• Raymond Massey was nominated as Best Actor in 1940 for playing Abraham Lincoln in
  Abe Lincoln in Illinois.
• Alexander Knox was nominated as Best Actor in 1944 for playing Woodrow Wilson in Wilson.
• James Whitmore was nominated as Best Actor in 1975 for playing Harry S. Truman in
  Give `em Hell, Harry!
• Anthony Hopkins was nominated as Best Actor in 1995 for playing Richard M. Nixon in Nixon. Hopkins also received a 1997 Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing John Quincy Adams in Amistad.
• Frank Langella was also nominated as Best Actor for playing Tricky Dick in Frost/Nixon in 2008.
• Daniel Day-Lewis became the second actor to be nominated for playing the rail splitter for his performance in Lincoln (2012)

Of the actors who were nominated for playing a real-life U.S. president, only Whitmore and Langella were born in the United States. Massey and Knox were Canadian and Day-Lewis is British. Hopkins was born in Wales but became a U.S. citizen in 2000.

Sam Rockwell was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for playing President George Bush in Vice (2018), the biopic of his V.P. Dick Cheney.

Actors nominated for playing ficitional US Presidents include  Peter Sellers for playing President Merkin Muffley (as well as Lionel Mandrake and Dr. Strangelove) in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and Jeff Bridges for playing President Jackson Evans in The Contender.