Actors nominated for Oscars after being on screen in films for less than 30 minutes

A HANDFUL of talented stars over the years have picked up Oscar nominations for appearing in a film for less than 30 minutes.

Anne Hathaway accepts the award for best actress in a supporting role for "Les Miserables" during the Oscars at...

SOME actors are so good that they can make a huge impression in a film despite hardly appearing in it at all.

A handful of talented stars over the years have picked up Oscar nominations for less than 30 minutes of actual on screen time.

Here are our favourite examples:

Judi Dench — Shakespeare in Love:

The English actor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Elizabeth in the 1998 movie.

Remarkably, Dench only appears in four scenes and is on the screen for less than eight minutes.

Cate Blanchett was also nominated for an Oscar that year for playing the same character, but in a different film.

The Aussie actor played Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth but lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow for the Best Actress Oscar.

Anthony Hopkins — The Silence of the Lambs:

The thriller cleaned up at the Academy Awards in 1992, winning five Oscars.

One of those went to Anthony Hopkins who picked up the Best Actor gong for his chilling 16-minute-long depiction of Hannibal Lecter.

Nicole Kidman — The Hours:

The film might be called The Hours but as far as the Aussie actor is concerned, it might as well be called The Minutes.

Kidman won the Oscar for Best Actress at the 2003 Academy Awards for her 28 minutes of screen time in the film.

Her co-star, Julianne Moore, appears in 33 minutes of the film and was nominated for

Best Supporting Actress, but didn’t win.

Anne Hathaway — Les Miserables:

The American star won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Fantine in the musical hit.

Hathaway lost 11kg’s for the movie and filmed all of her scenes in just three days.

In the final version Hathaway only appears on screen for 15 minutes.

Viola Davis — Doubt:

It’s not easy to stand out when you’re in a movie with Meryl Streep, but Viola Davis pulled it off.

Davis is on screen for just eight minutes in the 2008 film but she was so good that she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, although she didn’t win.

Davis was nominated for her second Oscar a few years later for her role in The Help.

Jared Leto — Dallas Buyers Club:

Leto only appeared in 19 per cent of the movie as Rayon, a transgender AIDS patient.

But his 21 minutes of exposure was enough to earn him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

His co-star, Matthew McConaughey, also picked up an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club. Alright, alright, alright ...

Beatrice Straight — Network:

The other nominees for Best Supporting Actress at the 1977 Academy Awards must have been a little pi**ed off with Beatrice Straight.

The actor won for her role in Network despite just appearing on screen for five minutes and 40 seconds.

Straight basically won off the back of a four-minute scene in the film where her character learns that her husband has been having an affair.