Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television
The 2022 recipient: Michael Keaton.
Awarded for	Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Miniseries or Television Film
Country	United States
Presented by	Hollywood Foreign Press Association
First awarded	January 30, 1982
Currently held by	Michael Keaton, Dopesick (2021)
Most awards	Robert Duvall (2) James Garner (2) Al Pacino (2)
Most nominations	James Woods (7)
Website	goldenglobes.com

The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film or Best Actor – Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television is a Golden Globe Award presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role on a miniseries or motion picture made for television for the calendar year. The award was first presented at the 39th Golden Globe Awards on January 30, 1982, to Mickey Rooney for his role on Bill. Performances by an actor in a miniseries or television film were originally awarded in the Best Actor – Television Series Drama category before the creation of this category.

Since its inception, the award has been given to 34 actors. Mark Ruffalo is the current recipient of the award for his portrayal of Dominick Birdsey on I Know This Much Is True. Robert Duvall, James Garner, and Al Pacino have won the most awards in this category with two each. James Woods has been nominated for the award on seven occasions, the most within the category.

Winners and nominees[]

Listed below are the winners of the award for each year, as well as the other nominees.

Key	Meaning
	Indicates the winning actor.

Mickey Rooney was the first recipient of the award, winning for his role on Bill as Bill Sackter.

Ted Danson won the award for his performance in Something About Amelia (1984).

Out of seven nominations, the most in the category, James Woods won for his role as D.J. in Promise (1986).

Michael Caine (top) and Stacy Keach (bottom) tied for the award in 1988 for their roles in Jack the Ripper and Hemingway.

James Garner won the award in 1990 and 1993 for his roles in Decoration Day and Barbarians at the Gate.

Robert Duvall won in 1989 and 1992 for his performances in Lonesome Dove and Stalin.

Raúl Juliá won posthumously for his role as Chico Mendes in The Burning Season (1994).

Gary Sinise won the award for his performance in Truman (1995) as Harry S. Truman.

Alan Rickman won for his role as Grigori Rasputin in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996).

Ving Rhames won in 1997 for his portrayal of Don King in Don King: Only in America. During the ceremony, Rhames gave the award to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon, stating "I feel that being an artist is about giving, and I'd like to give this to you."

Stanley Tucci won for his performance as Walter Winchell in Winchell (1999).

Brian Dennehy won the award for his role as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (2000).

James Franco won in 2001 for his portrayal of James Dean in James Dean.

Bill Nighy won one out of three nominations for his role in Gideon's Daughter (2006).

Paul Giamatti won in 2008 for his performance in the miniseries John Adams.

Al Pacino won the award twice for his roles in Angels in America and You Don't Know Jack (2010).

Idris Elba received four nominations, winning in 2011 for his performance on Luther.

Oscar Isaac won the award for his portrayal of Nick Wasicsko in Show Me a Hero.

Ewan McGregor won the award for his dual performance in Fargo.

1980s[]

