8 Directors With The Most Best Director Oscar Nominations

Throughout the history of the Oscars, there have been many directors who have received acclaim for their commitment to bringing classic Hollywood movies to life. Since its first award ceremony held nearly a century ago, the Oscars have been recognized as the highest honor achievable in the movie industry. Many actors, composers and directors have received recognition from the Academy, for their hard work in creating many acclaimed movies.

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Since the first ceremony in 1929, the Academy has awarded directors for their dedication to transforming a script into a movie using actors, visual effects, and cameras. With the 96th ceremony set to take place on March 3, 2025, there are already predictions on who will receive nominations in the Best Director category. Many directors, including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, have received multiple wins and nominations for their work in directing.

8 Frank Capra

Won 3 Best Director Academy Awards Out Of 6 Nominations

Italian-American director Frank Capra is remembered as one of the most iconic directors to work in the Golden Age of Hollywood. He started his directorial career in the 1920s working in silent movies, before transitioning to sound with the 1929 movie The Younger Generation. Capra received his first Oscar nomination for Best Director in 1933 for the comedy-drama Lady for a Day, before winning in 1934 for the romantic comedy It Happened One Night, which became the first movie to win five major Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

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Frank Capra’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1933	Lady for a Day	Best Director	Nominated
1934	It Happened One Night	Best Director	Won
1936	Mr. Deeds Go To Town	Best Director	Won
1938	You Can’t Take It With You	Best Director	Won
1939	Mr. Smith Goes To Washington	Best Director	Nominated
1946	It’s a Wonderful Life	Best Director	Nominated

Capra’s success at the Oscars continued throughout the 1930s, winning two Best Director Awards in 1936 and 1938; he held the record for the most Oscars for Best Director until John Ford surpassed his record in 1952. Throughout World War II, Capra produced several propaganda films and won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1943 for Prelude to War, the first movie in his Why We Fight film series. Serving as the President of the Academy between 1935 and 1939, he received his final Best Director nomination in 1946 for It’s a Wonderful Life, which has since been regarded as one of Frank Capra’s best movies.

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7 Fred Zinnemann

Won 2 Best Director Academy Awards Out Of 6 Nominations

Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American director who was highly praised for his dedication to realism and attention to detail towards each character in his movies. He began his career in the 1920s and directed his first feature film, Redes, in 1936, before receiving his first Best Director Oscar nomination for his 1948 drama The Search, the first American movie to be filmed in Germany after World War II. Zinnemann won his first Best Director award for his 1954 movie From Here to Eternity, which famously used newsreel footage from the events of the Pearl Harbor attacks.

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Fred Zinnemann’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1948	The Search	Best Director	Nominated
1952	High Noon	Best Director	Nominated
1954	From Here to Eternity	Best Director	Won
1959	The Nun’s Story	Best Director	Nominated
1960	The Sundowners	Best Director	Nominated
1966	A Man for All Seasons	Best Director	Won
1977	Julia	Best Director	Nominated

Fred Zinnemann won his second Best Director Oscar in 1966 for the historical movie A Man for All Seasons, which won a total of 6 Oscars, including Best Picture; it has since been regarded as the most accurate movie depiction of Tudor history. Zinnemann also won an Oscar for his 1951 short film Benjy, which depicts the story of a child who suffers from scoliosis. Regarded as one of the best movie directors in history, Zinnemann is recognized for launching the careers of many successful Hollywood actors, including Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando.

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6 Woody Allen

Won 1 Best Director Academy Award Out Of 7 Nominations

Across his movie career, Woody Allen has received 24 Oscar nominations, seven of which were for Best Director. He started his career as an actor and a comedian, before receiving his first three Oscar nominations in 1978 for Annie Hall, for which he won both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Actor. Allen has accumulated six Best Director Oscar nominations across four decades, receiving his most recent nomination in 2012 for Midnight in Paris.

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Alongside his seven Best Director nominations, Woody Allen has received the most nominations for Best Original Screenplay, with 16 nominations and three wins for Annie Hall (1977), Hannah and her Sisters (1986) and Midnight in Paris (2011). He has famously refused to attend the Oscar ceremonies, despite his many nominations, citing the concept of the awards as “silly” (via Contact Music).

