Eddie Murphy Tapped for 51st AFI Life Achievement Award

, the legendary actor and stand-up comedian, will receive the AFI Life Achievement Award, America’s highest honor for a career in film, the ‘s board of trustees announced Friday. Murphy will be honored at a gala tribute at the Dolby Theatre on April 18, 2026, just two weeks after his 65th birthday. He will be the fourth Black recipient of the honor, following Sidney Poitier (1992), Morgan Freeman (2011) and Denzel Washington (2019). “Eddie Murphy is an American icon,” Kathleen Kennedy, the chair of AFI’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “A trailblazing force in the art forms of film, television and stand-up comedy, his versatility knows no bounds. Across five decades, his enduring impact on our culture has inspired artists and audiences alike, and AFI is proud to honor him with the 51st AFI Life Achievement Award.” Related Stories Murphy shot to stardom on Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s and then quickly began to receive offers to do movies, too, a few of which he took on during breaks from the show and which quickly confirmed him as the most bankable movie star of the ‘80s: 1982’s 48 Hours, 1983’s Trading Places and 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop. After focusing on stand-up for a few years, he returned to acting and anchored several more blockbusters targeted at adults, including 1987’s Beverly Hills Cop 2, 1988’s Coming to America and 1996’s The Nutty Professor, before shifting into family-friendly fare such as 1998’s Dr. Dolittle and Mulan, 2001’s Shrek and 2003’s Daddy Day Care. He has worked less frequently in recent years but received critical raves and attention for his turns in 2006’s Dreamgirls, 2016’s Mr. Church and 2019’s Dolemite Is My Name. The American Film Institute is a nonprofit organization with a mandate to champion the moving image as an art form. All proceeds from the 51st AFI Life Achievement Award Tribute Gala will support AFI’s education and arts initiatives. AFI’s 50 previous Life Achievement Award recipients were… 1973: John Ford1974: James Cagney1975: Orson Welles1976: William Wyler1977: Bette Davis1978: Henry Fonda1979: Alfred Hitchcock1980: James Stewart1981: Fred Astaire1982: Frank Capra1983: John Huston1984: Lillian Gish1985: Gene Kelly1986: Billy Wilder1987: Barbara Stanwyck1988: Jack Lemmon1989: Gregory Peck1990: David Lean1991: Kirk Douglas1992: Sidney Poitier1993: Elizabeth Taylor1994: Jack Nicholson1995: Steven Spielberg1996: Clint Eastwood1997: Martin Scorsese1998: Robert Wise1999: Dustin Hoffman2000: Harrison Ford2001: Barbra Streisand2002: Tom Hanks2003: Robert De Niro2004: Meryl Streep2005: George Lucas2006: Sean Connery2007: Al Pacino2008: Warren Beatty2009: Michael Douglas2010: Mike Nichols2011: Morgan Freeman2012: Shirley MacLaine2013: Mel Brooks2014: Jane Fonda2015: Steve Martin2016: John Williams2017: Diane Keaton2018: George Clooney2019: Denzel Washington2022: Julie Andrews2024: Nicole Kidman2025: Francis Ford Coppola

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