by Ben Miller
Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman) is the third actor Spike Lee has a directed to a nomination after Danny Aiello (Do the Right Thing) and Denzel Washington (Malcolm X)
With the upcoming Academy Awards celebrating their 91st year, the Oscars have plenty of history to obsess over. One of the less-discussed pieces of history is which directors have the most pull with the Academy's acting branch. Today's topic: directors who have guided multiple actors and actresses to nominations and/or wins.
With this season's nominations, directors Bradley Cooper (3), Yorgos Lanthimos (3), Peter Farrelly (2), and Marielle Heller (2) all join a group of directors who've guided multiple actors to Oscar nominations. In this season's crop of films Vice's Adam McKay (4), Roma's Alfonso Cuaron (3), If Beale Street's Barry Jenkins (3), BlacKkKlansman's Spike Lee (3), Bohemian Rhapsody's Bryan Singer (2) and At Eternity's Gate's Julian Schnabel (2) all add to their previous tallies since each had previously directed either one or two actors to a nomination.
In the 91 year history of the Academy Awards, 1757 performances were directed to an Oscar nomination. I tracked every single one of them to come up with these numbers. More notes after the jump...
Methodology: Only credited directors are counted. Uncredited directors or shadow directors are not included. Co-directors are given separate entries. For example, Joel Coen has six nominations, while Ethan Coen has only three. The first three nominations for Joel were only credited to him as director, while the last three were credited to both separately. So, despite six nominated performances, nine entries were created. This year, Bryan Singer is the only credited director of Bohemian Rhapsody, so sorry to Dexter Fletcher and Newton Thomas Sigel who took over towards the end of that shoot.
William Wyler directed 14 actors to Oscar wins, the last of which was Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl (1968). It was her film debut but his penultimate picture.
William Wyler, the director of classics like The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben-Hur, and Roman Holiday is the all-time champ when it comes to directing actors to nominations, and it’s not even close. Wyler directed the most nominated performances (36) and the most winning performances (14).
They directed the most acting nominations / wins
- William Wyler (36/14)
- Elia Kazan (24/9)
- Martin Scorsese (22/5)
- Fred Zinneman (20/6)
- George Cukor (19/5)
- George Stevens (19/2)
- Woody Allen (18/7)
- Sidney Lumet (18/4)
- Mike Nichols (18/2)
- Billy Wilder (17/3)
If you're looking at only wins the list is slightly different...
- William Wyler (14)
- Elia Kazan (9)
- Woody Allen (7)
- Fred Zinneman (6)
- [TIED WITH 5 WINNING ACTORS EACH] Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, and John Ford
Interest notes on the stats: John Ford (12/5) has the highest win percentage (41.7%) of anyone with 10 or more nominations. Wyler and Woody Allen are tied for the second-best percentage at 38.9%
Ten directors have a track record of over 50% winners from their nominations. The bulk of them are behind three acting nominations and two wins: Damien Chazelle, Frank Borzage, James Mangold, Jane Campion, Ralph Nelson, Steven Soderbergh, Taylor Hackford. The newest member of this list is Martin McDonagh with Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell both winning for Three Billboards last season and Woody Harrelson also nominated. If Regina King comes away with a statue this year for her work in If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins will join this short list of directors with an unusually high percentage of acting wins after Moonlight took home one of its two acting Oscar nominations two seasons ago.
Choreographer/director Jerome Robbins rehearsing with Rita Moreno for West Side Story (1961)
Jerome Robbins and Robert Z. Leonard are the only directors with more than one nomination whose nominated actors have won 100% of the time. Robbins co-directed both winning supporting performances in West Side Story, while Leonard directed two winners (Norma Shearer in The Divorcée and Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld) six years apart. Bryan Singer will become the third member of this very small list if Rami Malek wins Best Actor (the previous winning performance from his filmography is diabolical Kevin Spacey in the mystery crime drama The Usual Suspects).
34 directors have directed only one acting nomination that also went on to win. Notables among them include, recently, Christopher Nolan (Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight), John Lee Hancock (Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side), Lenny Abrahamson (Brie Larson in Room), Mike Mills (Christopher Plummer in Beginners), and Patty Jenkins (Charlize Theron in Monster). Swedish director Björn Runge will join their one-for-one ranks this year should Glenn Close win her expected Oscar for The Wife.
