Winona, Cate, Timmy, Gwyneth: The 38 Most Eye-Popping Oscars Red Carpet Debuts
The prospect of attending your first Oscars ceremony is daunting, to say the least. What on earth will you wear? Who should you bring? And, if you’re lucky enough to be nominated, what should you say if you—whisper it—happen to be called up to the stage?
Ahead of the 2026 Academy Awards on March 15, we revisit some of the most jaw-dropping Oscar red-carpet debuts in history, featuring a bevy of Hollywood A-listers who navigated their first appearances like a pro—and went on to win or be nominated for their fair share of statuettes. This year’s crop of first-time nominees, for one, are just as buzzy as the last few generations of stars—Wunmi Mosaku! Rose Byrne! Jacob Elordi! Michael B. Jordan! Newbie attendees also include the likes of One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti and Sinners’s Miles Caton.
From a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-era Michelle Yeoh to a 17-year-old Winona Ryder attending with her then-boyfriend Christian Slater, and Timothée Chalamet before he really went in on the awards campaign—see our shortlist of the best, below.
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A Best Supporting Actress nominee for Taxi Driver, a 14-year-old Jodie Foster attended her first Oscars ceremony in a floral frock and pearls. 12 years later, she’d win her first Academy Award for The Accused, and her second, for The Silence of the Lambs, three years after that.
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Two years after breaking out with Halloween, a 21-year-old Jamie Lee Curtis chose a bright red frock for the 52nd Academy Awards, where she presented the prize for Best Cinematography. Her first Oscar nomination and win would come some four decades later with Everything Everywhere All At Once.
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Two years after Alien, Sigourney Weaver opted for a cream jumpsuit, gold jewelry, big hair, and dramatic eye makeup to present the Oscar for Best Costume Design at the 53rd Academy Awards. She’d receive three Oscar nods over the next eight years: for Aliens in 1987, and both Working Girl and Gorillas in the Mist in 1989.
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Glenn Close, now an eight-time Oscar nominee—for The World According to Garp, The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Albert Nobbs, The Wife, and Hillbilly Elegy – made her Oscars debut in a gloriously ’80s puff-sleeved, embellished black gown.
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At the tender age of 10, Angelina Jolie attended the 58th Academy Awards in frothy white, Madonna-inspired lace with her father, Jon Voight, a Best Actor nominee that year for Runaway Train. She won her own Oscar 14 years later, for Girl, Interrupted.
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