Five-time Academy Award-nominated actress Annette Bening will be honored with the inaugural Arlington Award at the 39th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF).

Bening will receive the award on Friday, Feb. 16 at an in-person conversation about her career leading up to her acclaimed  performance in this year’s “NYAD,” directed by Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.

“This is the first award added to our slate in 20 years,” said SBIFF executive director Roger Durling. “It is made to honor an artist who is greatly admired and who has demonstrated an incomparable commitment to film and its craft.

“Ms. Bening has not only displayed all of those qualities, but is considered by us to be a friend of the film festival. It feels fitting that this award – named after the home of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival – is first given to her,”

Bening is a celebrated actress across stage and screen. She most recently starred with Jodie Foster in “NYAD,” directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, for which she received her fifth Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Bening also received nominations for “American Beauty,” “The Grifters,” “The Kids Are All Right,” and “Being Julia,” milestones in an impressive 35 year film career that also includes such notable classics as “Bugsy,” “20th Century Women,” and “The American President.’

On stage, Bening was last seen on Broadway in Jack O’Brien’s 2019 revival of Arthur Miller’s classic “All My Sons,” alongside Tracy Letts, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination.

Bening received a Tony Award nomination and won the Clarence Derwent Award for Outstanding Debut Performance of the Season for 1987 Broadway debut in “Coastal Disturbances.”

The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place LIVE Feb. 7-17. Passes for the 2024 Festival are on sale now at sbiff.org.