| Academy Award for Best Director | |
| Awarded for | "Achievement in cinematic direction" |
| Presented by | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |
| Country | United States |
| First awarded | 1929 (for direction in films released in 1927/1928) |
| First winner | Frank Borzage, Seventh Heaven (1927) |
| Currently held by | Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker (2009) |
| Official website | |
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The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing (Best Director) is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to directors working in the motion picture industry. While nominations for Best Director are made by members in the Academy's Directing branch, the award winners are selected by the Academy membership as a whole.
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Throughout the past 80 years, accounting for ties and repeat winners, AMPAS has presented a total of 82 Best Director awards to 62 different directors. At the 1st Academy Awards (1927/1928), there were two directing awards—one for "Dramatic Direction" and one for "Comedy Direction". The Comedy Direction award was eliminated the next year and, indeed, the awards have overwhelmingly favored dramatic films ever since. At both the 34th Academy Awards (1961) and the 80th Academy Awards (2007), Best Director was presented to a co-directing team, rather than to an individual director.
The earliest years of the award were marked by inconsistency and confusion. In the Academy Awards' first year, actors and others such as cinematographers were nominated for all of their films produced during the qualifying period. However, since the directing award was for "directing" rather than "best director", it honored the director in association with only a single film—thus Janet Gaynor has two Frank Borzage films listed after her Best Actress nomination, but only one of them earned Borzage a directing nomination. The second year, the directing award followed the others in listing all of a director's work during the qualifying period, resulting in Frank Lloyd being nominated for three of his films—but, even more confusingly, only one of them was listed on the final award as the film for which he won. Finally, for the 1930/31 awards, this confusing system was replaced by the current system in which a director is nominated for a single film.
The Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 80 films that have been awarded Best Picture, 59 have also been awarded Best Director.[1] Only three films have won Best Picture without their directors being nominated (though only one since the early 1930s): Wings (1927/28), Grand Hotel (1931/32), and Driving Miss Daisy (1989). The only two Best Director winners to win for films which did not receive a Best Picture nomination are likewise in the early years: Lewis Milestone (1927/28) and Frank Lloyd (1928/29).
Due to strict rules promulgated by the Directors Guild of America (DGA), only one individual may claim screen credit as a film's director. (This rule is designed to prevent rights and ownership issues and to eliminate lobbying for director credit by producers and actors.) However, the DGA may create an exception to this "one director per film" rule if two co-directors seeking to share director credit for a film qualify as an "established duo". In the history of the Academy Awards, established duos have been nominated for Best Director only three times: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (who won for West Side Story in 1961); Warren Beatty and Buck Henry (who were nominated for Heaven Can Wait in 1978), and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (who won for No Country for Old Men in 2007).
Eight people have been nominated for both Best Director and Best Actor for the same film. Warren Beatty did so twice (Heaven Can Wait and Reds), as did Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby). The other six included: Orson Welles (Citizen Kane), Laurence Olivier (Hamlet), Woody Allen (Annie Hall), Kenneth Branagh (Henry V), Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves), and Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful). No one has ever won both awards. Four won Best Director, but not Best Actor: Allen, Beatty (for Reds), Costner, and Eastwood (on both occasions). Two won Best Actor, but not Best Director: Benigni and Olivier. Finally, three lost both nominations: Beatty (for Heaven Can Wait), Branagh, and Welles (though he did win a Screenplay Oscar for Citizen Kane).
The only siblings to both be nominated are Joel and Ethan Coen. The only parent/child pair to be nominated are Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola, and the only married couple to be nominated are Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze.
No Best Director winning film is lost, though the nominee The Patriot is lost and nominee Sorrell and Son is incomplete. Drag (one of the films for which Frank Lloyd was nominated but did not win in 1929) has long been presumed lost, though there are rumors of its survival, possibly only on videotape, and the Vitaphone discs of its soundtrack survive. The Comedy Direction winner, Two Arabian Knights, was believed lost for many years but was preserved in the Howard Hughes archive and has been broadcast (along with another first-year nominee produced by Hughes and believed lost, The Racket) on Turner Classic Movies.
| Category | Name | Superlative | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most Awards | John Ford | 4 awards | 1952 | Awards resulted from 5 nominations. |
| Most Nominations | William Wyler | 12 nominations | 1965 | Nominations resulted in 3 awards. |
| Oldest Winner | Clint Eastwood | 74 years old | 2004 | Million Dollar Baby |
| Oldest Nominee | John Huston | 79 years old | 1985 | Prizzi's Honor |
| Youngest Winner | Norman Taurog | 32 years old | 1930/31 | Skippy |
| Youngest Nominee | John Singleton | 24 years old | 1991 | Boyz N the Hood |
John Ford has won the most Best Director Oscars - 4, followed by Frank Capra and William Wyler, with three apiece. Wyler has the most nominations - 12. Robert Altman, Clarence Brown, Alfred Hitchcock, and King Vidor are tied for the most nominations without a win, at five each.