Woody Allen’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1978	Annie Hall	Best Director	Won
1979	Interiors	Best Director	Nominated
1985	Broadway Danny Rose	Best Director	Nominated
1987	Hannah and her Sisters	Best Director	Nominated
1990	Crimes and Misdemeanors	Best Director	Nominated
1995	Bullets Over Broadway	Best Director	Nominated
2012	Midnight in Paris	Best Director	Nominated

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Despite being cited as one of the most influential directors, owing to controversies surrounding his personal life, much of Allen’s work, including Annie Hall, has been reevaluated for their subject matters in recent years. Allen continues to write and direct movies, with his 2023 movie Coup de chance being received positively at the Venice International Film Festival, but he has distanced himself from Hollywood productions.

5 David Lean

Won 2 Best Director Academy Awards Out Of 7 Nominations

British director, David Lean, has been cited by many, including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Guillermo del Toro as one of the most influential directors of all time. Across his career, Lean was recognized for his directorial work in movies, including Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist, all of which have appeared on the British Film Institute’s Top 100 Films of All Time. Lean received his first Oscar nomination for Best Director in 1946 for Brief Encounter, for which he was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

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David Lean’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1946	Brief Encounter	Best Director	Nominated
1947	Great Expectations	Best Director	Nominated
1955	Summertime	Best Director	Nominated
1957	The Bridge on the River Kwai	Best Director	Won
1962	Lawrence of Arabia	Best Director	Won
1965	Doctor Zhivago	Best Director	Nominated
1984	A Passage to India	Best Director	Nominated

Lean received two further nominations for Best Director in 1955 and 1957, before winning his first Oscar in 1957 for The Bridge on the River Kwai. His 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, for which he won his second Oscar, is listed as one of the best British movies ever made. After taking a 14-year hiatus from directing in 1970, Lean directed his final movie, A Passage to India, in 1984; he received his seventh and final Best Director Oscar nomination for his work on this movie.

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4 Billy Wilder

Won 2 Best Director Academy Awards Out Of 8 Nominations

With a career lasting more than 50 years, Billy Wilder is regarded as one of the most versatile directors of all time. He is widely remembered for directing some of the most iconic Hollywood movies ever made, including Sunset Boulevard and Sabrina, both of which he received Oscar nominations for Best Director. He won his first Oscar in 1945 for The Lost Weekend, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.

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Billy Wilder’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1944	Double Indemnity	Best Director	Nominated
1945	The Lost Weekend	Best Director	Won
1950	Sunset Boulevard	Best Director	Nominated
1953	Stalag 17	Best Director	Nominated
1954	Sabrina	Best Director	Nominated
1957	Witness for the Prosecution	Best Director	Nominated
1959	Some Like It Hot	Best Director	Nominated
1960	The Apartment	Best Director	Won

Wilder is also remembered for his work with legendary actress Marilyn Monroe. He directed Monroe in two movies, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot, both of which have been regarded as two of the best movies of Monroe’s career. Wilder won his second and final Best Director award for his 1960 romantic comedy, The Apartment; the movie, which won 5 Academy Awards in 1961, has since been listed on the AFI’s Top 100 Movies of All Time.

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3 Steven Spielberg

Won 2 Best Director Academy Awards Out Of 9 Nominations

Steven Spielberg has been the director of many successful and popular movies released over five decades, including Jaws, Jurassic Park, and War of the Worlds. His natural ability to create captivating stories and cater to the interests of his audiences helped Spielberg to become the most commercially successful director of all time. Spielberg is also known for his long-term partnership with composer John Williams, who has written the scores for 29 of Spielberg’s movies.

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Spielberg received his first Best Director nomination in 1978 for his sci-fi movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind; he received two further nominations in 1982 and 1983 for his work on Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, respectively. But it wasn’t until 1994 that Spielberg won his first Best Director Oscar for the historical drama, Schindler’s List, which won a total of 7 Oscars, including Best Picture.

