More than five decades after his breakthrough as Michael Corleone, Al Pacino is to be honoured by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The union’s Life Achievement Award recognises both his career in the arts and his humanitarian work.
Pacino’s response
“For most of my life I have wondered and wandered, but I have always felt at home when I had a script in my hands and was among fellow actors. The work and the actors I met along the way have been among the greatest joys of my life,” Pacino said in a statement.
“It is an honour to be recognised by SAG-AFTRA as it celebrates my career,” he added.
The ceremony
The award will be presented on 28 February 2027 at the union’s 33rd ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The event will be broadcast live on Netflix.
From the New York stage to The Godfather
Pacino was born in New York on 25 April 1940. He trained at the HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he studied under Lee Strasberg, and built his early career on stage. He made his Broadway debut in 1969 in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, winning a Tony Award for the role.
His film debut came the same year with a minor part in Me, Natalie, followed by his first leading role as a heroin addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971).
His breakthrough came when director Francis Ford Coppola cast him as Michael Corleone in The Godfather in 1972, despite the studio’s preference for an established star for the role.
A run of Oscar nominations
The performance earned him his first Oscar nomination and established him as one of the most important actors of his generation. In each of the following three years, he received Oscar nominations for Serpico, The Godfather Part II and Dog Day Afternoon. A further nomination followed for ...And Justice for All in 1979.
In 1993, he won the Oscar for Best Actor for Scent of a Woman, in which he played a blind military veteran. That same year he was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Glengarry Glen Ross. He has received nine Oscar nominations in total, most recently in 2020 for The Irishman.
Defining roles
Beyond the Corleone saga, Pacino is known for roles in Scarface (1983), Carlito’s Way (1993), The Insider (1999) and Insomnia (2002).
Television and theatre
On television, he won Emmy Awards for the HBO productions Angels in America (2003) and You Don’t Know Jack (2010), and later starred in the Amazon Prime Video series Hunters.
He won a second Tony Award for The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel in 1977. With an Oscar, two Emmys and two Tonys, Pacino is one of the few performers to have achieved the “Triple Crown of Acting”.
Behind the camera
Pacino made his directing debut with Looking for Richard (1996), a documentary about Shakespeare’s Richard III, a role he had played on stage in 1977. He went on to direct and star in Chinese Coffee (2000) and Wilde Salomé (2011).
Awards and honours
His honours include two Actor Awards from SAG-AFTRA, two Emmys, four Golden Globes and the Golden Globes’ honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. He has also received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award and the National Medal of Arts.
Recent work
Pacino published his memoir, Sonny Boy, in 2024. His latest film, the biographical drama Killing Castro, premiered at the Tribeca Festival on 9 June 2026.
Tribute from SAG-AFTRA
“Like so many actors, I have spent my life in awe and appreciation of this force of nature called Al Pacino. When you watch him perform, you see a student and a teacher at the same time,” SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said.
