Genie Award for Best Performance by a Foreign Actor
# Genie Award for Best Performance by a Foreign Actor

The Genie Award for Best Performance by a Foreign Actor was awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television from 1980 to 1983, for the best performance by non-Canadian actor in a Canadian film.

The award and its Foreign Actress companion were frequently criticized both by actors and film critics — Canadian actor Christopher Plummer criticized the distinction in his Best Actor acceptance speech at the first Genies ceremony, and Jay Scott called them "loathsome", dubbing them "the Colonial Category", in a 1982 article in The Globe and Mail.

The awards were discontinued after the 4th Genie Awards. Initially, non-Canadian actors were simply barred from being nominated in acting categories at all, but beginning with the 7th Genie Awards non-Canadian actors instead became eligible for the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role and/or the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.

## Winners and nominees

| Year | Nominee | Film |
| - | - | - |
| 1980 1st Genie Awards |
| 1980 1st Genie Awards | George C. Scott | The Changeling |
| 1980 1st Genie Awards | Michael Douglas | Running |
| 1980 1st Genie Awards | Bill Murray | Meatballs |
| 1980 1st Genie Awards | Will Sampson | Fish Hawk |
| 1980 1st Genie Awards | Rod Steiger | Jack London's Klondike Fever |
| 1981 2nd Genie Awards |
| 1981 2nd Genie Awards | Jack Lemmon | Tribute |
| 1981 2nd Genie Awards | Bruce Dern | Middle Age Crazy |
| 1981 2nd Genie Awards | Burt Lancaster | Atlantic City, U.S.A. |
| 1981 2nd Genie Awards | Brett Marx | The Lucky Star |
| 1981 2nd Genie Awards | Rod Steiger | The Lucky Star |
| 1982 3rd Genie Awards |
| 1982 3rd Genie Awards | Alan Arkin | Improper Channels |
| 1982 3rd Genie Awards | Guy Boyd | Ticket to Heaven |
| 1982 3rd Genie Awards | Robert Carradine | Heartaches |
| 1982 3rd Genie Awards | Rémi Laurent | The Plouffe Family (Les Plouffe) |
| 1982 3rd Genie Awards | John Savage | The Amateur |
| 1982 3rd Genie Awards | Tom Skerritt | Silence of the North |
| 1983 4th Genie Awards |
| 1983 4th Genie Awards | Richard Farnsworth | The Grey Fox |
| 1983 4th Genie Awards | Grand Bush | Hard Feelings |
| 1983 4th Genie Awards | Bruce Dern | Harry Tracy, Desperado |
| 1983 4th Genie Awards | Jeff Goldblum | Threshold |
| 1983 4th Genie Awards | Ron Perlman | Quest for Fire |
| 1983 4th Genie Awards | Jean Yanne | A Day in a Taxi (Une journée en taxi) |