Only two directors have received consecutive Best Director awards: John Ford for 1940's The Grapes of Wrath and 1941's How Green Was My Valley, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz for 1949's A Letter to Three Wives and 1950's All About Eve.
No African-American has ever won best director, and only two have ever been nominated: John Singleton for 1991's Boyz n the Hood and Lee Daniels for 2009's Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire.
Ang Lee is the only Asian (and non-Caucasian) to have won the prize, for 2005's Brokeback Mountain. Other Asian nominees are Hiroshi Teshigahara for Woman of the Dunes, Akira Kurosawa for Ran, and M. Night Shyamalan for The Sixth Sense.
Kathryn Bigelow, with 2009's The Hurt Locker, is the only woman to have ever won Best Director. Other female nominees are Lina Wertmüller for 1976's Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for 1993's The Piano and Sofia Coppola for 2003's Lost in Translation.[1]
Four people known to be LGBT have won the award: Jerome Robbins for West Side Story, Tony Richardson for Tom Jones, George Cukor for My Fair Lady and John Schlesinger for Midnight Cowboy. At least seven others have been nominated: Pedro Almodovar, Lee Daniels, Stephen Daldry, James Ivory, Rob Marshall, Gus Van Sant and Franco Zeffirelli.
The following 83 directors (counting Joel and Ethan Coen as one) have received multiple Best Director nominations. The list is sorted by the number of total awards (with the number of total nominations listed in parentheses).
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Each Academy Award ceremony is listed chronologically below along with the winner of the Academy Award for Directing and the film associated with the award. In the column next to the winner of each award are the other nominees for best director. Following the Academy's practice, the films below are listed by the years of their Los Angeles qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) in the year of release; for example, the Oscar for Best Director of 1999 was announced during the award ceremony held in 2000.
In the first year only, the award was separated into Dramatic Direction and Comedy Direction.
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1927/1928 Dramatic |
Frank Borzage – Seventh Heaven |
Herbert Brenon – Sorrell and Son King Vidor – The Crowd |
| 1927/1928 Comedy |
Lewis Milestone – Two Arabian Knights |
Ted Wilde – Speedy |
| 1928/1929 | Frank Lloyd – The Divine Lady |
Lionel Barrymore – Madame X Harry Beaumont – The Broadway Melody Irving Cummings – In Old Arizona Frank Lloyd - Drag Ernst Lubitsch – The Patriot |
| 1929/1930 | Lewis Milestone – All Quiet on the Western Front |
Clarence Brown – Anna Christie and Romance Robert Z. Leonard – The Divorcée Ernst Lubitsch – The Love Parade King Vidor – Hallelujah |
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1930/1931 | Norman Taurog – Skippy |
Clarence Brown – A Free Soul Lewis Milestone – The Front Page Wesley Ruggles – Cimarron Josef von Sternberg – Morocco |
| 1931/1932 | Frank Borzage – Bad Girl |
King Vidor – The Champ Josef von Sternberg – Shanghai Express |
| 1932/1933 | Frank Lloyd – Cavalcade |
Frank Capra – Lady for a Day George Cukor – Little Women (The Academy also announced that Capra came in second, and Cukor last.) |
| 1934 | Frank Capra – It Happened One Night |
Victor Schertzinger – One Night of Love W. S. Van Dyke – The Thin Man (The Academy also announced that Van Dyke came in second, and Schertzinger last.) |
| 1935 | John Ford – The Informer |
Henry Hathaway – The Lives of a Bengal Lancer Frank Lloyd – Mutiny on the Bounty (The Academy also announced that write-in candidate Michael Curtiz, for Captain Blood, came in second, and Hathaway third.) |
| 1936 | Frank Capra – Mr. Deeds Goes to Town |
Gregory La Cava – My Man Godfrey Robert Z. Leonard – The Great Ziegfeld W. S. Van Dyke – San Francisco William Wyler – Dodsworth |
| 1937 | Leo McCarey – The Awful Truth |
William Dieterle – The Life of Emile Zola Sidney Franklin – The Good Earth Gregory La Cava – Stage Door William A. Wellman – A Star Is Born |
