Timothée Chalamet, who just turned 30, has become the youngest actor to earn three Oscar nominations. All of Chalamet’s nominations have come in the Best Actor category, for “Call Me by Your Name” (2017), “A Complete Unknown” (2024), and “Marty Supreme” (2025).
Chalamet thus becomes the youngest male actor to accomplish this feat since the legendary Marlon Brando, who was nominated for “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951), “Viva Zapata!” (1952), and “Julius Caesar” (1953), all in the Best Actor category. Brando was just 29 years old when the 1954 Oscar nominations were announced on February 15, arriving only six weeks before he turned 30 on April 3.
Chalamet’s record comes less than a month after Robert Downey Jr. praised him, with Downey calling him “one of the greats” — a great way to boost an ego that had already told the world he consistently delivers “top-level sh*t” these last “7 or 8 years.”
I had my doubts about Chalamet at the start of his career — was “Call Me by Your Name” a fluke? Nope. It sure wasn’t. His consistency has continued. These great performances started with his work in “Call Me by Your Name,” and then, in order of release date, “Lady Bird,” “Beautiful Boy,” “The King,” “Little Women,” “The French Dispatch,” “Dune,” “Don’t Look Up,” “Bones and All,” “Wonka,” “Dune: Part Two,” “A Complete Unknown,” and “Marty Supreme.”
Chalamet is the real deal, and if you have any doubts about that, check him out — if you haven’t already — in “Marty Supreme.” The kid is mesmerizing in the film, transforming a brash, irritating punk into someone you can’t help but root for. Watching his high-wire act of a performance is exhilarating. It’s the best work of his career.
Here’s an actor not focused on playing it safe but on creating work that challenges him, and I love that. Greatness is something any artist should strive for. With Chalamet now up for another Oscar, and the presumed frontrunner to win, he could become the second-youngest male actor to win a lead acting Oscar. The current youngest is Adrien Brody, who was just 29 when he won in 2003 for “The Pianist.”
Remarkably, Jennifer Lawrence still holds the record as the youngest performer of any gender to earn three Oscar nominations. She achieved the milestone at age 23, picking up her third nod in January 2014 for her supporting turn in “American Hustle,” after earlier Best Actress nominations for “Winter’s Bone” (2011) and “Silver Linings Playbook” (2013).