The Academy Award for Best Director (officially known as the Academy Award of Merit for Directing) is an award presented annually by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...
(AMPAS). It is given in honor of a
film director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the
film industry
The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, p ...
.
The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Director winner.
The
1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with the award being split into "Dramatic" and "Comedy" categories;
Frank Borzage and
Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone (born Leib Milstein (Russian: Лейб Мильштейн); September 30, 1895 – September 25, 1980) was a Moldovan-American film director. He is known for directing '' Two Arabian Knights'' (1927) and ''All Quiet on the Weste ...
won for ''
7th Heaven'' and ''
Two Arabian Knights
''Two Arabian Knights'' (1927) is an American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring William Boyd, Mary Astor, and Louis Wolheim. A silent film, ''Two Arabian Knights'' was produced by Howard Hughes and was distributed by United ...
'', respectively. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies. Nominees are determined by
single transferable vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate ...
within the directors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a
plurality vote
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which a candidate, or candidates, who poll more than any other counterpart (that is, receive a plurality), are elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects just one member per ...
from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy.
[
]
For the first eleven years of the Academy Awards, directors were allowed to be nominated for multiple films in the same year. However, after the nomination of
Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz ( ; born Manó Kaminer; since 1905 Mihály Kertész; hu, Kertész Mihály; December 24, 1886 April 10, 1962) was a Hungarian-American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed cla ...
for two films, ''
Angels with Dirty Faces
''Angels with Dirty Faces'' is a 1938 American crime drama film directed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Brothers. It stars James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, The Dead End Kids, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, and George Bancroft. The screenplay was wri ...
'' and ''
Four Daughters
''Four Daughters'' is a 1938 American romance film that tells the story of a happy musical family whose lives and loves are disrupted by the arrival of a charming young composer who interjects himself into the daughters' romantic lives. His cynic ...
'', at the
11th Academy Awards, the rules were revised so that an individual could only be nominated for one film at each ceremony. That rule has since been amended, although the only director who has received multiple nominations in the same year was
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh (; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. A pioneer of modern independent cinema, Soderbergh is an acclaimed and prolific filmmaker.
Soderbergh's direc ...
for ''
Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich (née Pattee; born June 22, 1960) is an American legal clerk, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who, despite her lack of education in the law, was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Compan ...
'' and ''
Traffic
Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation.
Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...
'' in 2000, winning the award for the latter. The Academy Awards for Best Director and
Best Picture
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 88 films that won Best Picture and were also nominated for Best Director, 67 won the award.
Since its inception, the award has been given to 74 directors or directing teams. As of the
2021 ceremony, New Zealand filmmaker
Jane Campion
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion (born 30 April 1954) is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed films ''The Piano'' (1993) and '' The Power of the Dog'' (2021), for which she has received a tot ...
is the most recent winner in this category for her work on ''
The Power of the Dog'' and the third woman to win it.
Winners and nominees
In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of film release in
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
; the ceremonies are always held the following year. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31.
[ Levy 2003, page 52] For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933.
Since the
7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple wins and nominations
Multiple wins
Four or more nominations
Age superlatives
Diversity of nominees/winners
Six black directors have been nominated a total of six times in this category, and none have won the award. Seven female directors have been nominated a total of eight times in the category, and three have won the award. Eight Asian directors have been nominated a total of ten times in the category, with four wins total. Five Latin American directors have been nominated a total of seven times in the category, with five wins total.
Records
*
John Ford
John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...
has received the most awards in this category with four.
*
William Wyler
William Wyler (; born Willi Wyler (); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a Swiss-German-American film director and producer who won the Academy Award for Best Director three times, those being for ''Mrs. Miniver'' (1942), ''The Best Years of O ...
was nominated on twelve occasions, more than any other individual.
*
Clarence Brown
Clarence Leon Brown (May 10, 1890 – August 17, 1987) was an American film director.
Early life
Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to Larkin Harry Brown, a cotton manufacturer, and Katherine Ann Brown (née Gaw), Brown moved to Tennessee when he ...
received the most nominations without a win with six.
*
Damien Chazelle
Damien Sayre Chazelle (; born January 19, 1985) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He is known for his films ''Whiplash'' (2014), ''La La Land'' (2016), and '' First Man'' (2018).
