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Oscar Best Directors Quiz

Can you name the winners of the Academy Award for Best Director?
Year = year of the ceremony honoring the previous year's films
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: March 10, 2024
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First submittedFebruary 28, 2012
Times taken42,543
Average score28.8%
Rating4.56
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Year
Movie
Director
2024
Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan
2023
Everything Everywhere
All at Once
Daniel Kwan /
Daniel Scheinert
2022
The Power of the Dog
Jane Campion
2021
Nomadland
Chloé Zhao
2020
Parasite
Bong Joon-ho
2019
Roma
Alfonso Cuarón
2018
The Shape of Water
Guillermo del Toro
2017
La La Land
Damien Chazelle
2016
The Revenant
Alejandro González
Iñárritu
2015
Birdman
Alejandro González
Iñárritu
2014
Gravity
Alfonso Cuarón
2013
Life of Pi
Ang Lee
2012
The Artist
Michel Hazanavicius
2011
The King's Speech
Tom Hooper
2010
The Hurt Locker
Kathryn Bigelow
2009
Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle
2008
No Country for Old Men
Ethan Coen /
Joel Coen
2007
The Departed
Martin Scorsese
2006
Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee
2005
Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood
2004
The Lord of the Rings:
Return of the King
Peter Jackson
2003
The Pianist
Roman Polanski
2002
A Beautiful Mind
Ron Howard
2001
Traffic
Steven Soderbergh
2000
American Beauty
Sam Mendes
1999
Saving Private Ryan
Steven Spielberg
1998
Titanic
James Cameron
1997
The English Patient
Anthony Minghella
1996
Braveheart
Mel Gibson
1995
Forrest Gump
Robert Zemeckis
1994
Schindler's List
Steven Spielberg
1993
Unforgiven
Clint Eastwood
1992
The Silence of
the Lambs
Jonathan Demme
1991
Dances with Wolves
Kevin Costner
1990
Born on the
Fourth of July
Oliver Stone
1989
Rain Man
Barry Levinson
1988
The Last Emperor
Bernardo Bertolucci
1987
Platoon
Oliver Stone
1986
Out of Africa
Sydney Pollack
1985
Amadeus
Milos Forman
1984
Terms of Endearment
James L. Brooks
1983
Gandhi
Richard Attenborough
1982
Reds
Warren Beatty
1981
Ordinary People
Robert Redford
1980
Kramer vs. Kramer
Robert Benton
1979
The Deer Hunter
Michael Cimino
1978
Annie Hall
Woody Allen
1977
Rocky
John G. Avildsen
1976
One Flew over the
Cuckoo's Nest
Milos Forman
Year
Movie
Director
1975
The Godfather Part II
Francis Ford Coppola
1974
The Sting
George Roy Hill
1973
Cabaret
Bob Fosse
1972
The French Connection
William Friedkin
1971
Patton
Franklin J. Schaffner
1970
Midnight Cowboy
John Schlesinger
1969
Oliver!
Carol Reed
1968
The Graduate
Mike Nichols
1967
A Man for All Seasons
Fred Zinnemann
1966
The Sound of Music
Robert Wise
1965
My Fair Lady
George Cukor
1964
Tom Jones
Tony Richardson
1963
Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean
1962
West Side Story
Robert Wise
Jerome Robbins
1961
The Apartment
Billy Wilder
1960
Ben-Hur
William Wyler
1959
Gigi
Vincente Minnelli
1958
The Bridge on the
River Kwai
David Lean
1957
Giant
George Stevens
1956
Marty
Delbert Mann
1955
On the Waterfront
Elia Kazan
1954
From Here to Eternity
Fred Zinnemann
1953
The Quiet Man
John Ford
1952
A Place in the Sun
George Stevens
1951
All About Eve
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1950
A Letter to Three Wives
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1949
The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre
John Huston
1948
Gentleman's Agreement
Elia Kazan
1947
The Best Years of
Our Lives
William Wyler
1946
The Lost Weekend
Billy Wilder
1945
Going My Way
Leo McCarey
1944
Casablanca
Michael Curtiz
1943
Mrs. Miniver
William Wyler
1942
How Green Was
My Valley
John Ford
1941
The Grapes of Wrath
John Ford
1940
Gone with the Wind
Victor Fleming
1939
You Can't Take It
with You
Frank Capra
1938
The Awful Truth
Leo McCarey
1937
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Frank Capra
1936
The Informer
John Ford
1935
It Happened One Night
Frank Capra
1934
Cavalcade
Frank Lloyd
1933
Bad Girl
Frank Borzage
1932
Skippy
Norman Taurog
1931
All Quiet on the
Western Front
Lewis Milestone
1930
The Divine Lady
Frank Lloyd
1929
Two Arabian Knights
Lewis Milestone
Seventh Heaven
Frank Borzage
+1
Level 26
Apr 4, 2012
can you robert wise for westside story?
+1
Level 58
Apr 24, 2012
Great quiz! 61 first try.
+1
Level 24
Jun 10, 2012
got them all down to Robert Redford for Ordinary People, and I got 43/65.
+2
Level 27
Mar 3, 2013
Hm, I didn't know that James L. Brooks is famous for something else than the Simpsons.
+5
Level 52
Dec 27, 2017
Brooks was one of the most influential people in the entertainment industry before The Simpsons even began. Aside from his Oscar-winning movie 'Terms of Endearment', he created such television hits as 'Taxi' and 'Mary Tyler Moore'.
+1
Level 75
Feb 23, 2015
I thought I was a movie buff but I only scored 18. So many of the names just wouldn't come and others I had no chance of spelling correctly. Still mad at self for not getting Curtiz. Casablanca is my favorite movie even if it was just another run of the mill flick at the time it was filmed. They managed to make the magic happen by the end of the process.
+3
Level ∞
Mar 4, 2018
Stanley Kubrick never won!
+1
Level 73
May 31, 2018
Neither did Howard Hawks until he was given a lifetime achievement award and Mr. DeMille never won for directing. To the diversity issue, if you look at the whole list there are winning directors from all over the world. If I remember correctly there is even one from Moldova.
+2
Level 74
Sep 20, 2018
If you want to know what BS the award shows are, just look at who HASN'T won. It's only as their careers are ending that the Academy realizes they royally screwed up and didn't give the actual greats (not the one offs or politically correct) the award and hand out the lifetime achievement award. Personally, I would tell them where to shove the lifetime award -- it's a consolation prize.
+8
Level 67
Mar 4, 2019
Which director won for "politically correct" reasons? I can't wait to hear this.
+3
Level 78
May 2, 2018
Not much diversity with all those Mexicans winning lately.
+3
Level 78
Feb 25, 2019
Again! Although I must say Cuarón is a fine winner.
+5
Level 89
Feb 25, 2019
Having seen all those movies, I’d say those wins are all well deserved. But I’ve seen better from del Toro.
+5
Level 78
Feb 26, 2019
Yeah, The Shape of Water is the kind of movie that awkwardly references or bluntly mentions old movies so the Academy reads it as a love letter to cinema. And while the movie redeems the old monster as a misunderstood foreign creature, it still needs a dramatic 'monster'. I don't like it when movies give you that purely evil, one-dimensional, irredeemable villain which everyone in the audience can hate without restrictions.
+6
Level 78
Feb 26, 2019
All of the "Mexican" winner films are crafted with highest skill obviously, but in the case of Roma I think the craft serves the most interesting purpose.
+1
Level 57
Feb 25, 2019
Well I guess if you want to know which director is going to win next year, just look out for a well-known movie with a mexican director.
+2
Level 93
Feb 11, 2020
Not necessarily Mexican, but definitely foreign!
+3
Level 88
Feb 10, 2020
Interesting that 9 of the last 10 winners have not been American.
+2
Level 88
Mar 31, 2022
2 years later and it's 11 of the last 12. Quite unusual.
+3
Level 93
Feb 11, 2020
BONG HIVE!!!!!
+1
Level 66
Mar 27, 2020
People are good at this, I am not, I only recognize 10 and I didnt even get all of them!

