The Canadian-born actor Donald Sutherland became one of the most popular faces in the Hollywood film industry from the mid-1960s until his death in June 2024, at the age of 88. The performer, who stood out for a prolific career with more than 150 films behind him in which he gave life to very different characters from completely different registershe obtained his first relevant role in the war film ‘The Dirty Dozen’ (Robert Aldrich, 1967), where he shared the screen with notable performers such as Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson and John Cassavetes.

The performer continued to consolidate his status within the competitive film industry thanks to titles such as ‘MASH’ (Robert Altman, 1970), the war film ‘Kelly’s Violence’ (Brian G. Hutton, 1970), where he appeared alongside Clint Eastwood, ‘Klute’ (Alan J. Pakula, 1971), ‘Johnny Got His Rifle’ (Dalton Trumbo, 1971), ‘Novecento (1900)’ (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976), ‘The Invasion of the Ultracorpos’ (Philip Kaufman, 1978), or ‘The Eye of the Needle’ (Richard Marquand, 1981), which made him reach high levels of popularity among the public.

Already during the last years of his career, Sutherland left a series of performances that remained engraved in the retina of a new generation of viewers, such as his small role in the action film ‘The Italian Job’ (F. Gary Gray, 2003), his appearance in ‘Cold Mountain’ (Anthony Minghella, 2003), or his participation in the famous dystopian saga of ‘The Hunger Games’, where over four installments he gave life to the totalitarian dictator Coriolanus Snow. Despite the strangeness of his appearance in a film franchise with clearly commercial overtones, it was Donald Sutherland himself who contacted the production company to be interested in this role, since he believed that with it he could awaken interest in politics among the younger generations.

However, despite a career full of success, the actor did not have a reward worthy of his status in terms of film awards. Despite having won two Golden Globes, an Emmy, and a Donostia Award at the San Sebastian Festival, Donald Sutherland never obtained a single Oscar nomination. This injustice tried to be corrected by the Academy belatedly by awarding him the Honorary Oscar Award in 2018.when the actor was 83 years old. During the award collection speech, Sutherland showed off his sense of humor from the lectern by uttering some words that raised widespread laughter from the audience: “I don’t deserve an Oscar, but I have arthritis, and I don’t deserve that either, so thank you very much.”