The Best Director Academy Awards
Facts and Trivia (1)
See also
this site's designation of the Greatest
Directors and Their Best Films.
The Best Director Academy Award should actually be titled
the "best achievement in directing." In the first
year of the Academy Awards, there were two awards for directorship:
one for direction of a dramatic film, another for comedy direction.
The latter award was dropped the following year.
The Top Best Director Oscar Winners:
John Ford is the only director with 4 Best Director
Oscars, followed by William Wyler and Frank Capra
with 3 Best Director Academy Awards. The most nominated and most frequent
winners in the Best Director category are the following:
The Top Winning Directors (with At Least Two Best Director
Oscars) and Top Nominees:
Although John Ford has won more Oscars, he has only
five Best Director nominations. By the year 2022, William Wyler held
the record for the most nominations as director - twelve, followed
by Martin Scorsese (with 10 nominations) and Steven Spielberg (with
9 nominations), and Billy Wilder with 8 nominations. Twenty
directors have two or
more Best Director Oscar wins, and include the following (with no. of
nominations in parentheses):
- William Wyler (12) - with three wins (Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and Ben-Hur (1959))
- Frank Capra (6) - with three wins (It Happened One Night (1934), Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and You Can't Take It With You
(1938))
- Martin Scorsese (10) - with only one win (The
Departed (2006))
- Steven Spielberg (9) - with two wins (Schindler's
List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998))
- Billy Wilder (8) - with two wins (The Lost Weekend (1945) and The Apartment (1960))
- David Lean (7) - with two wins (The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962))
- Fred Zinnemann (7) - with two wins (From Here to Eternity (1953) and A Man for All Seasons (1966))
- Elia Kazan (5) - with two wins (Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and On the Waterfront (1954))
- George Stevens (5) - with two wins (A Place in the Sun (1951) and Giant (1956))
- Frank Lloyd (4) - with two wins (The Divine Lady (1928/29) and Cavalcade
(1932/33))
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz (4) - with two wins (A Letter to Three Wives (1949), All About Eve (1950))
- Clint Eastwood (4) - with two wins (Million Dollar Baby (2004), and Unforgiven
(1992))
- Lewis Milestone (3) - with two wins ( All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Two
Arabian Knights (1927/8))
- Leo McCarey (3) - with two wins (The Awful Truth (1937), Going My Way (1944))
- Robert Wise (3) - with two wins ( West Side Story (1961) (co-winner), The
Sound of Music (1965))
- Oliver Stone (3) - with two wins (Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July
(1989))
- Milos Forman (3) - with two wins (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984))
- Ang Lee (3) - with two wins (Brokeback Mountain
(2005), Life of Pi (2012))
- Frank Borzage (2) - with two wins (Bad Girl (1931/2), Seventh Heaven (1927/8))
- Alejandro González Iñárritu
(3) - with two wins (Birdman (2014), The Revenant (2015))
In addition, Billy Wilder has a total of twenty-one
career nominations and six Oscars for various roles:
Best Director-Winning Directors With Consecutive Oscars:
Among them are the only three directors who
have received two consecutive Best Director statuette wins:
Best Director Summary of Multiple Nominees and Winners:
It appears that thirty-seven directors have been nominated
three or more times (some have never won).
- William Wyler (12 nominations, 3 wins):
Oscar wins: Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years
of Our Lives (1946), and Ben-Hur (1959)
Nominated: The Collector (1965), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Roman
Holiday (1953), Detective Story (1951), The
Heiress (1949), The Little Foxes (1941), The
Letter (1940), Wuthering Heights (1939), Dodsworth
(1936)
- John Ford (5 nominations, 4 wins):
Oscar wins: The Informer (1935), The
Grapes of Wrath (1940), How
Green Was My Valley (1941), and The
Quiet Man (1952).
Nominated: Stagecoach (1939)
- Martin Scorsese (10 nominations,
1 win):
Oscar win: The Departed (2006)
Nominated: The Aviator (2004), Gangs of New York (2002), GoodFellas
(1990), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Raging
Bull (1980), Hugo (2011), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The
Irishman (2019), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
- Frank Capra (6 nominations, 3 wins):
Oscars wins: It Happened One Night (1934), Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and You Can't Take It With
You (1938)
Nominated: It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Mr.
Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Lady for a Day
(1933)
- Billy Wilder (8 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: The Lost Weekend (1945)
and The Apartment (1960)
Nominated: Some Like It Hot (1959), Witness
for the Prosecution (1957), Sabrina (1954), Stalag
17 (1953), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Double
Indemnity (1944)
- Steven Spielberg (9 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: Schindler's List (1993) and Saving
Private Ryan (1998)
Nominated: Munich (2005), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
(1982), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Close
Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Lincoln (2012), West Side Story
(2021), The Fabelmans (2022)
[Note: Spielberg was nominated for Best Director in six consecutive
decades.]