(well the coen brothers I sort of recognise. would never come up with them (did try wachowski) but if you asked who they were, I would ve gotten director) . But seeing it written, to me that would be pronounced coon and I think the few times I have heard it, it was pronounced co-an or cohen

+1
Level 78
Apr 3, 2020
Dutch pronunciation?
+2
Level 93
Apr 26, 2021
Congratulations to Chloe Zhao, the first woman of color to win Best Director!
+1
Level 82
Apr 28, 2021
Wow! People actually remember directors. Not me--I got five.
+2
Level 89
Apr 29, 2021
Funny how the biggest people in the movie business with the longest staying power are anonymous to the public while some actor who was on a TV show 40 years ago gets pestered every time he eats in public by people who want to be near someone famous.
+3
Level 82
Feb 15, 2022
Shame what a washed-up fruitcake Oliver Stone has become.
+2
Level 89
Mar 30, 2022
Ain't that the truth. I enjoyed watching his films from the late 80s (Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio, Born on the Fourth of July), and even though JFK is ridiculous I still found it somewhat entertaining. But then everything he did post-JFK (of the ones I've seen) I ended up hating. Natural Born Killers, Any Given Sunday, Alexander, World Trade Center, W., the Wall Street sequel, I didn't like any of them. And it's not just me, take a look at his filmography and look at how the number of awards and nominations continually decreases as you go further down the list.
+1
Level 72
Mar 19, 2024
Quentin Tarantino did not have warm feelings for Oliver Stone after Stone rewrote Tarantino's original screenplay for NBK--so much that Tarantino demanded that his name be taken off the movie. So when someone asked Tarantino about working with Stone he said (if I recall correctly) "The problem with Stone is that he reduces everything to two words. Take 'Platoon'--'war is bad!' No, that's three words--Stone would say 'war bad.'"

My sentiments exactly. I agreed with the politics behind the movie "Salvador," but still hated the movie because it felt that it had to deliver every point with a sledgehammer.

+1
Level 93
Mar 21, 2024
That's my biggest issue with Adam McKay's movies honestly. He often has good points but delivers them with the subtlety of a nuclear warhead.
+1
Level 93
Jan 12, 2024
Placing my bets that Christopher Nolan will be the next name on this list!
+1
Level 90
Mar 11, 2024
Good bet.
+1
Level 72
Mar 19, 2024
Concerning Interesting Quote #61 that came with this quiz: that's not how you spell Confucius (or at least not the standard English transliteration of 孔子).