On our message board, the UAADB (Unofficial Academy Award Discussion Board), we have an annual tradition where we look at the year’s Oscar nominees in certain categories and try to decide if the individual will make a return to the Oscars at some point in the near future. There’s also a bonus round for predicting what non-nominated talent who was a major competitor during the given year will soon become an Oscar nominee.

I’m turning that concept into a 7-week feature for Cinema Sight. In addition to the acting and directing categories that our posters typically cite, I’m going to throw in Animated Feature brining the category count to six plus an additional week for the bonus round.

In our penultimate week, let’s look at Best Director.

Best Director

Damien Chazelle – La La Land

(1 nomination {2016}; 1 win {2016} – Other Nominations: Adapted Screenplay {2014}; Original Screenplay {2016})

Making his cinematic debut a scant eight years ago, Damien Chazelle’s 2009 film Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench showcased what the then 24-year-old writer/director would be fascinated with as his filmmaking career progressed. The film, which follows a jazz trumpeter trying to find a more gregarious partner, was well received by critics, though it didn’t get much attention at the box office or with major awards-giving bodies.

It took four years for Chazelle to make an imprint with a short film that would become the basis for his second feature the following year, Whiplash. The film follows a young drummer who enrolls in a prestigious program where he’s pushed harder than he ever could have imagined by a ruthless instructor. It was even better received by critics, who helped propel character actor J.K. Simmons to an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as the instructor. The film secured four other Oscar nominations including a surprise nod for Best Picture. While Chazelle would not win for his adapted screenplay or for Best Picture itself, the film would also take Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

Already a sensation at the age of 29, it was his third film that brought him his greatest success yet. Putting the charismatic pair of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling together in a musical about jazz, La La Land was the first fully original musical (screenplay and music) nominated for Best Picture in more than 70 years. Critics loved the film and it picked up a boatload of precursors, leading most to believe it would end up becoming a major player at the Oscars.

It was. Picking up a record-tying 14 nominations, La La Land went into the final category of Oscar night having won 6 Academy Awards, including for his direction. With prizes for Director, Actress (Stone), Cinematography, Original Score, Original Song and Production Design under its belt, a 7th statuette seemed assured when the last envelope was opened. While he had managed to score his first Oscar as director, becoming the youngest director in history to do so, he could not marry that award to Best Picture, losing out to the indie darling Moonlight in one of the most generally shocking (and shockingly revealed) upsets in Oscar history.

The Academy very much loves Chazelle. At 32, Chazelle already has two feature films with a combined nine Oscars between them, an unprecedented feat. It’s unlikely that the Academy will ignore its wonder boy in the future and Best Picture is a likely eventuality. That could come as early as this year with Chazelle helming the non-musical Neil Armstrong biopic starring his La La Land leading man Gosling. The film is sure to be well received, though this will be his first time helming a project that he didn’t personally scribe. This will be a test of the young auteur’s capabilities.

He will either pick up his second Best Director nomination for this film or sometime in the near future. However a second win will be unlikely anytime soon. Few directors have earned more than a single Oscar statuette for directing. These men are typically legends of the field. Even greats like Martin Scorsese only have one trophy. Chazelle will need something extraordinary to accomplish that and he’s more likely to fall from grace before he can succeed as many young directors often do.

Mel Gibson – Hacksaw Ridge

(2 nominations {1995, 2016}; 1 win {1995} – Other Nominations: Picture {2016 [won]})

Mel Gibson was a major box office star in the 1980s. The Australian thespian parlayed his good looks into prominent roles in the Mad Max films, the Oscar-nominated The Year of Living Dangerously, and the popular Lethal Weapon franchise. Gibson turned to directing in 1993 with the decently well received drama The Man Without a Face, which he followed up two years later with the film that would earn him an Oscar for directing.

Braveheart, a highly fictionalized look at the life of Scottish rebel William Wallace. Gibson took on the lead role of this brutal war epic. Receiving solid reviews at the time, the film performed well at the box office; however, it was revived twice in the span of a year to capitalize on its success. The first time in September reminded viewers that it was still around. In February, it was to capitalize on its Oscar nomination haul and remind voters simultaneously.

Picking up ten Oscar nominations, Braveheart pulled out five wins in its total, including Best Picture and Best Director for Gibson. It was after the film’s release, which was met with a great deal of controversy afterwards that Gibson began felling out of favor with Hollywood. It reached a near-crescendo with his third film, The Passion of the Christ. Accused of being anti-Semitic, The Passion of the Christ was a gory re-telling of the story of Jesus Christ, which turned the Jews of the film into villains in the most obvious way. The film did manage to earn three Oscar nomination on the back of a massive box office tally, though it was hindered by critics who weren’t terribly impressed and bordered on hostile to the film

Two years later, Gibson was arrested and in a drunken anti-Semitic rant, the director’s career collapsed. All of the negative attention he had received for Passion of the Christ had been confirmed. Hollywood could no longer risk being associated with him. His fourth film was released the same year, Apocalypto was met with average reviews, but a dismal box office performance. He again saw his film nominated at the Oscars, three times, yet it went home empty-handed.