Their filmographies have the most acting nominations without any acting wins
- [TIED with 10 nominations but no wins] John Cromwell and Mark Robson
- Otto Preminger (9/0)
- Gregory La Cava (8/0)
- [TIED with 7/0 records] Alexander Payne, Frank Lloyd, William A Wellman
- [TIED with 6/0 records] Robert Altman, Blake Edwards, Edward Dmytryk, and John Frankenheimer
On the flip side to the most wins from abundant nominations, John Cromwell (Caged!, Since You Went Away) and Mark Robson (Peyton Place, Champion) are the only directors with ten or more nominations that resulted in zero wins.
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu has led only one actor to a win (DiCaprio in The Revenant) despite ten or more nominations. No other directors with ten acting nominations in their filmographies have less than two acting victories. Just on the outskirts of ten nominations are three true masters. Alfred Hitchcock only managed one win (Joan Fontaine in Suspicion) from nine acting nominations and Paul Thomas Anderson has the same exact record (with Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood as the sole winner).
Their filmographies have the most acting nominations without them landing any Best Director citations
Left: John Cromwell directing Leslie Howard in "Of Human Bondage"; Right: Daniel Mann on the set of BUtterfield 8 with Liz Taylor and Laurence Harvey
- John Cromwell (10/0.... 11/0 if you count Bette Davis' unofficial write-innomination for Of Human Bondage in 1934)
- Daniel Mann (7/3)
- Paul Mazursky (6/1)
- Blake Edwards (6/0)
- Alfred E Green (5/2)
- [TIED WITH 5 nominations/1 win] Douglas Sirk, Richard Eyre, Stuart Rosenberg, and Bill Condon
- [TIED with 5 nominations, no wins] Lewis Gilbert, Robert Aldritch, and Todd Field
John Cromwell, the director of classics like the female prison drama Caged! (1950), the women on the homefront war drama Since You Went Away, and Bette Davis's breakout picture Of Human Bondage (1934) among many other fine films leads this list (trivia note: he's the look-alike father of the Oscar nominated actor James Cromwell of Babe & LA Confidential fame). Runner up is Daniel Mann, who was behind three Best Actress winning films in under a decade's time: Come Back Little Sheba (1952), The Rose Tattoo (1955), and BUtterfield 8 (1960)
It's telling that many of the men on this particular list directed female-centric films and/or genres that are considered "light" entertainment like comedies or musicals.
Where are the female directors?
Historically Hollywood hasn't given women very many opportunities to direct narrative features though they'll surely be climbing the ranks soon with the push for more gender parity in Hollywood. The leaders (thus far)...
Barbra Streisand has directed 4 actors to nominations: Amy Irving (Yentl), Nick Nolte and Kate Nelligan (Prince of Tides), and Lauren Bacall (The Mirror Has Two Faces)
- Barbra Streisand (4/0)
- Jane Campion (3/2)
- Randa Haines (3/1)
- Niki Caro (3/0)
- [TIED with 2/1] Kimberly Peirce and Valerie Faris
- [TIED with 2/0] Debra Granik, Elaine May, Greta Gerwig, Kathryn Bigelow, Lisa Cholodenko, Marielle Heller, Penny Marshall, and Martha Coolidge
Does anyone have a realistic chance to catch William Wyler's overall record?
If you have to put money somewhere, maybe David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle), who is currently in 19th place with a 12/3 record. Those twelve nominations come from just a six year span. By contrast Scorsese’s twenty-two nominated performances span 39 years. If Russell, who is currently 60 years old, can keep a Scorsese-like nomination pace from this point forward and continue his career for another 20 years, Wyler's record would theoretically be within reach.
Other active directors in the top 50 overall in terms of directing actors to nominations who might move up the chart: Steven Spielberg (14/2), Clint Eastwood (13/5), Inarritu (10/1), and Anderson (9/1)
Check out the entire spreadsheet here, so you can pour over it as exhaustively as I have.
About the author
Ben Miller has been obsessed with film since he saw his first piece of celluloid. When he isn't holding down a day job, he enjoys the films of the Coen Brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson while taking in as many chewy morsels of the Golden Age of TV as he can. When not partaking of various entertainments, Ben lives in Texas with his wife, two children and a gym membership. [You can follow him on Twitter here. More articles by Ben.]