Oscar for Best Director

1929/28 Lewis Milestone (for Two Arabian Knights) 1930/29 Frank Lloyd (for The Divine Lady) 1931/30 Lewis Milestone (for All Quiet on the Western Front) 1932/31 Norman Taurog (for Skippy) 1933/32 Frank Borzage (for Bad Girl) 1934/33 Frank Lloyd (for Cavalcade) 1935 Frank Capra (for It Happened One Night) 1936 John Ford (for The Informer) 1937 Frank Capra (for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town) 1938 Leo McCarey (for The Awful Truth) 1939 Frank Capra (for You Can't Take It with You) 1940 Victor Fleming (for Gone with the Wind) 1941 John Ford (for The Grapes of Wrath) 1942 John Ford (for How Green Was My Valley) 1943 William Wyler (for Mrs. Miniver) 1944 Michael Curtiz (for Casablanca) 1945 Leo McCarey (for Going My Way) 1946 Billy Wilder (for The Lost Weekend) 1947 William Wyler (for The Best Years of Our Lives) 1948 Elia Kazan (for Gentleman's Agreement) 1949 John Huston (for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) 1950 Joseph L. Mankiewicz (for A Letter to Three Wives) 1951 Joseph L. Mankiewicz (for All About Eve) 1952 George Stevens (for A Place in the Sun) 1953 John Ford (for The Quiet Man) 1954 Fred Zinnemann (for From Here to Eternity) 1955 Elia Kazan (for On the Waterfront) 1956 Delbert Mann (for Marty) 1957 George Stevens (for Giant) 1958 David Lean (for The Bridge on the River Kwai) 1959 Vincente Minnelli (for Gigi) 1960 William Wyler (for Ben-Hur) 1961 Billy Wilder (for The Apartment) 1962 Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (for West Side Story) 1963 David Lean (for Lawrence of Arabia) 1964 Tony Richardson (for Tom Jones) 1965 George Cukor (for My Fair Lady) 1966 Robert Wise (for The Sound of Music) 1967 Fred Zinnemann (for A Man for All Seasons) 1968 Mike Nichols (for The Graduate) 1969 Carol Reed (for Oliver!) 1970 John Schlesinger (for Midnight Cowboy) 1971 Franklin J. Schaffner (for Patton) 1972 William Friedkin (for The French Connection) 1973 Bob Fosse (for Cabaret) 1974 George Roy Hill (for The Sting) 1975 Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather Part II) 1976 Milos Forman (for One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) 1977 John G. Avildsen (for Rocky) 1978 Woody Allen (for Annie Hall) 1979 Michael Cimino (for The Deer Hunter) 1980 Robert Benton (for Kramer vs. Kramer) 1981 Robert Redford (for Ordinary People) 1982 Warren Beatty (for Reds) 1983 Richard Attenborough (for Gandhi) 1984 James L. Brooks (for Terms of Endearment) 1985 Milos Forman (for Amadeus) 1986 Sydney Pollack (for Out of Africa) 1987 Oliver Stone (for Platoon) 1988 Bernardo Bertolucci (for The Last Emperor) 1989 Barry Levinson (for Rain Man) 1990 Oliver Stone (for Born on the Fourth of July) 1991 Kevin Costner (for Dances with Wolves) 1992 Jonathan Demme (for The Silence of the Lambs) 1993 Clint Eastwood (for Unforgiven) 1994 Steven Spielberg (for Schindler's List) 1995 Robert Zemeckis (for Forrest Gump) 1996 Mel Gibson (for Braveheart) 1997 Anthony Minghella (for The English Patient) 1998 James Cameron (for Titanic) 1999 Steven Spielberg (for Saving Private Ryan) 2000 Sam Mendes (for American Beauty) 2001 Steven Soderbergh (for Traffic) 2002 Ron Howard (for A Beautiful Mind) 2003 Roman Polanski (for The Pianist) 2004 Peter Jackson (for The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King) 2005 Clint Eastwood (for Million Dollar Baby) 2006 Ang Lee (for Brokeback Mountain) 2007 Martin Scorsese (for The Departed) 2008 Ethan Coen and Joel Coen (for No Country for Old Men) 2009 Danny Boyle (for Slumdog Millionaire) 2010 Kathryn Bigelow (for The Hurt Locker) 2011 Tom Hooper (for The King's Speech) 2012 Michel Hazanavicius (for The Artist) 2013 Ang Lee (for Life of Pi) 2014 Alfonso Cuarón (for Gravity) 2015 Alejandro González Iñárritu (for Birdman) 2016 Alejandro González Iñárritu (for The Revenant)