Screen Actors Guild Awards: Winning doesn’t necessarily mean Oscar gold

The Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding cast in a motion picture is considered the guild’s equivalent of the best picture Oscar. But since the first ensemble award was handed out to 1995’s  “Apollo 13,” not all the winners winners have gone on to win the Academy Award’s top prize although a healthy number have.

The 1996 comedy “The Birdcage” is the only SAG winner in the category not to be nominated for an Oscar for best picture,  and 1995’s “Braveheart” is the only Oscar winner for best film not to be nominated for the SAG ensemble honor.

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Over the last 20 years, the 10 films that won the SAG Award for outstanding cast in a motion picture that went on to earn the Academy’s top prize are:

1998’s “Shakespeare in Love”

1999’s “American Beauty”

2002’s “Chicago”

2003’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”

2005’s “Crash”

2007’s “No Country for Old Men”

2008’s “Slumdog Millionaire”

2010’s “The King’s Speech”

2012’s “Argo”

2014’s “Birdman”

Being nominated or winning a Screen Actors Guild Award in lead and supporting categories, though, certainly helps one chances of winning an Oscar.

Only two actors — Marcia Gay Harden and Christoph Waltz — have won Academy Awards without being nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. Judi Dench won the SAG outstanding supporting performance by a female actor for 2000’s “Chocolat,” while Harden won the Oscar for “Pollock.” And Tommy Lee Jones received the SAG Award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a supporting role for 2012’s “Lincoln,” while Waltz picked up his second Oscar for supporting actor for “Django Unchained.”