Year	Actor	Role	Program	Network	Ref
1981 (39th)
	Mickey Rooney	Bill Sackter	Bill	CBS	[1]
	Dirk Bogarde	Roald Dahl	The Patricia Neal Story	CBS
	Timothy Hutton	Donald Branch Booth	A Long Way Home	ABC
	Danny Kaye	Max Feldman	Skokie	CBS
	Peter O'Toole	Lucius Flavius Silva	Masada	ABC
	Ray Sharkey	Bill Carney	The Ordeal of Bill Carney	CBS
	Peter Strauss	Eleazar Ben Yair	Masada	ABC
1982 (40th)
	Anthony Andrews	Sebastian Flyte	Brideshead Revisited	PBS	[2]
	Philip Anglim	John Merrick	The Elephant Man	ABC
	Robby Benson	Nolie Minor	Two of a Kind	CBS
	Jeremy Irons	Charles Ryder	Brideshead Revisited	PBS
	Sam Waterston	J. Robert Oppenheimer	Oppenheimer
1983 (41st)
	Richard Chamberlain	Ralph de Bricassart	The Thorn Birds	ABC	[3]
	Robert Blake	James R. Hoffa	Blood Feud	Syndicated
	Louis Gossett Jr.	Anwar al-Sadat	Sadat	OPT
	Martin Sheen	John F. Kennedy	Kennedy	NBC
	Peter Strauss	Emory	Heart of Steel	ABC
1984 (42nd)
	Ted Danson	Steven Bennett	Something About Amelia	ABC	[4]
	James Garner	Harold Lear	Heartsounds	ABC
	Sam Neill	Sidney Reilly	Reilly, Ace of Spies	PBS
	Jason Robards	Andrei Sakharov	Sakharov	HBO
	Treat Williams	Stanley Kowalski	A Streetcar Named Desire	ABC
1985 (43rd)
	Dustin Hoffman	Willy Loman	Death of a Salesman	CBS	[5]
	Richard Chamberlain	Raoul Wallenberg	Wallenberg: A Hero's Story	NBC
	Richard Crenna	Richard Beck	The Rape of Richard Beck	ABC
	Kirk Douglas	Amos Lasher	Amos	CBS
	Peter Strauss	Abel Rosnovski	Kane and Abel
1986 (44th)
	James Woods	D.J.	Promise	CBS	[6]
	James Garner	Bob Buehler	Promise	CBS
	Mark Harmon	Ted Bundy	The Deliberate Stranger	NBC
	Jan Niklas	Peter the Great	Peter the Great
	John Ritter	Frank Coleman	Unnatural Causes
1987 (45th)
	Randy Quaid	Lyndon B. Johnson	LBJ: The Early Years	NBC	[7]
	Alan Arkin	Leon Feldhendler	Escape from Sobibor	CBS
	Mark Harmon	Elmer Jackson	After the Promise
	Jack Lemmon	James Tyrone	Long Day's Journey into Night	Showtime
	Judd Nelson	Joe Hunt	Billionaire Boys Club	NBC
	James Woods	James Stockdale	In Love and War
1988 (46th)
	Michael Caine	Jack the Ripper	Jack the Ripper	CBS	[8]
	Stacy Keach	Ernest Hemingway	Hemingway	Syndicated
	Richard Chamberlain	Jason Bourne	The Bourne Identity	ABC
	Anthony Hopkins	Chavel	The Tenth Man	CBS
	Jack Lemmon	John M. Slaton	The Murder of Mary Phagan	NBC
1989 (47th)
	Robert Duvall	Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae	Lonesome Dove	CBS	[9]
	John Gielgud	Aaron Jastrow	War and Remembrance	ABC
	Ben Kingsley	Simon Wiesenthal	Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story	HBO
	Lane Smith	Richard Nixon	The Final Days	ABC
	James Woods	Bill Wilson	My Name Is Bill W.	CBS

1990s[]

