All Oscar-Nominated Al Pacino Performances, Ranked

Al Pacino. Everyone knows him, and few people would ever feel brave enough to make the argument that he’s not an all-time acting great. He’s impressed throughout a variety of movies since the early 1970s now; dozens of memorable roles, and that’s before getting into any of the work he’s done on stage or in TV shows. His films should be focused on here, though, as they make up his best-known work, and perhaps most celebrated, given he’s amassed a total of nine Oscar nominations over approximately half a century of work.

What follows are all the movies Al Pacino received an acting nomination at the Academy Awards for, be they Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. It should go without saying that all these movies are at the very least pretty good, and Pacino does exceptional work in all of them. But they weren’t all created equally, and as such, are ranked below – starting with the good and ending with the great – mostly by how strong they are overall, with Pacino’s involvement specifically also being a factor.

9 ‘Scent of a Woman’ (1992)

Director: Martin Brest

To date, Al Pacino’s second-most recent Oscar nomination was for playing a blind U.S. Army officer in Scent of a Woman, which is a flawed yet still well-made and compelling drama. To date, this eighth nomination (of nine) also marks the only time Pacino actually won an Oscar, with that low number being so surprising it was even referenced in the infamous Jack and Jill – arguably one of the film’s only witty jokes.

Trainspotting introduced the idea of a sympathy vote or sympathy award, there referencing Sean Connery winning an Oscar for The Untouchables, debatably many years after he should’ve won in some other role. It can sometimes seem like Oscar voters want to award someone they haven’t yet, even though they should’ve, and that could’ve been the case for Pacino winning in Scent of a Woman. He’d given more complex performances in more striking films elsewhere, but even still, Scent of a Woman is still well-made, and Pacino is still good in it. It can just be a little surprising to see it be his only true win, especially when taking the incoming batch of films into account.

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8 ‘Dick Tracy’ (1990)

Director: Warren Beatty

There’s an argument to be made that Dick Tracy is the most unusual film among all those Al Pacino’s received Oscar nominations for. While Pacino seems to shine brightest in gritty crime films, tense thrillers, and grounded dramas, here he is appearing as an over-the-top villain in a very colorful (and intentionally silly) comic book movie. Arguably, few comic book movies actually capture the feeling of a comic book quite as well as Dick Tracy does.

The plot is simple, following the titular hero (Warren Beatty, who also directs) taking on a gang of often grotesque-looking evildoers led by Pacino’s character (in heavy make-up). Beatty and Pacino are far from the only big names appearing in this ridiculous and ridiculously star-studded movie, given it also boasts appearances from the likes of Madonna, Mandy Patinkin, Dustin Hoffman, Dick Van Dyke, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Sorvino, Kathy Bates, and even James Caan, to name just a few.

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7 ‘…And Justice for All’ (1979)

Director: Norman Jewison

…And Justice for All is an incredibly underrated Al Pacino movie, or at least as underrated as a movie with at least one Oscar nomination can be. Perhaps it’s a side effect of it coming out at the tail-end of the 1970s, when viewers (and Oscar voters) had essentially been overwhelmed by one remarkable Pacino performance after another. At least his role as a morally upstanding lawyer struggling with life did get him a nomination, though as time has gone on, perhaps some of his other 1970s performances have overshadowed this movie and this role of his.

Still, that makes …And Justice for All ripe for rediscovery, and one classic Al Pacino film that any fan of his needs to see, should they still be unfamiliar with it. He’s right at home in the grounded, sometimes uncomfortably realistic story and visual presentation on offer here, and the film itself works as a slow-burn legal drama/thriller, pushing one man and his values as far as they can stretch within a system rife with corruption.

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6 ‘Serpico’ (1973)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Getting to the stage in the Pacino rankings now where things stop being “great but underrated” and start getting “great and super famous,” Serpico was an instrumental early role in Pacino’s career, and holds up to date as one of the best films of the 1970s. It’s based on a true story about a cop in New York City standing up against all forms of corruption, and placing both his career and life in great danger as a result.

So, beyond being a crime/drama film, Serpico also works exceedingly well as an introspective and thoroughly engrossing biographical film. It’s a testament to how good some of the other Oscar-nominated performances Al Pacino gave that Serpico seems to rank fairly “low.” It was his second Oscar nomination overall, coming one year after his first. His third and fourth nominations followed in quick succession: the third the year following Serpico, and the fourth the year after that.