Over the next decade, Gibson made several attempts to return to Hollywood’s favor, mostly with the help of friend Jodie Foster who featured him in an apologia role in The Beaver. He then returned to blockbusters with an appearance in The Expendables 3 and finally resurfaced as a director ten years after his Apocalypto disaster.

Hacksaw Ridge returned to the war genre, this time tackling the story of a pacifist Christian medic who saved injured soldiers on the battlefields in the South Pacific during World War II. Critics recognized this as the best film in his career and rained plenty of attention on it. This was followed by a strong campaign towards the Oscars. While it performed quite well through precursor season, many thought the film would manage several nominations, including Best Picture, but that Gibson hadn’t quite done enough to apologize for his past actions and that he would be ignored by the directors branch.

Those assumptions were proved wrong and Gibson not only picked up a Best Director nomination, but his film tied for the second-most nominated film of the year with 8, including Best Picture and for star Andrew Garfield.

Now that Gibson has seemingly been forgiven by Academy voters in specific and Hollywood in general, he’ll return to the directors chair with renewed vigor. His next film, which has entered production, reteams Gibson with Braveheart scribe Randall Wallace for a film called Berserker. Little is known about the film, so it’s impossible to know if Gibson will be nominated for it. However, it’s possible that he will eventually pick up a third Oscar nomination in the near or distant future, but a second win is not likely to happen at this juncture.

Barry Jenkins – Moonlight

(1 nomination {2016} – Other Nominations: Adapted Screenplay {2016 [won]})

Barry Jenkins made his cinematic debut with a short film called My Josepohine in 2003. It was the first in a series of mediocre short films with a single feature film in between. That film, 2008’s Medicine for Melanchony received decent reviews, but the film didn’t put Jenkins on the map.

What did was his second feature film, Moonlight. The story about one man as a boy, a teen, and an adult, who grapples with his burgeoning sexual identity alongside a childhood friend. Exploring life as a gay black kid, Moonlight was universally hailed as one of the year’s best films. With near-perfect scores at both Rotten Tomatoes, where the average rating is 9/10 with 98% of critics rating it fresh; and MetaCritic, where the film earned 51 positive reviews and not a single negative or mixed reaction, it was one of the most acclaimed films of 2016 and perhaps of the 21st Century so far.

That acclaim translated into 236 awards nominations and 199 victories from countless organizations. It pulled in 16 awards for Best Picture and 14 for Best Director. It also earned supporting actor Mahershala Ali 27 precursor awards, a staggering tally, second only to lead actor Casey Affleck’s tally. While the film was universally hailed by critics, the juggernaut known as La La Land usurped much of its attention, barreling towards a fateful Best Picture victory. Until it didn’t.

Thanks to the complexity of the Academy’s voting process, Moonlight managed to steal La La Land‘s thunder by taking Best Picture out from under its nose giving the film three total Academy Awards. Jenkins still played second-fiddle to young up-and-comer Damien Chazelle, but he was honored with an award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

For a director to burst onto the scene like this and not come back for seconds would be shocking. Yet, as John Singleton can tell you, having a celebrated hit and an Oscar nomination for Best Director doesn’t mean that race won’t play a factor in your fade from attention. Singleton went on to make a string of mediocre films. Either Boyz N the Hood was an anomaly or he was treated like a hot young director, but given a spate of less than stellar projects. However, if Jenkins works to the degree that Spike Lee has or, like the more recent example of Ava DuVernay, he could deliver a string of well received films, and eventually earn a Best Documentary Feature nomination. Though a Best Director nomination may be elusive as neither Lee nor DuVernay ever (or have yet) to manage one.

To do so, however, he needs to get out there and direct projects. Originally slated to helm the graphic novel adaptation A Contract with God, he is no longer associated with it. He has been linked to an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, but that work is currently being shopped for television, meaning he doesn’t have any immediate big screen opportunities. You don’t make a film as universally acclaimed as Moonlight and disappear into the ether, so he should be finding more opportunities in the near future and I suspect if he can adhere to the same degree of quality that he will eventually be back.

For a neophyte filmmaker to win Best Picture for his second film is an impressive feat. Let’s just hope Hollywood recognizes it and doesn’t stonewall him out of bigger, bolder, and better projects.

Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea

(1 nomination {2016} – Other Nominations: Original Screenplay {2000, 2002, 2016 [won]})

Although Kenneth Lonergan got his start as the screenwriter for the Harold Ramis comedy Analyze This starring Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro, it was his second screenplay, the first he directed, that earned him the respect of his peers and a spot on the A-List of writer/directors. You Can Count on Me was critically acclaimed drama starring Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo. It received numerous awards and nominations in 2000, ultimately picking up two Oscar nominations for star Linney and Lonergan’s original screenplay.

He followed this film up with the abysmal The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle and the ill-advised sequel Analyze That. His redemption was swift thanks to his 2002 screenplay for Gangs of New York, which earned him and co-writers Jay Cocks and Steven Zaillian Oscar nominations. The film did quite well also, landing a total of ten Oscar nominations, though it ultimately went home with none, one of Oscar’s all-time biggest losers (only The Turning Point and The Color Purple have lost more).

