The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted to award actress Glenn Close, animator Floyd Norman, and director and producer Ridley Scott with honorary awards, and producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 17th Annual Governors Awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization announced Wednesday.
The honorees – selected in a final decision made by the 55 governors who served on the Academy’s Board of Directors during the 2025-2026 term, include actress Marlee Matlin; Directors Ava DuVernay and Jason Reitman; CEOs Pam Abdi, Peter Kujawski and Hanna Minghella; composer Carter Burwell; Producer Jason Blum and writer Larry Karaszewski will be honored at a black-tie gala at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles on Sunday, November 15.
“The Academy Board of Governors is pleased to present this year’s Governors Awards to five outstanding individuals whose pioneering work has shaped the art of filmmaking forever,” Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor said in a statement. “Through her extraordinary body of work, Glenn Close’s unparalleled emotional range has brought to life some of cinema’s most complex characters. Floyd Norman is a legendary animator who broke barriers and inspired generations of artists during his remarkable career. Sir Ridley Scott is a true visionary whose decades-long legacy has left an immeasurable impact on cinema and global culture. Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler play a key role in American independent cinema, championing the bold, the ambitious, and the modern. A landmark novel.”
The Council annually awards honorary awards for lifetime achievement. (Previous recipients include Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Louis B. Mayer, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Federico Fellini, Sidney Poitier, Steve Martin, Gena Rowlands, and, last year, Tom Cruise and Dolly Parton.) Sometimes, you also choose to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which recognizes the achievements of a creative producer and/or executive (honors have included Darryl F. Zanuck, David O. Selznick, Jack Warner, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson) and/or the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, celebrating outstanding service to others (honorees have included Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Oprah Winfrey). Each of these accolades now comes in the form of an Oscar statuette.
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Close, 79, has received eight Academy Award nominations for the performances, more than all but three other actresses dead or alive — Meryl Streep (21), Katharine Hepburn (12), and Bette Davis (11) — each of whom has won multiple times. Two actresses have had the same number of Academy Award nominations as Close — Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett — and both have won at least once. However, Close never won, leaving her in a tie with Peter O’Toole for the record of most representative nominees without a win. However, O’Toole received an honorary Oscar in 2002, and is now dead, so only Close holds the unwanted record of the living person with the most Oscar nominations without a win.
It seems kind of crazy, considering the length of her film career, the variety of film credits, and the number of memorable performances she’s had. Its nominations — which included five in just a seven-year period, something matched only by Greer Garson, Davis, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson and Streep — are evenly split between groundbreaking performances (1987 Fatal attraction1988 Dangerous communications2011 Albert Nobbs And 2018 wife) and supporting performances (1982 The world according to Garp1983 The big cold1984 Natural And 2020 Hillbilly Elegy). She could have just as easily been nominated for 1985 Jagged edge and Maxi1990s Reverse luck (Jeremy Irons won Best Actor for his performance opposite her) in 1994 The paper1996 101 Dalmatians (Arguably the scariest performance in a Disney children’s film) and 1997 Air Force One.
She has found greater recognition for her award-winning work in theater (three Tony Awards) and television (three Emmy Awards).
[ListentoClose’s2018interviewon[ListentoClose’s2018interviewonTHR‘s Awards talks podcast.]
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Norman, 90, began his 65-year career at Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1956, becoming the company’s first black animator. It was his first feature film produced by Disney sleeping beautyHe contributed to other Disney classics including The sword in the stone, Mary Poppins, Jungle book and Robin HoodPlus many shorts. Other notable credits include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, Monsters Company and toy story 2. He was a friend and mentor to many young animators and storyboard artists, and was also the subject of a 2016 documentary, Floyd Norman: A Life in Motion.
Only three other animators have been selected to receive an honorary award: Walter Lantz, Chuck Jones, and Hayao Miyazaki, all giants of the field.
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Scott, 88, was nearly 40 when he made his directorial debut in the 1970s Duelistshaving spent his early career producing high-end commercials in partnership with his brother Tony. But he made up – and continues to make up for lost time – by producing action-packed films (his films collectively grossed about $5 billion), many of which were landmarks of cinematic achievement.
In fact, he is behind two of the most important science fiction films of all time, in the 1970s Alien And 1982 Blade RunnerAnd also the nineties Thelma and Louise (For which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director) in 2000 Gladiator (Which won the Oscar for Best Picture and lost the Oscar for Best Director) in 2001 Black Hawk Down (For which he received his last nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director) in 2007 American gangs2015 Martian And 2024 Gladiator 2.
He also produced many of his films, including: Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down, American gangs, Martian (For which he personally received an Academy Award for Best Picture) and Gladiator 2 – In addition to many TV series including The good wife, The man in the high castle, Good fight and Drug thief.
Although he displays a more masculine male image, he has appeared as strong characters in films such as Blade Runner and GladiatorHe is also behind real feminist films like Alien and Thelma and Louise. His works have been collectively nominated for 45 Oscars (including seven for performances), winning nine (including one for performance), but he has never received a statuette.
BAFTA awarded him two prestigious awards for professional achievement: the Distinguished British Contribution to Film Award in 1994 (shared with the Tony, who died in 2012) and its Fellowship in 2018.
[ListentoScott’s2015interviewon[ListentoScott’s2015interviewonTHR‘s Awards talks podcast.]
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Vachon (63 years old) and Kovler (60 years old) are considered two of the most distinguished producers in the history of American independent cinema. In 1995, they founded an independent New York-based production company, Killer Films, whose notable releases include all ten feature films directed by Todd Haynes—among them poison (1991), security (1995), Far from heaven (2002), I’m not there (2007), Carol (2015) and 2023 May December -And so does Larry Clark children (1995), Todd Solondz happiness (1998), Kimberly Peirce Boys don’t cry (1999), John Cameron Mitchell Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Wash Westmoreland and Richard Gill wear Still Alice (2014), Paul Schrader The first reformer (2017), Janeša Bravo Zola (2020) and Celine Song Past life (2023, for which Vachon and Kovler received their only Academy Award nomination, in the Best Picture category).
Dubbed the “Queen of New Queer Cinema,” Vachon, the more confrontational of the duo, is such a staple of the indie scene that she was cheekily but lovingly referenced alongside Spike Lee, Michael Moore, and Richard Linklater in the title of the classic 1996 volume. Spike and Mike, Slackers and Dykes: A Guided Tour Through a Decade of American Independent Cinema. She herself is the author of two great books about the world of business in 1998 Shoot to kill And 2006 Deadly lifewhich she co-wrote with Austin Boone and was selected by the Blue Ribbon Committee she organized Hollywood Reporter In 2023 as one of the 100 greatest movie books of all time.
[ListentotheFashion2023interviewon[ListentoVachon’s2023interviewonTHR‘s Awards talks podcast.]
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Earlier this month, THR I published an article proposing 100 worthy nominees for the Governors Awards. It included Close (No. 6), Scott (No. 8) and Vachon (No. 15).
