Today, we take a look at the Best Director prize, one of the night’s most predictive categories. We’ll give you five interesting facts about the award, give you our predictions, and share our favorite and least favorite winners in the history of the Oscars.

Trivia: Five Facts

• The first awards were given out at the 1st Academy Awards, which was the only year the category was split into comedy and drama direction. Lewis Milestone (Two Arabian Knights) and Frank Borzage (7th Heaven) were the first winners in the comedy and drama categories respectively.
• In its 81 year history, 84 trophies have gone out. Besides the first year where there were two categories, Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise shared the prize for the first time in the category’s history for West Side Story, a feat not achieved again until 46 years later when brothers Joel and Ethan Coen did it again for No Country for Old Men.
• Only four women have ever been nominated for this award (Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for The Piano, Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker). Two African American directors have ever been nominated (John Singleton for Boyz N the Hood and Lee Daniels for Precious).
• The most honored director in the category’s history is John Ford who won four of his five contests. Behind him, with three awards each, are William Wyler and Frank Capra. William Wyler is the most nominated director in history with 12 nods. His next highest competitor is Billy Wilder with 8, David Lean and Fred Zinneman with 7 each and Frank Capra, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese with 6 each.
• Best Director is the single most accurate predictor of the ultimate Best Picture winner. 96.30% of all Oscar winning Best Pictures were nominated for Best Director (failing only three times in 81 years. Driving Miss Daisy was the last in 1989, preceded 57 years earlier by Grand Hotel at the 5th Academy Awards, and before that Wings at the 1st awards). In terms of the Best Director winner also being the Best Picture winner? That has occurred 60 times in 81 contests (74.07% success). The last time they didn’t match was in 2005 when Crash beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture.

Predictions

• Avatar – James Cameron (Tripp, Wes)
• The Hurt Locker – Kathryn Bigelow (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
• Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino (Wesley)
• Precious – Lee Daniels
• Up in the Air – Jason Reitman

KEY: (Winner Prediction) (Alternate Winner)

The Commentary

Wesley Lovell – The DGA generally ruins this category with its stellar predicting record. If there’s an upset to Kathryn Bigelow’s first-woman-to-win-an-Oscar juggernaut, it’s Quentin Tarantino whose auteur style blends better with the crop of directors to win in the past decade.
Peter J. Patrick – This is the surest thing since the advent of the Oscars.
Tripp Burton – This is being billed as the battle ex-spouses, and it should come down to that. No matter what happens in Best Picture (and the other races), this should be firmly in Bigelow’s camp. She won the DGA, she is the first woman ever seriously in this race (and that story should push her there) and her achievement is much clearer than Cameron’s (whose vision was the work of 3,000 people). Don’t discount Quentin Tarantino, though. He fits the bill of this decade much more than some of the others: a long respected auteur who has his first film truly in competition in a long time. He just may squeak in here.

Our Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. George Stevens – A Place in the Sun (That a great film like this could win over the likes of A Streetcar Named Desire and An American in Paris is testament to Steven’s talent. What is ostensibly a small character study is magically woven into a devastating film about jealousy and betrayal.)
2. Lewis Milestone – All Quiet on the Western Front (To make an anti-war film so staunch and unflinching during a period in history where movies were meant to entertain and excite is a difficult task. And for Milestone to do so without concern for the backlash he might receive is brilliant.)
3. Ang Lee – Brokeback Mountain (Despite the distance he keeps himself at when directing actor, it’s astounding he not only elicited some of the best performances captured this past decade, but did so while conveying a heartbreaking, honest story that few directors would dare touch is astounding.)
4. Woody Allen – Annie Hall (This is how you make a comedy. Woody Allen, for all his faults in recent years, has never been better than he was with Diane Keaton and Annie Hall. This quintessentially New York film redefined how intelligent, verbal humor could be conveyed without reservation and still please the audience.)
5. Steven Spielberg – Schindler’s List (A labor of passion, Schindler’s List is Spielberg’s most significant accomplishment. The reserves of sorrow and humanity he delves into, even within his own heritage, is no small accomplishment and the film comes off almost flawlessly.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. John Ford – The Grapes of Wrath (as close to being the great American Film as Steinbeck’s novel was the Great American Novel, the finest of Ford’s four wins.)
2. John Ford – How Green Was My Valley (almost as brilliant as The Grapes of Wrath and the greatest one-two punch in movie history.)
3. David Lean – Lawrence of Arabia (a magnificent achievement on every level.)
4. William Wyler – The Best Years of Our Lives (the quintessential mid-Century depiction of Americana, warts and all.)
5. Joseph L. Mankiewicz – All About Eve (the most brilliant direction of actors ever.)