Year	Actor	Role	Program	Network	Ref
1990 (48th)
	James Garner	Albert Sidney Finch	Decoration Day	NBC	[10]
	Steven Bauer	Enrique "Kiki" Camarena	Drug Wars: The Camarena Story	NBC
	Michael Caine	Dr. Henry Jekyll / Harry Hyde	Jekyll & Hyde	ABC
	Tom Hulce	Michael Schwerner	Murder in Mississippi	NBC
	Burt Lancaster	Gerard Carriere	The Phantom of the Opera
	Ricky Schroder	Mark	The Stranger Within	ABC
1991 (49th)
	Beau Bridges	James Brady	Without Warning: The James Brady Story	HBO	[11]
	Sam Elliott	Conn Conagher	Conagher	TNT
	Peter Falk	Columbo	Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star	ABC
	Sam Neill	Major James Leggatt	One Against the Wind	CBS
	Sidney Poitier	Thurgood Marshall	Separate but Equal	ABC
1992 (50th)
	Robert Duvall	Joseph Stalin	Stalin	HBO	[12]
	Anthony Andrews	William Whitfield	Jewels	NBC
	Philip Casnoff	Frank Sinatra	Sinatra	CBS
	Jon Voight	Professor Alfred Kroeber	The Last of His Tribe	HBO
	James Woods	Roy Cohn	Citizen Cohn
1993 (51st)
	James Garner	F. Ross Johnson	Barbarians at the Gate	HBO	[13]
	Peter Falk	Columbo	Columbo: Its All in the Game	ABC
	Jack Lemmon	Robert	A Life in the Theatre	TNT
	Matthew Modine	Dr. Don Francis	And the Band Played On	HBO
	Peter Strauss	Ed MacAffrey	Men Don't Tell	CBS
1994 (52nd)
	Raúl Juliá	Chico Mendes	The Burning Season	HBO	[14]
	Alan Alda	Dan Cutler	White Mile	HBO
	James Garner	Ira Moran	Breathing Lessons	CBS
	Rutger Hauer	Xavier March	Fatherland	HBO
	Samuel L. Jackson	Jamaal	Against the Wall
1995 (53rd)
	Gary Sinise	Harry S. Truman	Truman	HBO	[15]
	Alec Baldwin	Stanley Kowalski	A Streetcar Named Desire	CBS
	Charles S. Dutton	Boy Willie Charles	The Piano Lesson
	Laurence Fishburne	Capt. Hannibal "Iowa" Lee, Jr.	The Tuskegee Airmen	HBO
	James Woods	Danny Davis	Indictment: The McMartin Trial
1996 (54th)
	Alan Rickman	Grigori Rasputin	Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny	HBO	[16]
	Armand Assante	John Gotti	Gotti	HBO
	Beau Bridges	Richard Phillips	Losing Chase	Showtime
	Stephen Rea	Bruno Hauptman	Crime of the Century	HBO
	James Woods	Temple Rayburn	The Summer of Ben Tyler	CBS
1997 (55th)
	Ving Rhames	Don King	Don King: Only in America	HBO	[17]
	Armand Assante	Ulysses	The Odyssey	NBC
	Jack Lemmon	Juror #8	12 Angry Men	Showtime
	Matthew Modine	Sammy Ayres	What the Deaf Man Heard	CBS
	Gary Sinise	George C. Wallace	George Wallace	TNT
1998 (56th)
	Stanley Tucci	Walter Winchell	Winchell	HBO	[18]
	Peter Fonda	Gideon Prosper	The Tempest	NBC
	Sam Neill	Merlin	Merlin
	Bill Paxton	John Paul Vann	A Bright Shining Lie	HBO
	Christopher Reeve	Jason Kemp	Rear Window	ABC
	Patrick Stewart	Captain Ahab	Moby Dick	USA Network
1999 (57th)
	Jack Lemmon	Henry Drummond	Inherit the Wind	Showtime	[19]
	Jack Lemmon	Morrie Schwartz	Tuesdays with Morrie	ABC
	Liev Schreiber	Orson Welles	RKO 281	HBO
	Sam Shepard	Dashiell Hammett	Dash and Lilly	A&E
	Tom Sizemore	Bobby Batton	Witness Protection	HBO

2000s[]

