Clark Gable
(It Happened One Night 1934 and Mutiny on the Bounty 1935)

Walter Pidgeon
(How Green Was My Valley 1941 and Mrs. Miniver 1942)

Russell Crowe
(Gladiator 2000 and A Beautiful Mind 2001)

Michael Keaton
(Birdman 2014 and Spotlight 2015)

Gable and Crowe won Best Actor for their first Best Picture and were nominated
for another the second time around. Pidgeon was passed over for
How Green Was My Valley, but was nominated for Mrs. Miniver.
Keaton was nominated for Birdman but passed over for Spotlight,
although he did win the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actor.
 
Gable starred in a third Best Picture in 1939: Gone With the Wind.


Other performers who had credited roles in back-to-back Best Pictures:

Eddie Anderson and Harry Davenport
had cameo roles in You Can't Take It With You (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)

Ward Bond
had cameo roles in Gone With the Wind (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
He also had an uncredited appearance in You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Bill Hickman
had cameo roles in Patton (1970) and The French Connection (1971)

Christopher Walken
played the cameo role of Diane Keaton's disturbed brother
in Annie Hall (1977) and won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in The Deer Hunter (1978)

Meryl Streep
is the only actress to have major supporting roles in consecutive Best Pictures,
winning her first Oscar nomination for The Deer Hunter (1978)
and her first Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

John Gielgud and Richard Griffiths
made cameo appearances in Chariots of Fire (1981) and Gandhi (1982)

Ian Charleson
starred in Chariots of Fire (1981) and had a supporting role in Gandhi (1982)

Guy Pearce
had supporting roles in The Hurt Locker (2009) and The King's Speech (2010)

John Goodman
had an extended cameo in The Artist (2011) and a major supporting role Argo (2012)

 
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