George Eastman Award: Michael Keaton

Established by the museum in 1955 to recognize individuals for their distinguished contribution to the art of film, the George Eastman Award was the first film award given by a US cultural institution to honor artistic work of enduring value.
Michael Keaton was honored with the George Eastman Award on June 9, 2016 in front of a sold out theater. An actor with forty years of experience in television and film, Keaton has brought to the screen a cast of sometimes quirky, often unforgettable characters in more than forty films, including Night Shift (1982), Mr. Mom (1983), Clean and Sober (1988), Beetlejuice (1988), Pacific Heights (1990), Batman Returns (1992), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Multiplicity (1996). Keaton’s voice is well known to the younger set from his work on Cars (2006), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Minions (2015).
Keaton has enjoyed renewed acclaim in recent years with his starring roles in Birdman (2014) and Spotlight (2015) both of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, making him one of the few actors whose films have won back-to-back Best Picture Oscars. For his performance in Birdman, Keaton won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Earlier this year, Keaton also received the French Order of Arts and Letters medal from the French government in Paris. This summer he will appear as McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc in The Founder, which will be released nationwide on August 5 by the Weinstein Company.