- David Lean (7 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Nominated: A Passage to India (1984), Doctor Zhivago (1965),
Summertime (1955), Great Expectations (1946), Brief
Encounter (1946)
- Fred Zinnemann (7 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: From Here to Eternity (1953)
and A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Nominated: Julia (1977), The Sundowners (1960), The
Nun's Story (1959),
High Noon (1952), The Search (1948)
- Woody Allen (7 nominations, 1 win):
Oscar win: Annie Hall (1976)
Nominated: Bullets over Broadway (1994), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Hannah
and Her Sisters (1986), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), Interiors (1978),
Midnight in Paris (2011)
- Clarence Brown (6 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: The Yearling (1946), National Velvet (1944), The
Human Comedy (1943), A Free Soul (1941), Anna
Christie (1929/30) and Romance (1929/30)
- Elia Kazan (5 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and On
the Waterfront (1954)
Nominated: America, America (1963), East
of Eden (1955),
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
- George Stevens (5 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: A Place in the Sun (1951) and Giant
(1956)
Nominated: The More the Merrier (1943), Shane
(1953), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
- George Cukor (5 nominations, 1 win):
Oscar win: My Fair Lady (1964)
Nominated: Born Yesterday (1950), A Double Life (1947), The
Philadelphia Story (1940), Little Women (1933)
- John Huston (5 nominations, 1 win):
Oscar win: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
(1948)
Nominated: Prizzi's Honor (1985), Moulin Rouge (1952), The
African Queen (1951), The Asphalt
Jungle (1950)
- King Vidor (5 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: War and Peace (1956), The Citadel (1938), The
Champ (1931), Hallelujah (1929), The
Crowd (1928)
- Alfred Hitchcock (5 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: Psycho (1960), Rear
Window (1954), Spellbound (1945), Lifeboat (1944), Rebecca
(1940)
- Robert Altman (5 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: Gosford Park (2001), Short Cuts (1993), The
Player (1992), Nashville (1975), M*A*S*H
(1970)
- Frank Lloyd (4 official nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: The Divine Lady (1928/29) and Cavalcade
(1932/33)
Nominated: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Weary
River (1928/9) and Drag (1928/29) (unofficial)
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz (4 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: A Letter to Three Wives (1949), All
About Eve (1950)
Nominated: Five Fingers (1952), Sleuth (1972)
- Clint Eastwood (4 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: Million Dollar Baby (2004), and Unforgiven
(1992)
Nominated: Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), Mystic River (2003)
- Francis Ford Coppola (4 nominations, 1 win):
Oscar win: The
Godfather, Part 2 (1974)
Nominated: The Godfather, Part 3 (1990), Apocalypse
Now (1979), The
Godfather (1972)
- Michael Curtiz (4 nominations, 1 win):
Oscar win: Casablanca (1942)
Nominated: Yankee
Doodle Dandy (1942), Angels with Dirty
Faces (1938), Four Daughters (1938)
- Mike Nichols (4 nominations, 1 win):
Oscar win: The Graduate (1967)
Nominated: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
(1966), Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988)
- Stanley Kubrick (4 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: Barry Lyndon (1975), A Clockwork Orange (1971), 2001:
A Space Odyssey (1968), Dr.
Strangelove or: How... (1964)
- Sidney Lumet (4 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: The Verdict (1982), Network
(1976), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), 12
Angry Men (1957)
- Federico Fellini (4 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: Amarcord (1974), Fellini Satyricon (1970), 8
1/2 (1963), La Dolce Vita (1961)
- Peter Weir (4 nominations, 0 wins):
Nominated: Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), The
Truman Show (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of
the World (2003)
- Lewis Milestone (3 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: All Quiet on the
Western Front (1930), Two
Arabian Knights (1927/8)
Nominated: The Front Page (1931)
- Leo McCarey (3 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: The Awful Truth (1937), Going My
Way (1944)
Nominated: The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
- Robert Wise (3 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: West Side Story
(1961) (co-winner), The
Sound of Music (1965)
Nominated: I Want to Live! (1958)
- Oliver Stone (3 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: Platoon (1986) and Born
on the Fourth of July (1989)
Nominated: JFK (1991)
- Milos Forman (3 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(1975), Amadeus (1984)
Nominated: The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
- Ang Lee (3 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: Brokeback Mountain (2005), Life of Pi (2012)
Nominated: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
- Alejandro González Iñárritu
(3 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: Birdman (2014), The Revenant (2015)
Nominated: Babel (2006)
- David O. Russell (3 nominations, 0 wins)
Nominated: The Fighter (2010), Silver Linings Playbook (2012),
American Hustle (2013)
- Alexander Payne (3 nominations, 0 wins)
Nominated: Sideways (2004), The Descendants (2011), Nebraska
(2013)
- Paul Thomas Anderson (3 nominations, 0 wins)
Nominated: There Will Be Blood (2007), Phantom Thread (2017),
Licorice Pizza (2021)
- Frank Borzage (2 nominations, 2 wins):
Oscar wins: Bad Girl (1931/2), Seventh Heaven (1927/8)
- Jane Campion (2 nominations, 1 win):
Oscar win: The Power of the Dog (2021)
Nominated:
The Piano (1993)
Best Director Oscar Omissions and Non-Winners:
Some of the greatest directors of all time have never
won a competitive Academy Award for Best Director (and many were never
nominated - see Great Directors Who
Have Not Won),
including Clarence Brown, Charlie Chaplin, King Vidor, Howard Hawks,
D. W. Griffith, Brian De Palma, George Sidney, John Cassavetes, Cecil
B. DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, F.W. Murnau, William A.
Wellman, Otto Preminger, Sam Wood, Gregory La Cava, Norman Jewison,
Sidney Lumet, Ernst Lubitsch, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, Robert
Rossen, Fritz Lang, Spike Lee, Rouben Mamoulian, W.S. Van Dyke, Stanley
Kubrick, Herbert Ross, Tim Burton, Blake Edwards, Stanley Kramer, Joshua
Logan, James Ivory, Alan J. Pakula, Paul Mazursky, Arthur Penn, Richard
Brooks, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, Peter Weir, Akira
Kurosawa, Barbra Streisand, Ingmar Bergman, and Sam Peckinpah. |