Unfortunately for him, it took nine years before he’d write or direct another film, which he did with 2011’s Margaret starring Anna Paquin. The film picked up a smattering of awards attention, but it was insufficient to break into the Oscars yet again. Critics liked it, but they didn’t fawn over it as they had his two prior Oscar nominees.

Another five years passed and Lonergan again found himself on the side of film critics who adored his 2016 drama Manchester by the Sea. Featuring a tour-de-force performance from Casey Affleck, Manchester became the first film distributed by a streaming service (Amazon) to earn a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. Earning a total of six nominations, Manchester by the Sea took home two. One was for the awards season-dominant Casey Affleck, who won more than 30 individual awards for his performance. The other was for Lonergan, redemption for his early career success and repudiation of his mid-career failures.

With this kind of acclaim as a director and a writer, it’s hard to imagine that Lonergan might never be back. At 54 years of age, he has plenty of opportunities left, though it could be some time. An 11-year break between his first and second directorial effort and another 5-year lapse between his second and third mean we may not see him again for some time. As a screenwriter, it’s more likely we’ll see him nominated again, but as a director, this may be his last nomination, though I’m not counting anything out.

Lonergan currently has no directorial efforts on his calendar, though he does have a screenplay on deck, having written one episode for a television miniseries adaptation of Howards End, for which he’ll likely be nominated for the Emmy. Otherwise, the future is in flux and since he doesn’t direct anyone else’s screenplays, he won’t be attached to anything until he decides and starts working on his next project. In that case, we might not find out about it until a year or so out.

Denis Villeneuve – Arrival

(1 nomination {2016})

Before this year, Denis Villeneuve was everyone’s “when will he” director. As in when will he finally be nominated for an Oscar? He wasn’t always on the cusp as his early career in Canadian cinema wasn’t particularly memorable.

Villeneuve started out as a documentary filmmaker in 1994 at 27 years of age with his work on the film REW FFWd, which he also wrote and which premiered at Locarno Film Festival. Four years later, he made his narrative debut with Un 32 août sur terre (August 32nd on Earth), a film that didn’t seem to excite viewers, although it did premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) that year. In 2000, he wrote and directed a much better received dramatic film called Maelstrom, which also played at TIFF followed by a showing at Sundance in 2001.

Now a staple of the festival circuit, Villeneuve’s next feature film, Polytechnique, was also well received, but didn’t get picked up by TIFF. Instead, it showed at Cannes Film Festival in 2009. The next year, he had his biggest success with the Oscar-nominated drama Incendies. That film was celebrated internationally and remains an audience favorite. It played many of the major festivals including Venice, Telluride, Toronto, Vancouver, and Sundance. It also led to his English-language debut in 2013, the acclaimed Prisoners.

The film, co-starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano, became his second Oscar-nominated film earning a citation for cinematographer Roger Deakins. It was also the first feature he didn’t write himself. The films that followed, 2013’s Enemy, 2015’s Sicario, and 2016’s Arrival were also written by others. His entire English-language career has been directing others’ screenplays rather than his own, which is a strange, but fascinating turn of events.

Although Enemy wasn’t much of an Oscar contender outside of Gyllenhaal’s performance, Sicario was the first film everyone generally thought would earn him his first Oscar nomination. Starring the frequent Oscar also-ran Emily Blunt, Sicario scored three Oscar nominations. Another for Deakins in Best Cinematography, as well as nods for Original Score and Sound Editing.

This year was finally his year, taking a page from many other recent books, Villeneuve’s sci-fi drama was a box office hit starring Oscar nominees Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner and co-starring Oscar winner Forest Whitaker. The film took home eight Oscar nominations, including one for Villeneuve’s direction and one for Best Picture of the year. The one category it failed to place in, much to the surprise of everyone following the awards, was in Best Actress where oft-nominated Adams came in a close sixth in voting, losing out to a slate of newcomers and old-timers alike.

The question now is when Villeneuve will be nominated again for Best Director. Ostensibly, his next opportunity will be for Blade Runner 2049, which releases this year; however, the original film, while a cult hit, wasn’t exactly an Oscar juggernaut for director Ridley Scott. In spite of strong reviews, the film only managed two nominations for Art Direction and Visual Effects. This time around, Blade Runner 2049 should do much better, but it seems like a tough sell for an Academy that has been heavily resistant to sequels.

Villeneuve has two more opportunities on his upcoming plate. One is the latest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s popular dystopian drama Dune. Little is known about the project, but it could end up in the same Oscar vein as George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. However, it’s more likely the Academy throws some tech nods at it and then calls it a day. Also in development is an adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s crime novel The Son, another iffy prospect. The Academy has gotten friendlier with genre fare in recent years, so both could be surprisingly well received, but a lot depends on the final outcome. Will Villeneuve continue building an impressive resume or will he eventually fade into obscurity after a number of lazy missteps? Time will tell.