Frances McDormand Overtakes Meryl Streep as Oscars Queen After 'Nomadland' Victories

Frances McDormand now has more Lead Actress Oscar awards than Meryl Streep, overtaking her as "the Queen of Hollywood" for the number of nominations and awards she's received over the years.

McDormand collected the Best Actress gong on Sunday night for her role in Nomadland, a film where she plays the protagonist who goes out on the road after her husband dies. The movie is based on a non-fiction book by Jessica Bruder, which depicts a group of mostly older people who have taken to the road to take up seasonal jobs after the 2008 global financial crisis.

For Best Actress this year, McDormand beat favourite Carey Mulligan for her performance in Promising Young Woman and Viola Davis in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Nomadland also won Best Picture and director Chloe Zhao made history by being the first woman of color to win the Best Director statue. McDormand also produced the film, giving her her second victory of the Sunday evening.

After last night's awards, McDormand has now won the Best Actress award three times—she previously won for 1996's Fargo, directed by her husband Joel Coen and his brother. She also grabbed the award for 2018's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She has won four Oscars in total.

After she won the trophy for Three Billboards in 2018, it was briefly stolen during the post-show Governors Ball but was quickly recovered.

McDormand has also come close to winning multiple times — she received Best Supporting Actress nominations for Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000) and North Country (2005).

Meryl Streep, often seen as "the Queen of Hollywood," has won three awards—Best Actress for the Iron Lady in 2012, where she plays late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the same award for Sophie's Choice in 1983. That film tells the story of a young writer who moves to Brooklyn (Peter MacNicol) who becomes friends with Sophie, a holocaust survivor played by Streep, and her lover Nathan, played by Kevin Klein.

Streep also won Best Supporting Actress early on in her career in 1980 for legal drama Kramer vs. Kramer. She has also been nominated for awards for a number of other films, including The Post, Into the Woods and Julie & Julia.

Katharine Hepburn currently holds the title for most Best Actress Oscars, having won four awards over the course of her career. She first won the award in 1934 for Morning Glory, before she won it again in 1968, 1969 and 1982 for Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, The Lion in Winter, and On Golden Pond.