"Thank you. Thank you. Could you double-check the envelope?"
— Martin Scorsese winning for The Departed after five previous nominations.
A list of people who have won and been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Directing.
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1927– 1939
- 1927-28: Frank Borzage for 7th Heaven (Dramatic) (winner)
- Herbert Brenon for Sorrell and Son
- King Vidor for The Crowd
- 1927-28: Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Nights (Comedic) (winner)
- 1928-29: Frank Lloyd for The Divine Lady (winner)
- Roland West for Alibi
- Harry Beaumont for The Broadway Melody
- Frank Lloyd for Drag
- Irving Cummings for In Old Arizona
- Ernst Lubitsch for The Patriot (lost film)
- Frank Lloyd for Weary River
- 1929-30: Lewis Milestone for All Quiet on the Western Front (winner)
- Clarence Brown for Anna Christie
- Robert Z Leonard for The Divorcee
- Ernst Lubitsch for The Love Parade
- King Vidor for Hallelujah!
- Clarence Brown for Romance
- 1930-31: Norman Taurog for Skippy (winner)
- 1931-32: Frank Borzage for Bad Girl (winner)
- 1932-33: Frank Lloyd for Cavalcade (winner)
- 1934: Frank Capra for It Happened One Night (winner)
- 1935: John Ford for The Informer (winner)
- 1936: Frank Capra for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (winner)
- 1937: Leo McCarey for The Awful Truth (winner)
- 1938: Frank Capra for You Can't Take It With You (winner)
- 1939: Victor Fleming for Gone with the Wind'' (winner)
1940– 1949
- 1940: John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath (winner)
- 1941: John Ford for How Green Was My Valley (winner)
- 1942: William Wyler for Mrs. Miniver (winner)
- 1943: Michael Curtiz' for Casablanca (winner)
- 1944: Leo McCarey for Going My Way (winner)
- Billy Wilder for Double Indemnity
- Otto Preminger for Laura
- Alfred Hitchcock for Lifeboat
- Henry King for Wilson
- 1945: Billy Wilder for The Lost Weekend (winner)
- 1946: William Wyler for The Best Years of Our Lives (winner)
- 1947: Elia Kazan for Gentleman's Agreement (winner)
- Henry Koster for The Bishop's Wife
- George Cukor for A Double Life
- Edward Dmytryk for Crossfire
- David Lean for Great Expectations
- 1948: John Huston for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (winner)
- 1949: Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives (winner)
- Robert Rossen for All the King's Men (winner)
- William A. Wellman for Battleground (1949)
- Carol Reed for Fallen Idol
- William Wyler for The Heiress
1950– 1959
- 1950: Joseph L. Mankiewicz for All About Eve (winner)
- 1951: George Stevens for A Place in the Sun (winner)
- 1952: John Ford for The Quiet Man (winner)
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz for 5 Fingers
- Cecil B. DeMille for The Greatest Show on Earth
- Fred Zinnemann for High Noon
- John Huston for Moulin Rouge
- 1953: Fred Zinnemann for From Here to Eternity (winner)
- Charles Walters for Lilli
- William Wyler for Roman Holiday
- George Stevens for Shane
- Billy Wilder for Stalag 17
- 1954: Elia Kazan for On the Waterfront (winner)
- George Seaton for The Country Girl
- William A. Wellman for The High and the Mighty
- Alfred Hitchcock for Rear Window
- Billy Wilder for Sabrina
- 1955: Delbert Mann for Marty (winner)
- 1956: George Stevens for Giant (winner)
- 1957: David Lean for The Bridge on the River Kwai (winner)
- 1958: Vincente Minnelli for Gigi (winner)
- 1959: William Wyler for Ben-Hur (winner)
1960– 1969
- 1960: Billy Wilder for The Apartment (winner)
- Jules Dassin for Never On Sunday
- Alfred Hitchcock for Psycho
- Jack Cardiff for Sons and Lovers
- Fred Zinnemann for The Sundowners
- 1961: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (winner)
- 1962: David Lean for Lawrence of Arabia (winner)
- Frank Perry for David And Lisa
- Pietro Germi for Divorce Italian Style
- Arthur Penn for The Miracle Worker
- Robert Mulligan for To Kill a Mockingbird
- 1963: Tony Richardson for Tom Jones (winner)
- Elia Kazan for America America
- Otto Preminger for The Cardinal
- Martin Ritt for Hud
- Federico Fellini for 8½
- 1964: George Cukor for My Fair Lady (winner)
- 1965: Robert Wise for The Sound of Music (winner)
- William Wyler for The Collector
- John Schlesinger for Darling
- David Lean for Doctor Zhivago
- Hiroshi Teshigahara for Woman in the Dunes
- 1966: Fred Zinnemann for A Man for All Seasons (winner)
- Michelangelo Antonioni for Blowup
- Claude Lelouch for A Man and a Woman
- Richard Brooks for The Professionals
