Who Won the Oscar for Best Director Every Year Since the Oscars Began

Director Elia Kazan — responsible for films including “East of Eden” (1955), “On the Waterfront” (1954), and “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) — won his first Oscar in 1948 for “Gentleman’s Agreement.” The movie about a journalist who goes undercover as Jewish to research anti-Semitism also won Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Celeste Holm.

“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” a meditation on greed among gold prospectors in Mexico, is noteworthy not only because John Huston won his first Best Director Oscar, but because he directed his father, Walter, who also won an Academy Award for Best Actor. This is the only time in movie history that a father and son won Oscars for the same film. The younger Huston also won for Best Writing, Screenplay.

Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz won his first Oscars in 1950 for “A Letter to Three Wives” when he took home Best Director and a Best Writing award. The movie tells the story of a woman who sends three of her friends a letter declaring she is running off with one of their husbands, without identifying which husband it will be.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz made back-to-back Academy Award wins for Best Director with “A Letter to Three Wives” and the six-Oscar-winning “All About Eve,” the story of jealousy among the theater smart set. The film starred Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, and George Sanders.

George Stevens’ romance drama “A Place in the Sun” won six Oscars at the 1952 Academy Awards, including Best Writing, Best Cinematography, and Best Director for Stevens. The director would get nine Oscar nominations with two wins throughout his career.

John Ford’s valentine to his ancestral Irish home won him his fourth and final Oscar. The movie, about a retired American boxer who finds love in the village where he was born, stars John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.

The World War II-era drama starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Deborah Kerr won a well above average number of Oscars, totaling eight. In addition to Fred Zinnemann winning Best Director, the film won Best Picture.

The gritty story about New Jersey longshoremen intimidated by mobsters and the man (Marlon Brando) who stands up to them won Turkish-born Elia Kazan his second Oscar. It was one of eight Oscars won by “On the Waterfront,” which also won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint).

Delbert Mann’s unconventional love story about a homely butcher and school teacher who fall for one another won four Oscars: Best Director, Best Picture, Best Writing, and Best Actor for leading man Ernest Borgnine. The movie earned Mann his sole Oscar win and was the only time he was nominated for such an award.

George Stevens, the son of two actors, won the second of his two Academy Awards for “Giant,” a sprawling saga about the life of a cattle rancher played by Rock Hudson. The film, which was nominated for 10 Oscars, also starred Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. For Dean, it was his second posthumous nomination (the first was for “East of Eden” the year before). He was killed in a car crash in 1955.