Academy Award for Best Director facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Academy Award for Best Director
The most recent winner: Paul Thomas Anderson
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	Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another (2025)

The Academy Award for Best Director is a very special prize given out every year. It celebrates the amazing work of a film director who has shown incredible skill in making movies. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) gives out this award.

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 awards were combined into just one "Best Director" award. The directors who might win are first chosen by other directors. Then, all the people who vote for the Academy Awards 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 in 1938, the rules changed. Directors could only be nominated for one movie at a time. Later, this rule changed again. Only one director, Steven Soderbergh, has 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.

The Best Director award and the Best Picture award often go hand-in-hand. Many movies that win Best Picture also have their director win this award. In the past, there haven't been as many women nominated or winning this award. However, this is slowly changing, and more women are being recognized for their amazing work.

Many talented directors have won this award over the years. The most recent winner is American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. He won for his movie One Battle After Another at the 98th Academy Awards ceremony.

Winners and nominees

Below, you'll find a list of all the directors who have won or been nominated for this award. The year listed is usually when the movie was released. The awards ceremony itself happens the year after. For a long time, movies released between January 1st and December 31st of a year were considered for the awards given out the next year.

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).

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).

Sean Baker won for Anora (2024).

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

Here are some interesting facts and records about the Best Director award:

• Most Wins: John Ford holds the record for the most wins, with four awards. Frank Capra and William Wyler each won three times.
  • William Wyler has been nominated the most times, with 12 nominations. This includes being nominated four years in a row! Martin Scorsese is currently second with 10 nominations.
  • Clarence Brown has the most nominations (6) without ever winning the award.
• Winning for Non-Best Picture Films: Four directors have won this award for movies that didn't also 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.
  • Back-to-Back Wins: Only three directors have won the award in two years in a row: John Ford (1940–1941), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1949–1950), and Alejandro González Iñárritu (2014–2015).
  • Francis Ford Coppola is the only director to be nominated for all three films in The Godfather trilogy. He won for the second film.
• Directing Teams: Four teams of directors have been nominated together. Three of these teams won the award: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), the Coen brothers 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 to have won this award.
• First-Time Winners: Six directors won the award for their very first feature film: Delbert Mann (Marty, 1955), Jerome Robbins (West Side Story, 1961), Robert Redford (Ordinary People, 1980), James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, 1983), Kevin Costner (Dances With Wolves, 1990), and Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1999).
  • Jerome Robbins is the only director to win for his only movie ever directed.
• Women in Directing: Lina Wertmüller was the first woman ever nominated in this category, for Seven Beauties (1976).
  • Kathryn Bigelow made history as the first woman to win the award, for The Hurt Locker (2009).
  • Chloé Zhao is the first woman of color to win the award, for Nomadland (2020). She was also nominated a second time for Hamnet (2025).
  • 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.
• Diversity in Directing: John Singleton was the first Black director nominated for the award, and also the youngest nominee, for Boyz n the Hood (1991).
  • Steve McQueen was the first Black nominee to direct a Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave.
  • David Lean was the first non-American director to win, and he won twice. Later, Ang Lee, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu also won twice.
  • Ang Lee was the first Asian director to win, for Brokeback Mountain (2005). He won again for Life of Pi (2012).
  • Alfonso Cuarón was the first Mexican director to win, for Gravity (2013). He won again for Roma (2018).
• Family Connections: While no married couple has won for the same film, James Cameron (Titanic, 1997) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, 2009) were the first ex-married couple to both win the award. They were also the first ex-married couple to be nominated against each other in the same year.

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