Steven Spielberg’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1978	Close Encounters of the Third Kind	Best Director	Nominated
1982	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Best Director	Nominated
1983	E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial	Best Director	Nominated
1994	Schindler’s List	Best Director	Won
1999	Saving Private Ryan	Best Director	Won
2006	Munich	Best Director	Nominated
2013	Lincoln	Best Director	Nominated
2022	West Side Story	Best Director	Nominated
2024	Maestro	Best Director	Nominated

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Spielberg won his second Best Director Oscar in 1999 for the war drama, Saving Private Ryan, which has been listed as one of the best movies of his career. He received four further nominations for Best Director, with his most recent for 2024’s Maestro. Spielberg has other movie projects in the works, including a new UFO movie, which may see a further Best Director nomination in the future.

2 Martin Scorsese

Won 1 Best Director Academy Award Out Of 10 Nominations

Martin Scorsese has set a number of impressive records throughout his six-decade career in Hollywood. He started his directing career with short movies in 1962, before directing his first feature-length movie, Who’s That Knocking On My Door, in 1967. He received praise for his work in movies, including Taxi Driver (1976) and New York, New York (1977), before receiving his first nomination in 1981 for the sports biopic, Raging Bull.

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Scorsese received further nominations throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, for movies including Goodfellas and Gangs of New York, but failed to win the Best Director award. He finally won his first and only Oscar for the 2006 crime thriller The Departed, which has been listed as one of Scorsese’s best gangster movies. In 2011, Scorsese transitioned into adventure drama, receiving nominations for his work in Hugo.

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Martin Scorsese’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1981	Raging Bull	Best Director	Nominated
1989	The Last Temptation of Christ	Best Director	Nominated
1991	Goodfellas	Best Director	Nominated
2003	Gangs of New York	Best Director	Nominated
2005	The Aviator	Best Director	Nominated
2007	The Departed	Best Director	Won
2012	Hugo	Best Director	Nominated
2014	The Wolf of Wall Street	Best Director	Nominated
2020	The Irishman	Best Director	Nominated
2024	Killers of the Flower Moon	Best Director	Nominated

Scorsese has collaborated several times with actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in several acclaimed movies, including The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman, both of which saw him receive further nominations. In 2024, Scorsese received his tenth nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon, at the age of 82, making him the most nominated living director in Oscars history.

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1 William Wyler

Won 3 Best Director Academy Awards Out Of 12 Nominations

German-American director, William Wyler, holds the honor of being the director with the most Oscar nominations in history. He started his work in silent films throughout the 1920s, before moving into sound in 1929. He received his first Best Director nomination in 1936 for the drama, Dodsworth; he received four consecutive nominations between 1939 and 1941 before winning his first Oscar in 1942 for the romantic drama Mrs. Miniver, which won Best Picture.

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William Wyler’s Best Director Oscar Nominations
Year	Movie	Academy Award	Outcome
1936	Dodsworth	Best Director	Nominated
1939	Wuthering Heights	Best Director	Nominated
1940	The Letter	Best Director	Nominated
1941	The Little Foxes	Best Director	Nominated
1942	Mrs. Miniver	Best Director	Won
1946	The Best Years of Our Lives	Best Director	Won
1949	The Heiress	Best Director	Nominated
1951	Detective Story	Best Director	Nominated
1953	Roman Holiday	Best Director	Nominated
1956	Friendly Persuasion	Best Director	Nominated
1959	Ben-Hur	Best Director	Won
1965	The Collector	Best Director	Nominated

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Wyler won his second Oscar in 1946 for The Best Years of Our Lives, which also won Best Picture. He received further nominations between 1949 and 1956, before winning his final award in 1959 for Ben-Hur, which won 11 Oscars and has since tied with Titanic and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as the most Oscar wins for a single movie. William Wyler is the only director to direct three movies to win Oscars for Best Picture, and remains the most nominated Oscar director of all time.

Sources: ContactMusic, BFI, AFI

Oscars

The Oscars, also known as The Academy Awards, is an annual awards show celebrating workers in the film industry for their artistic and technical abilities. The Oscars are often considered the most prestigious awards show in the industry and date back to 1929. The 96th Academy Awards will be held on March 10, 2024, and be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on ABC.

Location Los Angeles, CA Dates March 10, 2024 Network ABC

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Category: Entertainment