| 1938 | Frank Capra – You Can't Take It with You |
Michael Curtiz – Angels with Dirty Faces Michael Curtiz – Four Daughters Norman Taurog – Boys Town King Vidor – The Citadel |
| 1939 | Victor Fleming – Gone with the Wind |
Frank Capra – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington John Ford – Stagecoach Sam Wood – Goodbye, Mr. Chips William Wyler – Wuthering Heights |
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1940 | John Ford – The Grapes of Wrath |
George Cukor – The Philadelphia Story Alfred Hitchcock – Rebecca Sam Wood – Kitty Foyle William Wyler – The Letter |
| 1941 | John Ford – How Green Was My Valley |
Alexander Hall – Here Comes Mr. Jordan Howard Hawks – Sergeant York Orson Welles – Citizen Kane William Wyler – The Little Foxes |
| 1942 | William Wyler – Mrs. Miniver |
Michael Curtiz – Yankee Doodle Dandy John Farrow – Wake Island Mervyn LeRoy – Random Harvest Sam Wood – Kings Row |
| 1943 | Michael Curtiz – Casablanca |
Clarence Brown – The Human Comedy Henry King – The Song of Bernadette Ernst Lubitsch – Heaven Can Wait George Stevens – The More the Merrier |
| 1944 | Leo McCarey – Going My Way |
Alfred Hitchcock – Lifeboat Henry King – Wilson Otto Preminger – Laura Billy Wilder – Double Indemnity |
| 1945 | Billy Wilder – The Lost Weekend |
Clarence Brown – National Velvet Alfred Hitchcock – Spellbound Leo McCarey – The Bells of St. Mary's Jean Renoir – The Southerner |
| 1946 | William Wyler – The Best Years of Our Lives |
Clarence Brown – The Yearling Frank Capra – It's a Wonderful Life David Lean – Brief Encounter Robert Siodmak – The Killers |
| 1947 | Elia Kazan – Gentleman's Agreement |
George Cukor – A Double Life Edward Dmytryk – Crossfire Henry Koster – The Bishop's Wife David Lean – Great Expectations |
| 1948 | John Huston – The Treasure of the Sierra Madre |
Anatole Litvak – The Snake Pit Jean Negulesco – Johnny Belinda Laurence Olivier – Hamlet Fred Zinnemann – The Search |
| 1949 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz – A Letter to Three Wives |
Carol Reed – The Fallen Idol Robert Rossen – All the King's Men William A. Wellman – Battleground William Wyler – The Heiress |
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1950 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz – All About Eve |
George Cukor – Born Yesterday John Huston – The Asphalt Jungle Carol Reed – The Third Man Billy Wilder – Sunset Boulevard |
| 1951 | George Stevens – A Place in the Sun |
John Huston – The African Queen Elia Kazan – A Streetcar Named Desire Vincente Minnelli – An American in Paris William Wyler – Detective Story |
| 1952 | John Ford – The Quiet Man |
Cecil B. DeMille – The Greatest Show on Earth John Huston – Moulin Rouge Joseph L. Mankiewicz – 5 Fingers Fred Zinnemann – High Noon |
| 1953 | Fred Zinnemann – From Here to Eternity |
George Stevens – Shane Charles Walters – Lili Billy Wilder – Stalag 17 William Wyler – Roman Holiday |
| 1954 | Elia Kazan – On the Waterfront |
Alfred Hitchcock – Rear Window George Seaton – The Country Girl William A. Wellman – The High and the Mighty Billy Wilder – Sabrina |
| 1955 | Delbert Mann – Marty |
Elia Kazan – East of Eden David Lean – Summertime Joshua Logan – Picnic John Sturges – Bad Day at Black Rock |
| 1956 | George Stevens – Giant |
Michael Anderson – Around the World in 80 Days Walter Lang – The King and I King Vidor – War and Peace William Wyler – Friendly Persuasion |
| 1957 | David Lean – The Bridge on the River Kwai |
Joshua Logan – Sayonara Sidney Lumet – 12 Angry Men Mark Robson – Peyton Place Billy Wilder – Witness for the Prosecution |
| 1958 | Vincente Minnelli – Gigi |
Richard Brooks – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Stanley Kramer – The Defiant Ones Mark Robson – The Inn of the Sixth Happiness Robert Wise – I Want to Live! |
| 1959 | William Wyler – Ben-Hur |
Jack Clayton – Room at the Top George Stevens – The Diary of Anne Frank Billy Wilder – Some Like It Hot Fred Zinnemann – The Nun's Story |
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Billy Wilder – The Apartment |
