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	1929
Currently held by	Sean Baker, Anora (2025)

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 shown amazing skill in leading the creation of a movie. Think of the director as the captain of a ship, guiding everyone to make the best film possible!

The very first Academy Awards happened in 1929. Back then, they had two director awards: one for "Dramatic" films and one for "Comedy" films. Frank Borzage won for a drama called 7th Heaven, and Lewis Milestone won for the comedy Two Arabian Knights. But after that first year, they combined them into just one "Best Director" award.

To pick the nominees, directors who are members of AMPAS vote for their favorites. Then, all eligible members of the Academy vote to choose the 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. Now, a director can usually only be nominated for one film per year. However, there was one exception: Steven Soderbergh was nominated for two films, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, in 2000, and he won for Traffic.

The award for Best Director and the Best Picture award often go hand-in-hand. Out of 90 films that won Best Picture and were also nominated for Best Director, 69 of them also won the Best Director award!

However, the award has faced some criticism because it hasn't recognized many female directors. Out of 257 individual directors nominated, only 9 have been women. And only 3 of the 76 winners have been women.

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

Understanding the Winners and Nominees

The years listed for the awards usually match when the film was released in Los Angeles, California. The actual award ceremonies always happen the following year. For example, a film released in 1927 might win an award at the 1928 ceremony.

Frank Borzage won twice, for 7th Heaven (1927) and Bad Girl (1931).

Lewis Milestone won twice, for Two Arabian Knights (1927) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

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

Frank Capra won three times, for It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and 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), and The Quiet Man (1952).

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

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

William Wyler had a record twelve nominations and won three times, for Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and Ben-Hur (1959).

Michael Curtiz won for Casablanca (1942).

Billy Wilder won twice, for The Lost Weekend (1945) and The Apartment (1960).

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

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

Joseph L. Mankiewicz won twice in a row, for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950).

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

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

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

Vincente Minnelli won for Gigi (1958).

Robert Wise won twice: with Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961) and 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) and 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) and 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) and Million Dollar Baby (2004). At 74, he became the oldest winner.

Steven Spielberg won twice, for Schindler's List (1993) and 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) and Life of Pi (2012). He was the 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). She was the first woman to win this award.

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

Michel Hazanavicius won for The Artist (2011).

Alfonso Cuarón won twice, for Gravity (2013) and Roma (2018). He was the first Mexican winner.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu won twice in a row, for Birdman (2014) and The Revenant (2015).

Damien Chazelle won for La La Land (2016). At 32, he became the youngest winner.

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

Bong Joon-ho won for Parasite (2019). He was the first director to win for a foreign-language film that also won Best Picture.

Chloé Zhao won for Nomadland (2020). She was the first woman of color to win.

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

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

Christopher Nolan won for Oppenheimer (2023).

Winners by Decade

Directors with Multiple Wins and Nominations

Age Records for Directors

Cool Facts and Records

• John Ford has won the most Best Director awards, with four! 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!
  • Clarence Brown has the most nominations (6) without ever winning.
• Some directors have won Best Director even when their film didn't win Best Picture. These include Frank Borzage, George Stevens, Ang Lee, and Alfonso Cuarón.
• John 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 films in The Godfather trilogy. He won for the second film!
• Four directing teams have been nominated together, and three of them won:
  • Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961).
  • Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men (2007). They are the only siblings to win this award.
  • Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).
• 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).
• Lina Wertmüller was the first woman ever nominated for Best Director, 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, for Nomadland (2020).
  • Jane Campion is the first woman to be nominated twice for the award. She won for her second nomination, The Power of the Dog (2021).
• John Singleton was the first Black director nominated for the award, for Boyz n the Hood (1991). He was also the youngest nominee at the time.
• David Lean was the first non-American director to win, and he won twice! This didn't happen again for five decades until Ang Lee, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu also won twice.
  • Ang Lee was the first Asian director to win, for Brokeback Mountain (2005).
  • Alfonso Cuarón was the first Mexican director to win, for Gravity.

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