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5 ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ (1992)

Director: James Foley

Oftentimes, the best Al Pacino movies have him front and center, as the star, but something like Glengarry Glen Ross also shows his impressive capacity to share the screen with an ensemble cast. It helps that, at least for this 1992 film, that ensemble cast was incredibly strong, featuring the likes of Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce, and a scene-stealing Alec Baldwin.

Also helping Glengarry Glen Ross is the dynamite dialogue, courtesy of playwright/screenwriter David Mamet, and the intriguing premise that follows various real estate men viciously competing after they hear news that all but two of them are to be fired by the end of the week. It’s a constantly tense and oftentimes thrilling movie that’s easy to get immersed in while also being hard to watch at times. The performances help the film achieve this, for sure, with Pacino shining expectedly (and picking up a Best Supporting Actor nomination in the process).

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4 ‘The Irishman’ (2019)

Director: Martin Scorsese

With a director who was approaching 80 and a cast largely made up of actors in their mid to late 70s, the question surrounding The Irishman was always something along the lines of: “Do these old fellas still have what it takes to give viewers a great gangster movie?” If you were expecting something with the vibrancy and explosiveness of Casino, you might’ve come away disappointed. But if you’d appreciated the way The Irishman looked back mournfully and honestly at a life of crime from the perspective of someone who was approaching the end of their life, then it was a success; a different kind of gangster movie, and a more mature one, too.

Al Pacino got his first acting nomination in almost 30 years for playing the charismatic and larger-than-life Jimmy Hoffa, and Joe Pesci was similarly recognized, getting a nomination for playing the calculating and quietly terrifying Russell Bufalino. The movie was great, but also notorious for winning none of the 10 Oscars it was nominated for (2019 was a very good year). Sadly, Robert De Niro – who excelled in the complex lead role – didn’t even get nominated for The Irishman, but perhaps it’s hard for him to be too disappointed when he already has two Oscar wins from a total of seven nominations.

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3 ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975)

Director: Sidney Lumet

When it comes to selecting some of the greatest crime movies of all time, Dog Day Afternoon will always be up there as one of the very best. This film saw Al Pacino re-teaming with director Sidney Lumet, just two years on from the pair finding success on Serpico. Dog Day Afternoon was somehow even better, following Pacino’s character as he attempts to rob a bank, only for everything to go wrong, and within very little time, he’s also dealing with being the subject of a media circus.

Dog Day Afternoon isn’t stressful during the opening credits, but then once the plot kicks off (and it kicks off almost instantly), it’s a constantly nerve-wracking movie. And it’s Pacino’s sweaty, loud, desperate, and yet deeply human performance at the center of it all that’s key to the film working so well, with it deservedly getting him his fourth consecutive Oscar nomination.

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2 ‘The Godfather’ (1972)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

The Godfather is The Godfather. It might not have been the first great movie for director Francis Ford Coppola, nor star Al Pacino (and Marlon Brando, the arguable lead, had a truly accomplished acting career before 1972), but it raised many profiles considerably. This is something that could be said for Pacino’s star power, too, as playing Michael Corleone here was a breakout role in the sense that it got Pacino his first-ever Oscar nomination.

Though some would argue Pacino was just as deserving of a nomination in the Lead Actor category as Brando, his nomination here ended up being in the Supporting category. Still, the film’s success critically, financially, and awards-wise meant things could only keep going up for Al Pacino. Though he was nominated for performances beyond this 1972 film, he’s still so compelling here that certain sequences in the film remain representative of his acting at its very best.

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1 ‘The Godfather: Part II’ (1974)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Two years after The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II came along and proved itself to be even more epic and ambitious than the first. Al Pacino takes over in the undeniable lead role here, as this film sees Michael Corleone taking over the family business that was run by his father, Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in the first. But it’s not just a sequel! The Godfather: Part II features numerous flashbacks to a younger Vito (now played by Robert De Niro) building his family empire while, in the present, Michael struggles to keep it going.

It’s hard to decide which is better between the first two Godfather movies, but when judging them at least partially for how much Pacino they have (and how good he is), it’s probably Part II that wins by a hair. He goes to even darker places in this film, playing a tortured, cold, intense, oftentimes quiet, yet ultimately tragic central character. Al Pacino’s performance in this movie is simply one of the best leading performances in film history, and it’s remarkably easy to see why he got an Oscar nomination for it.

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