The Best Director Academy Award: Facts and Trivia

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 most nominated and most frequent winners in the Best Director category are the following: John Ford is the only director with 4 Best Director Oscars, followed by Frank Capra and William Wyler with 3 Best Director Academy Awards:

The Most Nominated Best Directors:

Although John Ford has won more Oscars, he has only five Best Director nominations, William Wyler holds the record for the most nominations as director - twelve. Runner-up is Billy Wilder with eight Best Director nominations.

In addition, Billy Wilder has a total of twenty-one career nominations and six Oscars for various roles:

• Nominated eight times for director (with two Best Director wins - see below) between 1944 and 1960
• Nominated twelve times for screenwriting (with three wins for The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and The Apartment (1960))
• Nominated (and won) once as producer for the Best Picture-winning The Apartment (1960)

A few directors have accomplished the 'hat trick' of triple Oscar wins as producer-director-writer:

• Leo McCarey for Going My Way (1944)
• Billy Wilder for The Apartment (1960)
• Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather, Part 2 (1974)
• James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment (1983)
• Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

The Winning-est Directors (with Two Best Director Oscars):

Fifteen directors have two Best Director Oscar wins, and include the following (with no. of nominations in parentheses):

• Billy Wilder (8)
• David Lean (7)
• Fred Zinnemann (7)
• Steven Spielberg (6)
• Elia Kazan (5)
• George Stevens (5)
• Clint Eastwood (4)
• Joseph L. Mankiewicz (4)
• Robert Wise (3)
• Oliver Stone (3)
• Milos Forman (3)
• Leo McCarey (3)
• Lewis Milestone (3)
• Frank Lloyd (3)
• Frank Borzage (2)

Back-to-Back Director Winners:

Only two directors have won back-to-back (consecutive year) directing Oscars:

• John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941)
• Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950)
  (Mankiewicz is the only writer-director to have back-to-back double wins for both screenwriting and directing)

Best Director Oscar Omissions:

Some of the greatest directors of all time have never won an 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.

Best Director Summary:

It appears that twenty-six directors have been nominated four or more times:

• 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• Steven Spielberg (6 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• 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), Unforgiven (1992)
  Nominated: Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), Mystic River (2003)
  
  
• Frank Lloyd (3 official nominations, 2 wins):
  Oscar wins: The Divine Lady (1928/29) (unofficial) and Cavalcade (1932/33)
  Nominated: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Weary River (1928/9) and Drag (1928/29) (unofficial)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• Leo McCarey (3 nominations, 2 wins):
  Oscar wins: The Awful Truth (1937), Going My Way (1944)
  Nominated: The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• Frank Borzage (2 nominations, 2 wins):
  Oscar wins: Bad Girl (1931/2), Seventh Heaven (1927/8)
  
  
• Woody Allen (6 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)
  
  
• Martin Scorsese (6 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• Clarence Brown (5/6 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)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• 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)