Twenty Nominated Directors That Never Won Oscars
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
While we are ragging on the many mistakes awards shows make on a regular basis, it’s time to turn our attention towards acclaimed filmmakers that have been snubbed far too many times. Last year, I brought up directors that were never even nominated at and deserved Academy Awards for directing. Now, I’m looking at iconic directors that have been nominated for Best Director (at least) but were never awarded the prize. These include some of the most revered directors of all time, as well as some big names that may have flown under the radar for such a topic. I’m also aware that I am missing quite a few names, and these will pop up on a list in the future. Let’s check out which visionaries didn’t get their proper flowers from the Academy Awards.
Note: I am excluding honorary Oscars and am only focussing on the Best Director award being won in competition.
Additionally, I won’t be considering wins in other categories (if a director won for their writing or for producing via Best Picture, for instance): this is strictly focusing on the Best Director award.
Pedro Almodòvar
It was still rather rare for an international director to be nominated when Pedro Almodòvar was recognized for Talk To Her, but I’d like to think that he would have won by now, especially since the Spanish master has made quite a few masterful films since; this is excluding the exemplary work he’s made before the early 2000s that also could have been recognized, but I digress.
Robert Altman
While nominated a few times (including a back-to-back in the early 90s for The Player and Short Cuts), Robert Altman never did pull off the Best Director win despite his knack for being one of the best auteurs to pull off large casts, natural settings, and unorthodox narratives. There isn’t a director like Altman, despite those that try to follow in his footsteps.
Paul Thomas Anderson
While having been recognized quite a few times, Paul Thomas Anderson hasn’t won an Academy Award for Best Director yet. In fact, the American filmmaker has personally been nominated eleven times for direction, writing, and production (ultimately Best Picture) and has never won a single statue. Make it make sense, because it doesn’t.
Michelangelo Antonioni
To be fair, I’m hardly expecting the Academy Awards to be fully into the challenging, arthouse works of Michelangelo Antonioni, but he did get nominated for Blowup. He also was given an honorary Academy Award, so the institution is clearly aware of his mastery and influence. The question here is about great filmmakers that didn’t win Best Director, and Antonioni absolutely fits this description, given the amount of singular cinematic experiences he has delivered.
Ingmar Bergman
My personal favourite director of all time, Ingmar Bergman was at least nominated a handful of times, which is insanely impressive for a director that doesn’t make English-speaking works. Still, it only makes sense that a filmmaker should win an award just for being capable of causing an academy to go against its stubbornness and selecting an international director on numerous occasions. He even came close to having the first international feature film to win Best Picture with Cries and Whispers, but he had to go up against a certain film called The Godfather. Speaking of that film…
Sofia Coppola
While her father, Francis Ford Coppola, has an Academy Award for Best Director under his belt (oddly enough, you’d think he had more), daughter Sofia Coppola has yet to win the award herself, despite making a handful of films that warrant such praise. While Sofia has been against-the-grain for most of her career with her artistic choices and ideas, the Academy did at least love Lost in Translation; other institutions recognize her consistent vision, at least (she won Best Director at Cannes for The Beguiled).
Federico Fellini
Another international director that the Academy recognized numerous times (setting an insane record for four Best International Feature Film awards), Federico Fellini was at least respected by the Oscars for his contributions to cinema. The issue comes from the fact that he was never awarded specifically for Best Director when he is — hands down — one of the greatest directors of all time. It isn’t as if the Academy didn’t know this if they awarded him four times!
Alfred Hitchcock
Ah, yes. Alfred Hitchcock. He was definitely acknowledged by the Academy Awards with a myriad of Best Director nominations (five in total). Hell, one of his films even won Best Picture (Rebecca). Wouldn’t you know that the master of tension has never won Best Director despite everything I’ve just brought up? Most mystery and horror filmmakers are indebted to Hitchcock’s films; then again, the Academy has proven time and time again that they don’t care about horror films, and they don’t exactly reward mysteries either.
Krzysztof Kieślowski
It’s a bit of a stretch to have high hopes that someone like Krzysztof Kieślowski would win Best Director at the Academy Awards (his films don’t necessarily feel like the ones that would resonate with mainstream audiences), but he was nominated for Three Colours: Red: his swansong film. He was also nominated for the film’s screenplay. I’m just going to dig my own grave outright and say it: Kieślowski and Red deserved the love over Forrest Gump.
