Frances McDormand's Oscar was famously stolen and returned in 2018
2024 Oscars Nominations Recap
A look at nominees for this year's Academy Awards, announced Tuesday morning from Hollywood
Everyone wants to get their hands on an Oscar, but not everyone is willing to put in the work in Hollywood.
Some stars have had their Oscars stolen in shocking heists, while others have been unintentionally careless and lost track of their statues over the years.
There was even a daring theft of 55 statues from a loading dock in LA in 2000. A man found the bulk of them in a dumpster several days later and returned them to the academy. According to The Hollywood Reporter, they were destroyed, so no one received a stolen statue. Three went missing from the initial 55, and while two were recovered in a drug raid in Miami two years later, one remains missing to this day.
Below are some of the stars who have had stolen, missing or temporarily misplaced Oscars.
Many Oscars have been stolen or misplaced over the years. (Al Seib/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images)
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Jared Leto
Jared Leto won his Oscar in 2014 but revealed in 2021 he lost it in a move. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Jared Leto won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in "Dallas Buyers Club" in 2014, the same year co-star Matthew McConaughey earned his best actor statue.
In 2021, Leto revealed on "The Late Late Show with James Corden" the statue was no longer in his possession.
According to the actor, during a movie he "found out that it’s been missing for like three years, and I didn’t know that. I don’t think anyone wanted to tell me. … And then when we moved, it somehow just kind of magically kind of disappeared.
"It could be somewhere," he added, "but everyone’s searched for it high and low. I hope it’s in good hands wherever it is, but I haven’t seen it in quite some time."
Corden was shocked Leto thought someone else had it, and Leto responded, "I think it’s a good possibility It’s not the sort of thing someone accidentally throws in the trash. I hope someone’s caring for it.
"I remember the night I got it, I passed it around to so many people. I didn’t see it half the night. The thing’s beat up and scratched up, but people had fun taking pictures with it. It’s nice to share it, so hopefully someone’s taking good care of it."
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg sent her Oscar away for cleaning, and it was temporarily stolen and later found in a trash can. (John Barr/Liaison)
Whoopi Goldberg earned her best supporting actress Oscar in 1990 for her role in "Ghost," but she didn’t run into an issue until 2002.
That year, "The View" co-host shipped her statue via UPS to R.S. Owens Co. in Chicago, the company that makes the statuettes, for a cleaning.
According to an Associated Press report at the time, the box arrived empty after having been opened and resealed to try to conceal the theft.
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The statue was later found in the trash bin at the Ontario Airport.
An academy spokesperson, John Pavlik, noted at the time that the statue was inscribed with Goldberg’s name and had a number on it, making it difficult to sell.
"I don’t know how in the world they would ever fence the darn thing," Pavlik told the AP.
As for Goldberg, after the statue was returned to her, she said in a statement, "Oscar will never leave my house again."
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie won an Oscar for her role in "Girl, Interrupted" (Ke.Mazur/WireImage)
In 2000, Angelina Jolie earned a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in "Girl, Interrupted."
According to The Telegraph, Jolie gave her statue to her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, at some point.
Bertrand apparently hid it away so well that, after her death in 2007, Jolie was unable to locate it.
"I didn't actually lose it," Jolie said in 2009. "But nobody knows where it is at the moment."
Matt Damon
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won the best original screenplay Oscar in 1998. Damon later lost his. (Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
Matt Damon won a best original screenplay Oscar with buddy Ben Affleck in 1998 for their work on "Good Will Hunting."
Damon did try to keep track of it, but a flood in his New York apartment led to its disappearance.
"I know it ended up at my apartment in New York, but unfortunately, we had a flood when one of the sprinklers went off when my wife and I were out of town and that was the last I saw of it," Damon told the London Daily Express in 2007.
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Frances McDormand
Frances McDormand won her third acting Oscar in 2018. It was briefly stolen from an after-party and later returned. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
Frances McDormand is a four-time Oscar winner with three wins in the best actress category and an additional best picture Oscar for "Nomadland."
In 2018, her third statue for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" briefly went missing at an Oscars after-party.
McDormand had set her statue down after it was engraved at the Governor’s Ball, the award show’s official after-party.
Terry Bryant was charged with the theft, and Associated Press video showed him wearing a tuxedo, leaving the party holding an Oscar and saying, ″We did it! We did it."
A film academy worker who was escorting a photographer at the party testified at a preliminary hearing in 2018 that he heard over a walky-talky McDormand’s Oscar was missing, and he quickly spotted Bryant and recovered the statuette.
It was immediately returned to McDormand, who held it at the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party hours later.
The "Fargo" star’s representative, Simon Halls, confirmed the trophy was returned to her, saying in a statement to USA Today, "Fran and Oscar are happily reunited and are enjoying an In-N-Out burger together."
