Academy Award for Best Director
The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of a film director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry.
The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with the award being split into "Dramatic" and "Comedy" categories; Frank Borzage and Lewis Milestone won for 7th Heaven and Two Arabian Knights, respectively. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies. Nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote 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 for two films, Angels with Dirty Faces and Four Daughters, 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 for Erin Brockovich and Traffic in 2000, winning the award for the latter.
The Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 91 films that won Best Picture and were also nominated for Best Director, 70 won the award. The award has been criticised in recent years for failing to recognise female directors. Of the 260 individual directors nominated in the history of the award, only 9 have been women, with only 2 women having been nominated more than once, and only 3 of the 76 individual winners have been women.
Since its inception, the award has been given to 74 different directors or directing teams. As of the 97th Academy Awards ceremony, American filmmaker Sean Baker is the most recent winner in this category for his work on Anora.
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, California; 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. 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.File:Frank Borzage Best Dramatic Director 1929.jpg|thumb|125px|Frank Borzage won twice: "Dramatic director" at the first ceremony, for 7th Heaven ; & later, Bad Girl.
File:Lewis Milestone Best Comedy Director 1929.jpg|thumb|125px|Lewis Milestone won twice: "Comedy director" at the first ceremony, for Two Arabian Knights ; & later, All Quiet on the Western Front.
File:Frank Lloyd Best Director April 1930.jpg|thumb|125px|Frank Lloyd won twice, for The Divine Lady & Cavalcade.
File:Frank Capra.jpg|thumb|125px|Frank Capra won thrice, for It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, & You Can't Take It with You.
File:John Ford 1946.jpg|thumb|125px|John Ford won a record four times, for: The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, & The Quiet Man.
File:Leo McCarey 1930s portrait photo.jpg|thumb|125px|Leo McCarey won twice, for The Awful Truth & Going My Way.
File:Victor Fleming, Boxoffice Barometer, 1939.jpg|thumb|125px|Victor Fleming won for Gone with the Wind.
File:William Wyler portrait.jpg|thumb|125px|William Wyler, with a record twelve nominations, won thrice, for: Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, & Ben-Hur.
File:Curtiz 1928 portrait.jpg|thumb|125px|Michael Curtiz won for Casablanca.
File:Gloria Swanson & Billy Wilder - Sunset Blvd.JPG|thumb|125px|Billy Wilder won twice, for The Lost Weekend & The Apartment.
File:Elia Kazan.JPG|thumb|125px|Elia Kazan won twice, for Gentleman's Agreement & On the Waterfront.
File:John Huston - publicity.JPG|thumb|125px|John Huston won for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
File:Joseph L. Mankiewicz .jpg|thumb|125px|Joseph L. Mankiewicz won twice consecutively, for A Letter to Three Wives & All About Eve.
File:George Stevens with Oscar for Giant.jpg|thumb|125px|George Stevens won twice, for A Place in the Sun & Giant.
File:Fred Zinnemann 1940s.jpg|thumb|125px|Fred Zinnemann won twice, for From Here to Eternity & A Man for All Seasons.
File:Lean-in-Joensuu-1965 CROPPED.jpg|thumb|125px|David Lean won twice, for The Bridge on the River Kwai & Lawrence of Arabia.
File:Vincent Minelli - 1950s.jpg|thumb|125px|Vincente Minnelli won for Gigi.
File:Robert wise 1990.jpg|thumb|125px|Robert Wise won twice: jointly with Jerome Robbins for West Side Story & solo for The Sound of Music.
File:George Cukor - 1946.jpg|thumb|125px|George Cukor won for My Fair Lady.
File:Mike Nichols.png|thumb|125px|Mike Nichols won for The Graduate.
File:Fillmregisseur Carol Reed in Amsterdam, Bestanddeelnr 903-7970.png|thumb|125px|Carol Reed won for Oliver!.
File:William Friedkin making The Exorcist in the streets of Georgetown.jpg|thumb|125px|William Friedkin won for The French Connection.
File:Bob Fosse 1963.jpg|thumb|125px|Bob Fosse won for Cabaret.
File:Francis Ford Coppola -1976.jpg|thumb|125px|Francis Ford Coppola won for The Godfather Part II.
File:Milos Forman.jpg|thumb|125px|Miloš Forman won twice, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest & Amadeus.
File:Woody Allen - Kup.JPG|thumb|125px|Woody Allen won for Annie Hall.
File:Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here – Robert Redford photo.jpg|thumb|125px|Robert Redford won for Ordinary People.
File:Warren Beatty, 1961.jpg|thumb|125px|Warren Beatty won for Reds.
File:Richard Attenborough.jpg|thumb|125px|Richard Attenborough won for Gandhi.
File:Jameslbrooks.jpg|thumb|125px|James L. Brooks won for Terms of Endearment.
File:Sydney Pollack.jpg|thumb|125px|Sydney Pollack won for Out of Africa.
File:Oliver Stone by Gage Skidmore.jpg|thumb|125px|Oliver Stone won twice, for Platoon & Born on the Fourth of July.
File:Bernardo Bertolucci.jpg|thumb|125px|Bernardo Bertolucci won for The Last Emperor.
File:Barry Levinson Shankbone 2009 Tribeca .jpg|thumb|125px|Barry Levinson won for Rain Man.
File:Kevin Costner DF-SD-05-08959trim).jpg|thumb|125px|Kevin Costner won for Dances With Wolves.
File:Jonathan Demme May 2015.jpg|thumb|120px|Jonathan Demme won for The Silence of the Lambs.
File:ClintEastwoodCannesMay08.jpg|thumb|125px|Clint Eastwood won twice, for Unforgiven & Million Dollar Baby —latter, at 74, rendered him the oldest winner.
File:Steven Spielberg .jpg|thumb|125px|Steven Spielberg won twice, for Schindler's List & Saving Private Ryan.
File:Robert Zemeckis by David Shankbone.jpg|thumb|125px|Robert Zemeckis won for Forrest Gump.
File:Mel Gibson 1990.jpg|thumb|125px|Mel Gibson won for Braveheart.
File:James Cameron Cropped.png|thumb|125px|James Cameron won for Titanic.
File:Sam Mendes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2013 .jpg|thumb|125px|Sam Mendes won for American Beauty.
File:Steven Soderbergh zoom-in.jpg|thumb|125px|Steven Soderbergh won for Traffic.
File:Ron Howard.jpg|thumb|125px|Ron Howard won for A Beautiful Mind.
File:Roman Polanski Cannes 2013.jpg|thumb|125px|Roman Polanski won for The Pianist.
File:Peter Jackson SDCC 2014.jpg|thumb|125px|Peter Jackson won for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
File:Ang Lee - Festival.jpg|thumb|125px|Ang Lee won twice, for Brokeback Mountain & Life of Pi ; first Asian winner.
File:Martin Scorsese Berlinale.jpg|thumb|125px|Martin Scorsese won for The Departed.
File:COEN Brothers.jpg|thumb|125px|The Coen brothers won for No Country for Old Men.
File:Danny Boyle May 2019.jpg|thumb|125px|Danny Boyle won for Slumdog Millionaire.
File:Kathryn Bigelow via David Shankbone.jpg|thumb|125px|Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker ; first woman to win.
File:TomHopper10TIFF.jpg|thumb|125px|Tom Hooper won for The King's Speech.
File:Michel Hazanavicius Cannes 2015.jpg|thumb|125px|Michel Hazanavicius won for The Artist.
File:Alfonso Cuarón trim.jpg|thumb|125px|Alfonso Cuarón won twice, for Gravity & Roma ; first Mexican winner.
File:Alejandro González Iñárritu with a camera in production cropped.jpg|thumb|125px|Alejandro G. Iñárritu won twice consecutively, for Birdman & The Revenant.
File:Damien Chazelle .jpg|thumb|125px|Damien Chazelle won for La La Land ; youngest winner, at age 32.
File:Guillermo del Toro in 2017.jpg|thumb|125px|Guillermo del Toro won for The Shape of Water.
File:Bong Joon-ho 2017.jpg|thumb|125px|Bong Joon-ho won for Parasite ; first to direct a foreign-language winner for Best Picture.
File:Chloezhao.jpg|thumb|125px|Chloé Zhao won for Nomadland ; first woman of color to win.
File:Jane Campion.jpg|thumb|125px|Jane Campion won for The Power of the Dog ; first woman to be nominated twice.
File:Swiss Army Man Interview with Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan.jpg|thumb|125px|Daniels won for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
File:Christopher Nolan Cannes 2018.jpg|thumb|125px|Christopher Nolan won for Oppenheimer.