Stanley Kubrick
Yep. You’ve read that right. Films by Stanley Kubrick have won Academy Awards, but he himself never won for his direction. In fact, none of his films have ever won Best Picture either, although quite a few were nominated (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, but surprisingly not 2001: A Space Odyssey). I think most would agree that Kubrick being shut out is insane, even if we can admit that his films were always ahead of their time (if they’re being nominated, doesn’t that mean that the Academy recognizes them to some capacity?).
Akira Kurosawa
While recognized throughout the years via a nomination here and a nomination there, Akira Kurosawa was only nominated once for Best Director. This was for Ran: a film I can guarantee is much more deserving of the award than Out of Africa) that wasn’t even considered for Best Picture either. Considering his influence on American cinema and the amount of decades he was cherished, I think it’s a huge disservice that Kurosawa never won (and wasn’t nominated more than once).
Spike Lee
Spike Lee finally won an Academy Award a few years ago for co-writing BlacKkKlansman, which was much deserved. Wouldn’t you know that he was also nominated for Best Director but didn’t win; in fact, this has been his only Best Director nomination to date. Wow. So Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X didn’t mean a thing? I could go through the list of other personal favourites, but he’s been disrespected time and time again.
Mike Leigh
A two time Best Director nominee (for Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake), Mike Leigh has seven total nominations to his name; he also has a dismal zero wins, which is shocking. He should at least be honoured for his brilliant screenwriting (maybe a topic for another day) which he has also never won for. I personally think he’s a fantastic director that has made perfect film after perfect film; he easily could be a Best Director winner by now.
Ernst Lubitsch
Let’s rewind a bit here with Ernst Lubitsch, who has three Best Director nominations to his name ranging from the twenties (The Patriot, The Love Parade) up to the age of Technicolor (Heaven Can Wait). We’re missing some of his other classics like Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not To Be; it seems silly that this guy was never awarded Best Director, right?
David Lynch
Even though he’s one of my all time favourite auteurs, I’m shocked that David Lynch has been nominated as many times as he has been, given his affinity for the absurd (I guess it’s impossible to ignore brilliance sometimes, right?). If the Academy is going to show their awareness of Lynch’s existence, it means that they understand him enough to love his work by nominating him. Just go the extra mile and award him then! He was given an honorary Oscar at least.
Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick has been nominated a couple of times for Best Director but has never won; to be fair, he does seem like the kind of person the Academy likes proving they’re aware of but are never comfortable enough giving the top prizes to. I will say, I am forever stoked that The Tree of Life was actually given some hefty nominations (Best Director and Picture), but the Academy should have gone the extra mile like Cannes did (they honoured the film the top prize of the Palme d’Or, rightfully so).
Christopher Nolan
I’m sure that most of you that clicked on this list were waiting for this one. For years, Christopher Nolan wasn’t even nominated for his directing efforts; that was finally rectified when he was given the nod for Dunkirk. How could the filmmaker that broke the rules of both blockbuster cinema and artistic filmmaking matter so little to the Academy? He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think most cinephiles can agree that he’s at least skillful at his craft.
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir is arguably the king of 30s cinema, with the majority of his masterworks being released in that decade. Proving this point, his anti-war opus, La Grande Illusion, was the very first talking picture not in English to be honoured by a Best Picture nomination. One of his English language efforts, The Southerner, landed him a Best Director nomination: his only personal nomination he ever received. He did get an honorary Oscar in 1974, and I can’t help but think that Renoir could have been the director to break the international filmmaker spell very early had he left his mark maybe a decade or two later (we had to wait until Parasite in 2019 for this to finally happen).
Quentin Tarantino
Another name I know many of you are expecting is Quentin Tarantino, who has indeed won for his screenwriting before (Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained), but he has never won for his directing (another filmmaker and film I’d definitely place before Forrest Gump, in case my grave wasn’t deep enough). Unlike a few of the directors on this list, you’d think that an American mainstay like Tarantino would have had a legitimate shot in the past thirty years. That somehow doesn’t seem to be the case.
François Truffaut
We end off on François Truffaut, whose French New Wave staples managed to break through to garner the attention of American audiences time and time again. The 400 Blows was nominated by the Academy Awards for its screenplay; Isabelle Adjani was nominated for Best Actress in his film The Story of Adele H., Stolen Kisses, The Last Metro, and Day For Night were nominated for Best International Feature Film (the latter won the award and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay). Once again: if the Academy is going to recognize great international cinema, why can’t they just award the films and filmmakers that deserve it more often?
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.