Charges against Bryant were later dropped.
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Marlon Brando
Marlong Brando won two Oscars in his career for "On the Waterfront" and "The Godfather." (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Marlon Brando won two Oscars during his legendary career, first in 1954 for "On the Waterfront" and again in 1973 for "The Godfather."
The whereabouts of the Oscars remain unknown. Brando reportedly wrote in his autobiography, "I don’t know what happened to the Oscar they gave me for ‘On the Waterfront.’ Somewhere in the passage of time it disappeared."
Brando famously refused to accept his "Godfather" Oscar, instead sending activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place to announce his refusal.
In 2019, The Wrap did an investigation into the statue’s location and reported that when Littlefeather turned down the Oscar, presenter Roger Moore took it backstage. And when he realized no one had been assigned to reclaim the statue, he took it back to his seat and eventually home.
Sacheen Littlefeather refused the Oscar being presented by Roger Moore and Liv Ullman on behalf of Marlon Brando. According to The Wrap, Moore took the statue home and later returned it. (Bettmann)
Moore then arranged for it to be returned to the academy, which happened to coincide with Charlie Chaplin’s family sending his Oscar for the score of "Limelight" for repair after it had been damaged in shipping. An executive allegedly swapped Chaplin’s damaged Oscar for Brando’s unclaimed one.
In his autobiography, Brando wrote, "The Motion Picture Academy may have sent it to me, but if it did, I don't know where it is now."
Olympia Dukakis
Olympis Dukakis' best supporting actress Oscar was stolen and held for ransom but never returned. (Miguel Rajmil/Images/Getty Images)
"Moonstruck" star Olympia Dukakis won her best supporting actress Oscar in 1988.
A year later, in 1989, a thief broke into her New Jersey home while she was out of town and stole the statue and nothing else. The thief later called and offered a ransom for the statue.
Dukakis and her family worked with the police to attempt a sting operation to retrieve the statue from the criminal, but the exchange never happened.
The "Steel Magnolias" star ended up paying the Academy $78 for a replacement Oscar instead.
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Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel made history as the first Black actor to win an Oscar. Her award disappeared from the campus of Howard University after she left it to the college in her will. (Getty Images)
Hattie McDaniel made history as the first Black actor to win an Oscar in 1940, earning a best supporting actress win for her role in "Gone With the Wind."
The award was more of a plaque at the time, one McDaniel left to Howard University in her will following her death in 1952.
Sometime in the 1970s, the plaque went missing and was never found.
Last year, the academy announced it would present the Howard University Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts with a replacement plaque.
The presentation was held Oct 1 at a ceremony titled "Hattie’s Come Home."
Ahead of the event, Phylicia Rashad, actress and Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts dean, said in a statement, "When I was a student in the College of Fine Arts at Howard University, in what was then called the Department of Drama, I would often sit and gaze in wonder at the Academy Award that had been presented to Ms. Hattie McDaniel, which she had gifted to the College of Fine Arts. I am overjoyed that this Academy Award is returning to what is now the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. This immense piece of history will be back in the College of Fine Arts for our students to draw inspiration from. Ms. Hattie is coming home!"
Margaret O’Brien
Margaret O'Brien was reunited with her long-lost Oscar in 1995. (Ron Galella, Ltd/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
Child star Margaret O’Brien was awarded a special juvenile Oscar for her role in "Meet Me in St. Louis," in which she starred alongside Judy Garland.
O’Brien's statue was stolen by a maid employed by her family and seemed like it was gone forever until she reunited with it in 1995 through a lucky sequence of events, which she shared with Fox News Digital in 2021.
"We had a maid at the time, and she had taken it to her house to polish. Well, somehow she disappeared. I don’t know what happened, but my mother knew. For years, I’ve always dreamed of finding that Oscar again. I always look wherever I could. I never gave up on hope," she recalled.
"Years later, when [the maid] passed away, her children were clearing out different things and they saw this little Oscar. They didn’t think it was real. And they sold everything, including the Oscar, to this antique dealer. They just thought it was a really good imitation of one of those false Oscars you could buy on Hollywood Boulevard.
"Then the Oscar was heading to this auction. But the auctioneers there kept looking at it, and they went, ‘Wait a minute, this looks totally different.’ It was totally different. It had a round base that was used in the ‘40s that we don’t see anymore. And it was in a special size. It was going to be auctioned off for a lot of money."
She noted the academy was strict about people not selling Oscars.
"So they found these auctioneers to confirm it was real," she said. "The academy said, ‘This either has to go back to Margaret O’Brien and her family, or it has to go back to the academy. It cannot be sold.’ So, reluctantly, they returned it to me," she said laughing.