For ''Whiplash'', he was nominated for the ...
became the youngest director in history to receive this award, at the age of 32 for his work on ''
La La Land
''La La Land'' is a 2016 American romantic musical comedy-drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle. It stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress, respectively, who meet and fall in love ...
''.
*
John Singleton
John Daniel Singleton (January 6, 1968 April 28, 2019) was an American director, screenwriter, and producer. He made his feature film debut writing and directing ''Boyz n the Hood'' (1991), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for B ...
became the youngest and first black director to be nominated for this award, at age 24 for his work on ''
Boyz n the Hood
''Boyz n the Hood'' is a 1991 American coming-of-age hood drama film written and directed by John Singleton in his feature directorial debut. It stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Nia Long, Regina King, and An ...
''.
* Two directing teams have shared the award;
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of ...
and
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Among his nu ...
for ''
West Side Story
''West Side Story'' is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play ''Romeo and Juliet'', the story is set in the mid-1 ...
'' in 1961 and
Joel and Ethan Coen
Joel Daniel Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957),State of Minnesota. ''Minnesota Birth Index, 1935–2002''. Minnesota Department of Health. collectively known as the Coen brothers (), are American film ...
for ''
No Country for Old Men
''No Country for Old Men'' is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel of the same name. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, th ...
'' in 2007.
* Only four times in Academy Award history have director-collaborators been nominated for award: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for ''West Side Story'' (1961),
Warren Beatty
Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...
and
Buck Henry
Buck Henry (born Henry Zuckerman; December 9, 1930 – January 8, 2020) was an American actor, screenwriter, and director. Henry's contributions to film included his work as a co-writer for Mike Nichols's ''The Graduate'' (1967) for which he re ...
for ''
Heaven Can Wait'' (1978), and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for ''No Country for Old Men'' (2007). (Wise/Robbins and the Coens actually won the award). In 2011, the Coens were again nominated for a best directing-duo, for their Western ''
True Grit
True Grit may refer to:
Fiction
* ''True Grit'' (novel), a 1968 novel by Charles Portis
** ''True Grit'' (1969 film), a film adaptation by Henry Hathaway, starring John Wayne
** ''True Grit'' (2010 film), a film adaptation by the Coen Brothers, ...
'' (2010).
* The Coen brothers are the only siblings to have won the award.
*
Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Ann Bigelow (; born November 27, 1951) is an American filmmaker. Covering a wide range of genres, her films include ''Near Dark'' (1987), ''Point Break'' (1991), '' Strange Days'' (1995), '' K-19: The Widowmaker'' (2002), ''The Hurt Locke ...
is the first woman to have won the award, for 2009's ''
The Hurt Locker
''The Hurt Locker'' is a 2008 American war thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, and Guy Pearce. The film follo ...
''.
*
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five A ...
for
''The Godfather Trilogy'' is the only director to be nominated for each film of a trilogy, winning one for the sequel.
*
John Ford
John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...
(1940-1941),
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz (; February 11, 1909 – February 5, 1993) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best A ...
(1949-1950), and
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu (; American Spanish: ; credited since 2016 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker and screenwriter. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the hum ...
(2014-2015) are the only three directors to have won back-to-back for this category.
*
Ang Lee
Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. During his filmmaking career, he has received international critical and popula ...
is the first Asian director to have won the award. In 2012 he became the first Asian director to win twice.
Notes
See also
*
BAFTA Award for Best Direction
The BAFTA Award for Best Direction, formerly known as David Lean Award for Achievement in Direction, is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to a film director for a specifi ...
*
Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Director
The Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Director is one of the awards given to film directors working in the film industry by the Critics Choice Association at the annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards. It was first given out to Mel Gibson for '' ...
*
*
Golden Globe Award for Best Director
The Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Motion Picture is a Golden Globe Award that has been presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an organization composed of journalists who cover the United States film industry fo ...
*
Independent Spirit Award for Best Director
The Film Independent's Spirit Award for Best Director is one of the annual Independent Spirit Awards. It was first presented in 1985 with Joel Coen and Martin Scorsese being the first winners of the category for ''Blood Simple'' and '' After Hours ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
External links
Oscars.org(official Academy site)
(official site)
Oscar.com(official ceremony promotional site)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Academy Award For Best Directing
Directing
Awards for best director