Best Actor Motion Picture Drama

The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama is an accolade that is bestowed annually during the Golden Globe Awards ceremony by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), an organization comprising of journalists and photographers covering the US entertainment industry for publications mainly in non-US media markets. The award is given to recognize and honor best performance of an actor in a leading role in a drama film and marks as a symbol of excellence of the actor’s caliber in delivering a role.

The award category was initially introduced as Best Actor in a Leading Role 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. The Best Actor in a Leading Role category was later split into Drama and Musical or Comedy genres by the association in 1951 to pay particular attention to and recognize acting prowess of actors in both the genres and was first presented as two separate categories, namely Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy that year. Hungarian actor Paul Lukas became first recipient of the Best Actor in a Leading Role award for his performance in the film Watch on the Rhine (1943) during the 1944 held 1st Golden Globe Awards ceremony; while Puerto Rican actor, film director and theatre director José Ferrer won the first Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama award, as a separated genre, for his performance in the film Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) at the 1951 held 8th Golden Globe Awards ceremony. The Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama category was officially called Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama in 2005 and since 2013 it is known as Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama.

American actor and filmmaker Tom Hanks and American retired actor and filmmaker Jack Nicholson won the award the maximum number of times, thrice each. Other luminaries who won the award twice includes Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Dustin Hoffman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Peter O'Toole, Jon Voight and Al Pacino, among whom the latter holds the record of garnering most nominations with ten.

List of Winners