Year	Actor	Role	Program	Network	Ref
2000 (58th)
	Brian Dennehy	Willy Loman	Death of a Salesman	Showtime	[20]
	Alec Baldwin	Robert H. Jackson	Nuremberg	TNT
	Brian Cox	Hermann Göring
	Andy García	Arturo Sandoval	For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story	HBO
	James Woods	Dennis Barrie	Dirty Pictures	Showtime
2001 (59th)
	James Franco	James Dean	James Dean	TNT	[21]
	Kenneth Branagh	Reinhard Heydrich	Conspiracy	HBO
	Ben Kingsley	Otto Frank	Anne Frank: The Whole Story	ABC
	Damian Lewis	Richard Winters	Band of Brothers	HBO
	Barry Pepper	Roger Maris	61*
2002 (60th)
	Albert Finney	Winston Churchill	The Gathering Storm	HBO	[22]
	Michael Gambon	Lyndon B. Johnson	Path to War	HBO
	Michael Keaton	Robert Wiener	Live from Baghdad
	William H. Macy	Bill Porter	Door to Door	TNT
	Linus Roache	Robert F. Kennedy	RFK	Fox
2003 (61st)
	Al Pacino	Roy Cohn	Angels in America	HBO	[23]
	Antonio Banderas	Pancho Villa	And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself	HBO
	James Brolin	Ronald Reagan	The Reagans	Showtime
	Troy Garity	Barry Winchell	Soldier's Girl
	Tom Wilkinson	Ruth Applewood	Normal	HBO
2004 (62nd)
	Geoffrey Rush	Peter Sellers	The Life and Death of Peter Sellers	HBO	[24]
	Mos Def	Vivien Thomas	Something the Lord Made	HBO
	Jamie Foxx	Stanley Tookie Williams	Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story	FX
	William H. Macy	Gigot	The Wool Cap	TNT
	Patrick Stewart	King Henry II	The Lion in Winter	Showtime
2005 (63rd)
	Jonathan Rhys Meyers	Elvis Presley	Elvis	CBS	[25]
	Kenneth Branagh	Franklin D. Roosevelt	Warm Springs	HBO
	Ed Harris	Miles Roby	Empire Falls
	Bill Nighy	Lawrence	The Girl in the Café
	Donald Sutherland	Bill Meehan	Human Trafficking	Lifetime
2006 (64th)
	Bill Nighy	Gideon Warner	Gideon's Daughter	BBC America	[26]
	Andre Braugher	Nick Atwaler	Thief	FX
	Robert Duvall	Prentice "Print" Ritter	Broken Trail	AMC
	Michael Ealy	Darwyn al-Sayeed	Sleeper Cell	Showtime
	Chiwetel Ejiofor	Ian Carter	Tsunami: The Aftermath	HBO
	Ben Kingsley	Herman Tarnower	Mrs. Harris
	Matthew Perry	Ron Clark	The Ron Clark Story	TNT
2007 (65th)
	Jim Broadbent	Lord Longford	Longford	HBO	[27]
	Adam Beach	Charles Eastman	Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee	HBO
	Ernest Borgnine	Bert O'Riley	A Grandpa for Christmas	Hallmark Channel
	Jason Isaacs	Sir Mark Brydon	The State Within	BBC America
	James Nesbitt	Doctor Tom Jackman / Mr. Hyde	Jekyll
2008 (66th)
	Paul Giamatti	John Adams	John Adams	HBO	[28]
	Ralph Fiennes	Bernard Lafferty	Bernard and Doris	HBO
	Kevin Spacey	Ron Klain	Recount
	Kiefer Sutherland	Jack Bauer	24: Redemption	Fox
	Tom Wilkinson	James Baker	Recount	HBO
2009 (67th)
	Kevin Bacon	Michael Strobl	Taking Chance	HBO	[29]
	Kenneth Branagh	Kurt Wallander	Wallander: One Step Behind	PBS
	Chiwetel Ejiofor	Thabo Mbeki	Endgame
	Brendan Gleeson	Winston Churchill	Into the Storm	HBO
	Jeremy Irons	Alfred Stieglitz	Georgia O'Keeffe	Lifetime

2010s[]

