For playing a drug dealer in the drama film Moonlight (2016), Ali won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar for acting.[1] He won a second Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for portraying Don Shirley in the comedy-drama Green Book (2018). This made him the first black actor to win two Academy Awards in the same category.[2] In 2019, he played the lead role of a troubled police officer in the third season of the HBO anthology crime series True Detective.