- Mike Nichols for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- 1967: Mike Nichols for The Graduate (winner)
- 1968: Carol Reed for Oliver! (winner)
- 1969: John Schlesinger for Midnight Cowboy (winner)
- Arthur Penn for Alice's Restauraunt
- George Roy Hill for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
- Sydney Pollack for They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
- Costa-Gavras for Z
1970– 1979
- 1970: Franklin J Schaffner for Patton (winner)
- 1971: William Friedkin for The French Connection (winner)
- 1972: Bob Fosse for Cabaret (winner)
- 1973: George Roy Hill for The Sting (winner)
- 1974: Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather Part II (winner)
- 1975: Miloš Forman for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (winner)
- 1976: John G Avildsen for Rocky (winner)
- Alan J. Pakula for All the President's Men
- Ingmar Bergman for Face to Face
- Sidney Lumet for Network
- Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties
- 1977: Woody Allen for Annie Hall (winner)
- 1978: Michael Cimino for The Deer Hunter (winner)
- Hal Ashby for Coming Home
- Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait
- Woody Allen for Interiors
- Alan Parker for Midnight Express
- 1979: Robert Benton for Kramer vs. Kramer (winner)
1980– 1989
- 1980: Robert Redford for Ordinary People (winner)
- 1981: Warren Beatty for Reds (winner)
- 1982: Richard Attenborough for Gandhi (winner)
- 1983: James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment (winner)
- 1984: Miloš Forman for Amadeus (winner)
- 1985: Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa (winner)
- 1986: Oliver Stone for Platoon (winner)
- 1987: Bernardo Bertolucci for The Last Emperor (winner)
- 1988: Barry Levinson for Rain Man (winner)
- 1989: Oliver Stone for Born on the Fourth of July (winner)
1990– 1999
- 1990: Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves (winner)
- 1991: Jonathan Demme for The Silence of the Lambs (winner)
- John Singleton for Boyz n the Hood
- Barry Levinson for Bugsy
- Oliver Stone for JFK
- Ridley Scott for Thelma & Louise
- 1992: Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven (winner)
- 1993: Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List (winner)
- 1994: Robert Zemeckis for Forrest Gump (winner)
- 1995: Mel Gibson for Braveheart (winner)
- 1996: Anthony Minghella for The English Patient (winner)
- 1997: James Cameron for Titanic (winner)
- 1998: Steven Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan (winner)
- 1999: Sam Mendes for American Beauty (winner)
2000– 2009
- 2000: Steven Soderbergh for Traffic (2000) (winner)
- 2001: Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind (winner)
- 2002: Roman Polański for The Pianist (winner)
- 2003: Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (winner)
- 2004: Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby (winner)
- Martin Scorsese for The Aviator
- Taylor Hackford for Ray
- Alexander Payne for Sideways
- Mike Leigh for Vera Drake
- 2005: Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain (winner)
- 2006: Martin Scorsese for The Departed (winner)
- 2007: The Coen Brothers for No Country for Old Men (winner)
- Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
- Jason Reitman for Juno
- Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton
- Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood
- 2008: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire (winner)
- 2009: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (winner)
2010– 2019
- 2010: Tom Hooper for The King's Speech (winner)
- 2011: Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist (winner)
- 2012: Ang Lee for Life of Pi (winner)
- 2013: Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity (winner)
- 2014: Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (winner)
- 2015: Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant (winner)
- 2016: Damien Chazelle for La La Land (winner)
- 2017: Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water (winner)
- 2018: Alfonso Cuarón for Roma (winner)
- Spike Lee for BlacKkKlansman
- Paweł Pawlikowski for Cold War
- Yorgos Lanthimos for The Favourite
- Adam McKay for Vice
- 2019: Bong Joon-ho for Parasite (winner)
2020– 2029
- 2020-21: Chloé Zhao for Nomadland (winner)
- 2021: Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog (winner)
- 2022: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Schienert for Everything Everywhere All at Once (winner)
- 2023: Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer (winner)
