[1] He won an Oscar for his performance as Captain Alfred Dreyfus in the film The Life of Emile Zola (1937).

[7] He had early success in film as the Chevalier de Vaudrey in D.W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm with Lillian Gish.

[10] Joseph Schildkraut also played a Viennese-accented, non-singing Gaylord Ravenal in the 1929 part-talkie film version of Edna Ferber's Show Boat.

[citation needed] Schildkraut received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Alfred Dreyfus in The Life of Emile Zola (1937).

[4] Additional accolades came for playing the ambitious duc d'Orléans in the historical epic Marie Antoinette (1938), and he gave a notable performance as the villainous Nicolas Fouquet in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939).

He was also an active character actor and appeared in guest roles on several early television shows, including the Hallmark Hall of Fame, in which he played Claudius in the 1953 television production of Hamlet, with Maurice Evans in the title role.