Jack Cardiff – Sons and Lovers Jules Dassin – Never on Sunday Alfred Hitchcock – Psycho Fred Zinnemann – The Sundowners |
| 1961 | Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins – West Side Story |
Federico Fellini – La Dolce Vita Stanley Kramer – Judgment at Nuremberg Robert Rossen – The Hustler J. Lee Thompson – The Guns of Navarone |
| 1962 | David Lean – Lawrence of Arabia |
Pietro Germi – Divorce, Italian Style Robert Mulligan – To Kill a Mockingbird Arthur Penn – The Miracle Worker Frank Perry – David and Lisa |
| 1963 | Tony Richardson – Tom Jones |
Federico Fellini – 8½ Elia Kazan – America, America Otto Preminger – The Cardinal Martin Ritt – Hud |
| 1964 | George Cukor – My Fair Lady |
Michael Cacoyannis – Zorba the Greek Peter Glenville – Becket Stanley Kubrick – Dr. Strangelove Robert Stevenson – Mary Poppins |
| 1965 | Robert Wise – The Sound of Music |
David Lean – Doctor Zhivago John Schlesinger – Darling Hiroshi Teshigahara – Woman in the Dunes William Wyler – The Collector |
| 1966 | Fred Zinnemann – A Man for All Seasons |
Michelangelo Antonioni – Blowup Richard Brooks – The Professionals Claude Lelouch – A Man and a Woman Mike Nichols – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? |
| 1967 | Mike Nichols – The Graduate |
Richard Brooks – In Cold Blood Norman Jewison – In the Heat of the Night Stanley Kramer – Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Arthur Penn – Bonnie and Clyde |
| 1968 | Carol Reed – Oliver! |
Anthony Harvey – The Lion in Winter Stanley Kubrick – 2001: A Space Odyssey Gillo Pontecorvo – The Battle of Algiers Franco Zeffirelli – Romeo and Juliet |
| 1969 | John Schlesinger – Midnight Cowboy |
Costa Gavras – Z George Roy Hill – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Arthur Penn – Alice's Restaurant Sydney Pollack – They Shoot Horses, Don't They? |
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Franklin J. Schaffner – Patton |
Robert Altman – MASH Federico Fellini – Satyricon Arthur Hiller – Love Story Ken Russell – Women in Love |
| 1971 | William Friedkin – The French Connection |
Peter Bogdanovich – The Last Picture Show Norman Jewison – Fiddler on the Roof Stanley Kubrick – A Clockwork Orange John Schlesinger – Sunday Bloody Sunday |
| 1972 | Bob Fosse – Cabaret |
John Boorman – Deliverance Francis Ford Coppola – The Godfather Joseph L. Mankiewicz – Sleuth Jan Troell – The Emigrants |
| 1973 | George Roy Hill – The Sting |
Ingmar Bergman – Cries and Whispers Bernardo Bertolucci - Last Tango in Paris William Friedkin - The Exorcist George Lucas – American Graffiti |
| 1974 | Francis Ford Coppola – The Godfather Part II |
John Cassavetes – A Woman Under the Influence Bob Fosse – Lenny Roman Polanski – Chinatown François Truffaut – Day for Night |
| 1975 | Miloš Forman – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest |
Robert Altman – Nashville Federico Fellini – Amarcord Stanley Kubrick – Barry Lyndon Sidney Lumet – Dog Day Afternoon |
| 1976 | John G. Avildsen – Rocky |
Ingmar Bergman – Face to Face Sidney Lumet – Network Alan J. Pakula – All the President's Men Lina Wertmüller – Seven Beauties |
| 1977 | Woody Allen – Annie Hall |
George Lucas – Star Wars Herbert Ross – The Turning Point Steven Spielberg – Close Encounters of the Third Kind Fred Zinnemann – Julia |
| 1978 | Michael Cimino – The Deer Hunter |
Woody Allen – Interiors Hal Ashby – Coming Home Warren Beatty & Buck Henry – Heaven Can Wait Alan Parker – Midnight Express |
| 1979 | Robert Benton – Kramer vs. Kramer |
Francis Ford Coppola – Apocalypse Now Bob Fosse – All That Jazz Édouard Molinaro – La Cage aux Folles Peter Yates – Breaking Away |
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Robert Redford – Ordinary People |
David Lynch – The Elephant Man Roman Polanski – Tess Richard Rush – The Stunt Man Martin Scorsese – Raging Bull |
| 1981 | Warren Beatty – Reds |
Hugh Hudson – Chariots of Fire Louis Malle – Atlantic City Mark Rydell – On Golden Pond Steven Spielberg – Raiders of the Lost Ark |
| 1982 | Richard Attenborough – Gandhi |
