| year | best film (director) | best performance |
| 1945 | Detour (Ulmer) | Ann Savage, Detour |
| 1946 | To Each His Own (Leisen) | Victor Mature, My Darling Clementine |
| 1947 | Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger) | Richard Attenborough, Brighton Rock |
| 1948 | Unfaithfully Yours (Sturges) | Barbara Stanwyck, Sorry, Wrong Number |
| 1949 | The Third Man (Reed) | Trevor Howard, The Third Man |
| 1950 | Sunset Blvd. (Wilder) | Gloria Swanson, Sunset Blvd. |
| 1951 | Strangers On A Train (Hitchcock) | Robert Walker, Strangers On A Train |
| 1952 | Importance of Being Earnest (Asquith) | John Wayne, The Quiet Man |
| 1953 | Tokyo Story (Ozu) | Jane Russell & Marilyn Monroe, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes |
| 1954 | Les Diaboliques (Clouzot) | Brenda de Banzie, Hobson's Choice |
| 1955 | All That Heaven Allows (Sirk) | Lillian Gish, The Night of the Hunter |
| 1956 | The Killing (Kubrick) | Timothy Carey, The Killing |
| 1957 | Night of the Demon (Tourneur) | Kirk Douglas, Paths of Glory |
| 1958 | Lift to the Scaffold (Malle) | Patrick McGoohan, Hell Drivers |
| 1959 | A bout de souffle (Godard) | Jean-Paul Belmondo, A bout de souffle |
| 1960 | Lola (Demy) | Anthony Perkins, Psycho |
| 1961 | Une Femme est une femme (Godard) | Peter Sellers, Lolita |
| 1962 | The Exterminating Angel (Bunuel) | Bette Davis, ...Baby Jane? |
| 1963 | The Birds (Hitchcock) | Julie Harris, The Haunting |
| 1964 | Dog Star Man (Brakhage) | Vincent Price, Masque of the Red Death |
| 1965 | Alphaville (Godard) | Catherine Deneuve, Repulsion |
| 1966 | Cul de Sac (Polanski) | Lionel Stander, Cul de Sac |
| 1967 | Point Blank (Boorman) | Michel Piccoli, Belle de Jour |
| 1968 | Targets (Bogdanovich) | Ruth Gordon, Rosemary's Baby |
| 1969 | The Honeymoon Killers (Kastle) | David Bradley, Kes |
| 1970 | Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson) | Delphine Seyrig, Daughters of Darkness |
| 1971 | The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich) | Malcolm McDowell, A Clockwork Orange |
| 1972 | Frenzy (Hitchcock) | Marlon Brando, Last Tango In Paris |
| 1973 | Don't Look Now (Roeg) | Jason Miller, The Exorcist |
| 1974 | Mirror (Tarkovsky) | Margarita Terekhova, Mirror |
| 1975 | Nashville (Altman) | Lily Tomlin, Nashville |
| 1976 | All the President's Men (Pakula) | Piper Laurie, Carrie |
| 1977 | Suspiria (Argento) | Genevieve Bujold, Coma |
| 1978 | Halloween (Carpenter) | Harvey Keitel, Fingers |
| 1979 | Radio On (Petit) | Stacy Keach, The Ninth Configuration |
| 1980 | The Elephant Man (Lynch) | Robert De Niro, Raging Bull |
| 1981 | An American Werewolf In London (Landis) | John Heard, Cutter's Way |
| 1982 | Veronika Voss (Fassbinder) | Jerry Lewis, The King of Comedy |
| 1983 | The Dead Zone (Cronenberg) | Christopher Walken, The Dead Zone |
| 1984 | Blood Simple (Coen) | Dan Hedaya, Blood Simple |
| 1985 | Back To The Future (Zemeckis) | Crispin Glover, Back To The Future |
| 1986 | Routine Pleasures (Gorin) | Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet |
| 1987 | Prince of Darkness (Carpenter) | Christine Lahti, Housekeeping |
| 1988 | The Vanishing (Sluizer) | Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, The Vanishing |
| 1989 | The Nasty Girl (M.Verhoeven) | Matt Dillon, Drugstore Cowboy |
| 1990 | GoodFellas (Scorsese) | Joe Pesci, GoodFellas |
| 1991 | City of Hope (Sayles) | John Goodman, Barton Fink |
| 1992 | The Quince Tree Sun (Erice) | John Malkovich, Jennifer 8 |
| 1993 | London (Keiller) | Sean Penn, Carlito's Way |
| 1994 | Star Trek: Generations (Carson) | Stockard Channing, 6 Degrees of Separation |
| 1995 | Heat (Mann) | Catherine Keener, Living In Oblivion |
| 1996 | Irma Vep (Assayas) | V.D'Onofrio, The Whole Wide World |
| 1997 | The Game (Fincher) | Paul Scofield, Robinson In Space |
| 1998 | Festen (Vinterberg) | Jason Schwartzman, Rushmore |
| 1999 | Being John Malkovich (Jonze) | John Malkovich, Being John Malkovich |
| 2000 | Dancer in the Dark (Von Trier) | Barbara Barrie, Judy Berlin |
| 2001 | Los (Benning) | Tadanobu Asano, Ichi the Killer |
| 2002 | Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson) | Steven Sperling, School Trip |
| 2003 | Elephant (Van Sant) | Rupert Procter, One for the Road |
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008 | Dead Man's Shoes (Meadows)
A History of Violence (Cronenberg)
United 93 (Greengrass)
casting a glance (Benning)
The Wrestler (Aronofsky) | Paddy Considine, Dead Man's Shoes
Boris Vlasov, First on the Moon
Olivier Barthelemy, Sheitan
Sam Riley, Control
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler |
