Academy Award for Best Director facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Academy Award for Best Director
The 2025 recipient: Sean Baker
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)
Country	United States
First awarded	May 16, 1929; 96 years ago (1929-05-16) (for films released during the 1927/1928 film season)
Currently held by	Sean Baker, Anora (2024)

The Academy Award for Best Director is a special prize given out every year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It celebrates a film director who has done an amazing job leading and creating a movie.

The first Academy Awards happened in 1929. Back then, there were two awards for directors: one for "Dramatic" movies and one for "Comedy" movies. Frank Borzage and Lewis Milestone were the first winners. Soon after, these two categories were combined into just one. The people who might win (the nominees) are chosen by other directors in the Academy. Then, all the members of the Academy vote to pick the final winner.

For many years, a director could be nominated for more than one movie in the same year! But after Michael Curtiz was nominated for two films, Angels with Dirty Faces and Four Daughters, the rules changed. From then on, a director could only be nominated for one movie per year. Later, this rule changed again, but only one director, Steven Soderbergh, has ever been nominated for two movies in the same year since then. He was nominated for Erin Brockovich and Traffic in 2000, and he won for Traffic.

Often, the movie that wins Best Picture also has its director win the Best Director award. This shows how important a director is to a great film! In the past, not many women directors were nominated or won this award. Out of all the directors nominated, only a small number have been women, and even fewer have won. But this is changing, and more women are being recognized for their amazing work.

Since it started, 74 different directors or directing teams have won this award. The most recent winner is American filmmaker Sean Baker, who won for his movie Anora at the 97th Academy Awards.

Winners and nominees

In the table below, the years are when the films were released, usually in Los Angeles. The awards ceremony always happens the next year. For the first few ceremonies, movies released between August 1 and July 31 were eligible. Later, the rules changed so that movies released in the full previous calendar year (January 1 to December 31) were eligible.

Frank Borzage won twice: "Dramatic director" at the first ceremony, for 7th Heaven (1927); & later, Bad Girl (1931).

Lewis Milestone won twice: "Comedy director" at the first ceremony, for Two Arabian Knights (1927); & later, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

Frank Lloyd won twice, for The Divine Lady (1929) & Cavalcade (1933).

Frank Capra won thrice, for It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), & You Can't Take It with You (1938).

John Ford won a record four times, for: The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), & The Quiet Man (1952).

Leo McCarey won twice, for The Awful Truth (1937) & Going My Way (1944).

Victor Fleming won for Gone with the Wind (1939).

William Wyler, with a record twelve nominations, won thrice, for: Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), & Ben-Hur (1959).

Michael Curtiz won for Casablanca (1942).

Billy Wilder (right, with Gloria Swanson) won twice, for The Lost Weekend (1945) & The Apartment (1960).

Elia Kazan won twice, for Gentleman's Agreement (1947) & On the Waterfront (1954).

John Huston won for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Joseph L. Mankiewicz won twice consecutively, for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) & All About Eve (1950).

George Stevens won twice, for A Place in the Sun (1951) & Giant (1956).

Fred Zinnemann won twice, for From Here to Eternity (1953) & A Man for All Seasons (1966).

David Lean won twice, for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) & Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Vincente Minnelli won for Gigi (1958).

Robert Wise won twice: jointly with Jerome Robbins (an Oscars first) for West Side Story (1961) & solo for The Sound of Music (1965).

George Cukor won for My Fair Lady (1964).

Mike Nichols won for The Graduate (1967).

Carol Reed won for Oliver! (1968).

Franklin J. Schaffner won for Patton (1970).

William Friedkin won for The French Connection (1971).

Bob Fosse won for Cabaret (1972).

Francis Ford Coppola won for The Godfather Part II (1974).

Miloš Forman won twice, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) & Amadeus (1984).

Woody Allen won for Annie Hall (1977).

Robert Redford won for Ordinary People (1980).

Warren Beatty won for Reds (1981).

Richard Attenborough won for Gandhi (1982).

James L. Brooks won for Terms of Endearment (1983).

Sydney Pollack won for Out of Africa (1985).

Oliver Stone won twice, for Platoon (1986) & Born on the Fourth of July (1989).

Bernardo Bertolucci won for The Last Emperor (1987).

Barry Levinson won for Rain Man (1988).

Kevin Costner won for Dances With Wolves (1990).