Year	Actor	Role	Program	Network	Ref
2010 (68th)
	Al Pacino	Jack Kevorkian	You Don't Know Jack	HBO	[30]
	Idris Elba	DCI John Luther	Luther	BBC America
	Ian McShane	Waleran Bigod	The Pillars of the Earth	Starz
	Dennis Quaid	Bill Clinton	The Special Relationship	HBO
	Édgar Ramírez	Ilich Ramírez Sánchez	Carlos	Sundance Channel
2011 (69th)
	Idris Elba	DCI John Luther	Luther	BBC America	[31]
	Hugh Bonneville	Robert, Earl of Grantham	Downton Abbey	PBS
	William Hurt	Henry Paulson	Too Big to Fail	HBO
	Bill Nighy	Johnny Worricker	Page Eight	PBS
	Dominic West	Hector Madden	The Hour	BBC America
2012 (70th)
	Kevin Costner	Devil Anse Hatfield	Hatfields & McCoys	History	[32]
	Benedict Cumberbatch	Sherlock Holmes	Sherlock	PBS
	Woody Harrelson	Steve Schmidt	Game Change	HBO
	Toby Jones	Alfred Hitchcock	The Girl
	Clive Owen	Ernest Hemingway	Hemingway & Gellhorn
2013 (71st)
	Michael Douglas	Liberace	Behind the Candelabra	HBO	[33]
	Matt Damon	Scott Thorson	Behind the Candelabra	HBO
	Chiwetel Ejiofor	Louis Lester	Dancing on the Edge	Starz
	Idris Elba	DCI John Luther	Luther	BBC America
	Al Pacino	Phil Spector	Phil Spector	HBO
2014 (72nd)
	Billy Bob Thornton	Lorne Malvo	Fargo	FX	[34]
	Martin Freeman	Lester Nygaard	Fargo	FX
	Woody Harrelson	Detective Martin Hart	True Detective	HBO
	Matthew McConaughey	Detective Rust Cohle
	Mark Ruffalo	Ned Weeks	The Normal Heart
2015 (73rd)
	Oscar Isaac	Nick Wasicsko	Show Me a Hero	HBO	[35]
	Idris Elba	DCI John Luther	Luther	BBC America
	David Oyelowo	Peter Snowden	Nightingale	HBO
	Mark Rylance	Thomas Cromwell	Wolf Hall	PBS
	Patrick Wilson	State Trouper Lou Solverson	Fargo	FX
2016 (74th)
	Tom Hiddleston	Jonathan Pine	The Night Manager	AMC	[36]
	Riz Ahmed	Nasir "Naz" Khan	The Night Of	HBO
	Bryan Cranston	Lyndon B. Johnson	All the Way	HBO
	John Turturro	John Stone	The Night Of	HBO
	Courtney B. Vance	Johnnie Cochran	The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story	FX
2017 (75th)
	Ewan McGregor	Emmit and Raymond "Ray" Stussy	Fargo	FX	[37]
	Robert De Niro	Bernard "Bernie" Madoff	The Wizard of Lies	HBO
	Jude Law	Pope Pius XIII	The Young Pope
	Kyle MacLachlan	Dale Cooper, Cooper's Double, Douglas "Dougie" Jones	Twin Peaks	Showtime
	Geoffrey Rush	Albert Einstein	Genius: Einstein	Nat Geo
2018 (76th)
	Darren Criss	Andrew Cunanan	The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story	FX	[38]
	Antonio Banderas	Pablo Picasso	Genius: Picasso	Nat Geo
	Daniel Brühl	Dr. Lazlo Kreizler	The Alienist	TNT
	Benedict Cumberbatch	Patrick Melrose	Patrick Melrose	Showtime
	Hugh Grant	Jeremy Thorpe	A Very English Scandal	Amazon
2019 (77th)
	Russell Crowe	Roger Ailes	The Loudest Voice	Showtime	[39]
	Christopher Abbott	Capt. John Yossarian	Catch-22	Hulu
	Sacha Baron Cohen	Eli Cohen / Kamel Amin Thaabet	The Spy	Netflix
	Jared Harris	Valery Legasov	Chernobyl	HBO
	Sam Rockwell	Bob Fosse	Fosse/Verdon	FX

2020s[]

Year	Actor	Role	Program	Network	Ref
2020 (78th)
	Mark Ruffalo	Dominick and Thomas Birdsey	I Know This Much Is True	HBO	[40]
	Bryan Cranston	Michael Desiato	Your Honor	Showtime
	Jeff Daniels	James Comey	The Comey Rule	Showtime
	Hugh Grant	Jonathan Fraser	The Undoing	HBO
	Ethan Hawke	John Brown	The Good Lord Bird	Showtime
2021 (79th)
	Michael Keaton	Samuel Finnix	Dopesick	Hulu	[41]
	Paul Bettany	Vision	WandaVision	Disney+
	Oscar Isaac	Jonathan Levy	Scenes from a Marriage	HBO
	Ewan McGregor	Halston	Halston	Netflix
	Tahar Rahim	Charles Sobhraj	The Serpent	Netflix

Superlatives[]

Multiple wins[]

Multiple nominations[]

See also[]

• Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Movie/Miniseries
• Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie
• Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie

References[]