Nomadland's Frances McDormand wins a rare third Oscar for acting

Frances McDormand has joined a prestigious Hollywood club with her latest Academy Award win.

McDormand on Sunday won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in Nomadland, the third Academy Award of her career. She previously won in this category in 1997 for Fargo and again for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2018.

McDormand now joins the short list of actors who have won three competitive Oscars. According to Gold Derby, the only other performers with three Oscar wins for acting are Walter Brennan, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, and Daniel Day-Lewis, while Katharine Hepburn is the only actor with four competitive wins.

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This win by McDormand was far from a lock, as Best Actress was the most competitive category at the 2021 Oscars. McDormand's fellow nominees Andra Day, Viola Davis, and Carey Mulligan were all very much in the mix after each won major prizes at previous awards shows, and some pundits thought McDormand would come up short for the award if only because she won it so recently.

But that wasn't enough to hold McDormand back from another victory — putting her just one Oscar shy of tying Hepburn's record. Talk about good company to be in, right?