Jonathan Demme won for The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Clint Eastwood won twice, for Unforgiven (1992) & Million Dollar Baby (2004)—latter, at 74, rendered him the oldest winner.

Steven Spielberg won twice, for Schindler's List (1993) & Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Robert Zemeckis won for Forrest Gump (1994).

Mel Gibson won for Braveheart (1995).

James Cameron won for Titanic (1997).

Sam Mendes won for American Beauty (1999).

Steven Soderbergh won for Traffic (2000).

Ron Howard won for A Beautiful Mind (2001).

Roman Polanski won for The Pianist (2002).

Peter Jackson won for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).

Ang Lee won twice, for Brokeback Mountain (2005) & Life of Pi (2012); first Asian winner.

Martin Scorsese won for The Departed (2006).

The Coen brothers won for No Country for Old Men (2007).

Danny Boyle won for Slumdog Millionaire (2008).

Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker (2009); first woman to win.

Tom Hooper won for The King's Speech (2010).

Michel Hazanavicius won for The Artist (2011).

Alfonso Cuarón won twice, for Gravity (2013) & Roma (2018); first Mexican winner.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu won twice consecutively, for Birdman (2014) & The Revenant (2015).

Damien Chazelle won for La La Land (2016); youngest winner, at age 32.

Guillermo del Toro won for The Shape of Water (2017).

Bong Joon-ho won for Parasite (2019); first to direct a foreign-language (Korean) winner for Best Picture.

Chloé Zhao won for Nomadland (2020); first woman of color to win.

Jane Campion won for The Power of the Dog (2021); first woman to be nominated twice.

Daniels won for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).

Christopher Nolan won for Oppenheimer (2023).

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Multiple wins and nominations

Multiple wins

Three or more nominations

Age superlatives

Records and Fun Facts

• John Ford has won this award more than anyone else, with four wins! Frank Capra and William Wyler each won three times.
  • William Wyler has been nominated the most times, with 12 nominations. He was even nominated four years in a row! Martin Scorsese is second with 10 nominations.
  • Clarence Brown was nominated 6 times but never won. Alfred Hitchcock and King Vidor were each nominated 5 times without a win.
• Four directors have won the Best Director award even when their movie didn't win Best Picture. These are Frank Borzage, George Stevens, Ang Lee, and Alfonso Cuarón.
  • Out of John Ford's four wins, only one of his movies, How Green Was My Valley (1941), also won Best Picture.
  • Ford (1940–1941), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1949–1950), and Alejandro González Iñárritu (2014–2015) are the only directors to win the award two years in a row.
  • Francis Ford Coppola is the only director to be nominated for all three movies in The Godfather series. He won for the second movie, The Godfather Part II.
• Sometimes, two directors work together on a film and get nominated as a team. This has happened five times, and they won three of those times! The winning teams were Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men (2007), and Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).
  • The Coen Brothers are the only siblings (brothers) to have won this award.
• Six directors won the award for their very first feature film! These include Delbert Mann for Marty (1955), Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), Robert Redford for Ordinary People (1980), James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment (1983), Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves (1990), and Sam Mendes for American Beauty (1999).
  • Jerome Robbins is the only director to win for the only movie he ever directed!
• Lina Wertmüller was the first woman to be nominated for the award, for Seven Beauties (1976).
  • Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to actually win the award, for The Hurt Locker (2009).
  • Chloé Zhao was the first woman of color to win the award, for Nomadland (2020).
  • Jane Campion is the first woman to be nominated twice for the award: for The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2021). She won for The Power of the Dog.
• John Singleton was the first Black director (and the youngest person ever) to be nominated for the award, for Boyz n the Hood (1991).
  • Steve McQueen was the first Black director whose movie, 12 Years a Slave, won Best Picture. Barry Jenkins did the same three years later with Moonlight (2016).
• David Lean was the first director from outside America to win this award, and he won twice! He won for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). It took a long time for other non-American directors to win twice, but then Ang Lee, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu each won twice too.
  • Ang Lee was the first Asian director to win the award, for Brokeback Mountain (2005). He won again for Life of Pi (2012).
  • Alfonso Cuarón was the first Mexican (and Latin American) director to win the award, for Gravity (2013). He won again for Roma (2018).

See also

In Spanish: Anexo:Óscar al mejor director para niños

• Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film
• Golden Globe Award for Best Director
• BAFTA Award for Best Direction