awards is conducted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). The award marks as a token of pride for the recipient whose brilliant performance representing a major character, barring the lead role, had contributed in development of the story into a well made and memorable film thus adding value to it.

The Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture award category was introduced as one of the six original categories of the Golden Globe Awards ceremony at the time of the latter’s inception by the Hollywood Foreign Correspondent Association (HFCA), the predecessor of HFPA. Greek film and stage actress Katina Paxinou became first recipient of this award at the 1944 held 1st Golden Globe Awards ceremony for playing the character of Pilar in her debut movie For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). One and a half months later she bagged the corresponding Oscar award for the same role at the 16th Academy Awards ceremony.

The 28th Golden Globe Awards, held in 1971, witnessed two actresses winning the award, namely Karen Black for playing Rayette Dipesto in the drama film Five Easy Pieces and Maureen Stapleton for playing Inez Guerrero in the air disaster–drama film Airport. Black won her second award in the category in 1975 for the role of Myrtle Wilson in the romantic drama The Great Gatsby. The other five thespians who also boast of winning the award twice include Agnes Moorehead for Mrs. Parkington in 1945 and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte in 1965; Angela Lansbury for The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1946 and The Manchurian Candidate in 1963; Ruth Gordon for Inside Daisy Clover in 1966 and Rosemary's Baby in 1969; Meryl Streep for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1980 and Adaptation in 2003; and Kate Winslet for The Reader in 2009 and Steve Jobs in 2016. Streep along with Lee Grant and Maureen Stapleton have been nominated for the award the most number of times, garnering 5 nominations each. They are followed by Winslet, Amy Adams and Shelley Winters, each of whom have earned 4 nominations in the category.

Some of the other notable actresses who won the award include Goldie Hawn for Cactus Flower in 1970, Linda Blair for her breakthrough role of Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist in 1974, Julia Roberts for Steel Magnolias in 1990, Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost in 1991, Angelina Jolie for her critically acclaimed performance as Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted in 2000 and Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables in 2013.The award is officially known as Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture since 2005.

List of Winners - Golden Globes Best Supporting Actress Motion Picture