John Cazale

Yesterday, I discovered something quite amazing: John Cazale was only in five films before dying of bone cancer in 1978, but all five films received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, and all are in the IMDb Top 250: The Godfather; The Conversation; The Godfather, Part II; Dog Day Afternoon; and The Deer Hunter. Plus, he shows up briefly in The Godfather, Part III, in a flashback to a scene in Part II, but Part III was nominated for best picture, too. An amazing streak. If I ever get around to making a film, I'm definitely going to try to work some file footage of him into it somewhere.

Since finding this out, I've been trying to find out if anyone comes close, but without much luck. I've found that having 1 out of 5 films being nominated for Best Picture is noteworthy. (I've ignored things not elligible for Best Picture, either being made for television or short films or documentaries or they aren't finished yet or were made prior to the Oscars existing or would be elligible for next year's Oscars, plus movies in which the actor was uncredited.) I'm sure there are more.

• Dominic Monaghan--3 of 4 (the Lord of the Rings films)
  
• Billy Boyd--4 of 6 (LOTR and Master and Commander)
  
• Babe Ruth--1 of 2 (he plays himself in Pride of the Yankees)
  
• Orlando Bloom--3 of 7 (LOTR).
  
• Daniel Day-Lewis--5 of 15 (Gangs of New York, My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, A Room With a View, Gandhi)
  
• James Dean--1 of 3 (Giant)
  
• Harold Russell--1 of 3 (The Best Years of Our Lives)
  
• Erykah Badu--1 of 3 (The Cider House Rules)
  
• Athol Fugard--2 of 7 (The Killing Fields,Gandhi)
  
• Montgomery Clift--4 of 17 (The Heiress, A Place in the Sun, From Here to Eternity, Judgement and Nuremburg
  
• Russell Crowe--5 of 23 (Master and Commander, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, The Insider, L.A. Confidential)
  
• Dustin Hoffman--7 of 33 (The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, All the President's Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man
  
• Greer Garson--5 of 25 (Good Bye, Mr. Chips, Mrs. Miniver, Random Harvest, Madame Curie, Julius Caesar)
  
• Grace Kelly--2 of 10 (High Noon, The Country Girl)
  
• Noel Coward--2 of 10 (In Which We Serve, Around the World in Eighty Days)
  
• Levon Helm--2 of 10 (Coal Minner's Daughter,The Right Stuff
  
• Lee Strassberg--1 of 5 (The Godfather, Part II)
  
• Mikhail Baryshnikov--1 of 5 (The Turning Point)
  
• Nathan Fillion--1 of 5 (Saving Private Ryan)
  

I am uncertain what to do with child actors like James Robinson, who was in one film, playing Young William Wallace in Braveheart.