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

Nominated for a total of seven Oscars, “The Graduate” only won one — Best Director for Mike Nichols. It was Nichols’ sole Academy Award win, despite five total nominations throughout his career, including Best Director nominations for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1967, “Silkwood” in 1984, and “Working Girl” in 1989.

British director Carol Reed, whose credits include the cynical post-war film “The Third Man,” won his lone Academy Award for the exuberant musical “Oliver!” based on the Charles Dickens novel “Oliver Twist.” The film won five Academy Awards including Best Picture.

“Midnight Cowboy,” about an unlikely friendship between two hustlers in New York City, is the only X-rated film to ever win Best Picture. It also won director John Schlesinger his sole Oscar. He would be nominated for Best Director one more time in 1971 for “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Franklin J. Schaffner was nominated for just one Academy Award and won for “Patton,” a biopic about the combustible and eccentric American general who played a pivotal role in helping defeat Germany in World War II. The film won seven Oscars, including the Best Actor statue famously turned down by George C. Scott.

The police drama about NYC cops trying to head off a heroin shipment from France won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for star Gene Hackman. It was the only win for director William Friedkin, whose filmography includes “The Exorcist” (1973) and “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985).

“Cabaret,” about a female entertainer in a love triangle in Berlin in the years leading up to the Nazi takeover of Germany, won eight Oscars, including Best Director for Bob Fosse. “Cabaret” also garnered Academy Awards for Liza Minnelli (Best Actress) and Joel Grey (Best Supporting Actor). Fosse was also Oscar-nominated for the films “Lenny” and “All That Jazz.”

Crime flick “The Sting” won director George Roy Hill his sole Oscar. Four years prior he was nominated for the award for his film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” which like “The Sting” starred actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

Francis Ford Coppola, denied the Best Director statue for the gangster epic “The Godfather” in 1973, won the award in 1975 for the sequel, “The Godfather: Part II.” The film picked up six Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Robert De Niro.

In addition to winning the award for Best Director for Milos Forman, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” won Best Picture, Best Writing, Best Actor for Jack Nicholson, and Best Actress for Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratched. Forman won again in 1985 for “Amadeus” and was nominated in 1997 for “The People vs. Larry Flynt.”

John G. Avildsen won his lone Best Director Academy Award for “Rocky,” the story of the ultimate underdog who gets a chance to fight for the world heavyweight championship. It was a box-office smash, winning three Oscars including Best Picture, and made a star out of Sylvester Stallone.