Tripp Burton

1. Woody Allen – Annie Hall (This award doesn’t usually honor a truly unique, creative artistic voice — instead honoring managing grand epics and complicated visions — but this one time it honored the small auteur.)
2. John Ford – The Grapes of Wrath (He is the greatest American director, and this was the most deserving of his several wins.)
3. Bob Fosse – Cabaret (Many consider this a questionable choice (over Francis Ford Coppola), but they got it completely right, for the same reasons Woody Allen’s pick was right.)
4. Lewis Milestone – All Quiet on the Western Front (The first great choice this category made, a directorial achievement ahead of the rest of the young sound film industry.)
5. David Lean – Lawrence of Arabia (Many others have tried (and won) for making large epics, but this is the greatest epic ever made, and that is greatly due to Lean’s masterful direction.)

Wes Huizar

1. David Lean – Lawrence of Arabia
2. Micahel Curtiz – Casablanca
3. Martin Scorsese – The Departed (not necessarily for THIS particular movie, but considering his body of work, his win ranks as one of my favorite Oscar moments)
4. John Huston – Treasure of the Sierra Madre
5. George Stevens – Giant

Our Least Favorite Winners

KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists

Wesley Lovell

1. Mel Gibson – Braveheart (How do you make an idiotic, history-changing epic not work? Ask Mel Gibson whose Braveheart thrilled audiences, but left many critics wondering what the fuss was about. It’s as brash, condescending and violent as it could have been without having a single meritoriously element. Maybe the makeup.)
2. Ron Howard – A Beautiful Mind (Howard won a “career” Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. It’s nothing compared to his work on Apollo 13 or Frost/Nixon and even pales in comparison to The DaVinci Code. The performances he elicits are mediocre at best and the film feels too much like it’s pandering to unimaginative audiences.)
3. John G. Avildsen – Rocky (Outside of a memorable theme and a couple of decent performances, Rocky is a mess from start to finish, doesn’t redefine the genre and ultimately fails to provide the cathartic joy someone triumphing over adversity should elicit.)
4. Frank Lloyd – Cavalcade (A rather boring, British epic that meanders through history trying to exhibit every bad thing that could ever happen without really getting us into the characters’ minds or emotions.)
5. Tony Richardson – Tom Jones (Whereas Woody Allen’s Annie Hall is how you should do comedy, this is how you shouldn’t. Tom Jones is seldom funny, fairly tame and ultimately unsatisfying, even for those who enjoy British humor.)

Peter J. Patrick

1. Mel Gibson – Braveheart (all that blue paint. The voters were starstruck.)
2. Ron Howard – A Beautiful Mind (a serviceable job at best.)
3. Frank Capra – You Can’t Take It With You (wonderful director but three Oscar wins in five years, the third for this, the weakest of the five he was nominated for was rather excessive.)
4. Richard Attenborough – Gandhi (won for his dedication in getting the film made, but the result, though it had its moments, was a bit on the dull side.)
5. Sydney Pollack – Out of Africa (nice scenery, OK production, but the film goes on and on. )

Tripp Burton

1. Mel Gibson – Braveheart (Perhaps the blandest film to win Best Picture, it is certainly the more boring, inept direction ever to win here.)
2. Ron Howard – A Beautiful Mind (Put his superior competition aside, it is a horrible motion picture with direction that only highlights the pretentiousness and shallows any depth possible.)
3. John G. Avildsen – Rocky (This is a fine film, but it is ugly looking and poorly acted.)
4. Tony Richardson – Tom Jones (I have never been able to stand this film, and that is mostly due to Richardson’s pointless, annoying flourishes.)
5. Frank Capra – You Can’t Take It With You (Many times (or usually) great directors win for the wrong film. This is not a horrible choice, but it is a disappointing film and an unnecessary third Oscar in 5 years for a great director.)

Wes Huizar

1. Ron Howard – A Beautiful Mind
2. John G. Avildsen – Rocky
3. Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins – West Side Story
4. Warren Beatty – Reds
5. Barry Levinson – Rain Man