Sidney Lumet – The Verdict Wolfgang Petersen – Das Boot Sydney Pollack – Tootsie Steven Spielberg – E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial |
| 1983 | James L. Brooks – Terms of Endearment |
Bruce Beresford – Tender Mercies Ingmar Bergman – Fanny and Alexander Mike Nichols – Silkwood Peter Yates – The Dresser |
| 1984 | Miloš Forman – Amadeus |
Woody Allen – Broadway Danny Rose Robert Benton – Places in the Heart Roland Joffé – The Killing Fields David Lean – A Passage to India |
| 1985 | Sydney Pollack – Out of Africa |
Héctor Babenco – Kiss of the Spider Woman John Huston – Prizzi's Honor Akira Kurosawa – Ran Peter Weir – Witness |
| 1986 | Oliver Stone – Platoon |
Woody Allen – Hannah and Her Sisters James Ivory – A Room with a View Roland Joffé – The Mission David Lynch – Blue Velvet |
| 1987 | Bernardo Bertolucci – The Last Emperor |
John Boorman – Hope and Glory Lasse Hallström – My Life as a Dog Norman Jewison – Moonstruck Adrian Lyne – Fatal Attraction |
| 1988 | Barry Levinson – Rain Man |
Charles Crichton – A Fish Called Wanda Mike Nichols – Working Girl Alan Parker – Mississippi Burning Martin Scorsese – The Last Temptation of Christ |
| 1989 | Oliver Stone – Born on the Fourth of July |
Woody Allen – Crimes and Misdemeanors Kenneth Branagh – Henry V Jim Sheridan – My Left Foot Peter Weir – Dead Poets Society |
| Year | Winner film |
Nominated |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Kevin Costner – Dances with Wolves |
Francis Ford Coppola – The Godfather Part III Stephen Frears – The Grifters Barbet Schroeder – Reversal of Fortune Martin Scorsese – Goodfellas |
| 1991 | Jonathan Demme – The Silence of the Lambs |
Barry Levinson – Bugsy Ridley Scott – Thelma & Louise John Singleton – Boyz n the Hood Oliver Stone – JFK |
| 1992 | Clint Eastwood – Unforgiven |
Robert Altman – The Player Martin Brest – Scent of a Woman James Ivory – Howards End Neil Jordan – The Crying Game |
| 1993 | Steven Spielberg – Schindler's List |
Robert Altman – Short Cuts Jane Campion – The Piano James Ivory – The Remains of the Day Jim Sheridan – In the Name of the Father |
| 1994 | Robert Zemeckis – Forrest Gump |
Woody Allen – Bullets Over Broadway Krzysztof Kieślowski – Three Colours: Red Robert Redford – Quiz Show Quentin Tarantino – Pulp Fiction |
| 1995 | Mel Gibson – Braveheart |
Mike Figgis – Leaving Las Vegas Chris Noonan – Babe Michael Radford – Il Postino Tim Robbins – Dead Man Walking |
| 1996 | Anthony Minghella – The English Patient |
Joel Coen – Fargo Miloš Forman – The People vs. Larry Flynt Scott Hicks – Shine Mike Leigh – Secrets & Lies |
| 1997 | James Cameron – Titanic |
Peter Cattaneo – The Full Monty Atom Egoyan – The Sweet Hereafter Curtis Hanson – L.A. Confidential Gus Van Sant – Good Will Hunting |
| 1998 | Steven Spielberg – Saving Private Ryan |
Roberto Benigni – Life Is Beautiful John Madden – Shakespeare in Love Terrence Malick – The Thin Red Line Peter Weir – The Truman Show |
| 1999 | Sam Mendes – American Beauty |
Lasse Hallström – The Cider House Rules Spike Jonze – Being John Malkovich Michael Mann – The Insider M. Night Shyamalan – The Sixth Sense |
As the Academy Awards are based in the United States and are centered on the Hollywood film industry, the majority of Academy Award winners have been Americans. Nonetheless, there is significant international presence at the awards, as evidenced by the following list of winners of the Academy Award for Best Director.
However, no director has won for a film that is entirely in a foreign language.
There have been 20 directors nominated for films entirely or significantly in a foreign (non-English) language.
Ironically, internationally known filmmakers Jean Renoir (for The Southerner), Michelangelo Antonioni (for Blowup) and Louis Malle (for Atlantic City) were nominated for films that were in English and not their native language.
Nominations for films primarily in English with some scenes (of a notable length) in a foreign language includes:
Several international nominees (regardless of the language used in their respective films) include:
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