Every Best Director Winner In Oscar History
The ’00s
The first Oscars were awarded in 1929. It took a very, very long time for a woman to win the Best Director award — 81 years, if you count by ceremonies. However, Kathryn Bigelow finally managed it. Clint Eastwood won his second Best Director Oscar in the same decade, and two directors shared an award for the first time since West Side Story won Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise the award back in the ’60s.
2000: Steven Soderbergh — Traffic
- Traffic didn’t win Best Picture; Soderbergh has also directed the Ocean’s Eleven remake and its sequels, though he’s not directing Ocean’s Eight.
2001: Ron Howard — A Beautiful Mind
- Howard later snagged an Oscar nomination for directing Frost/Nixon.
2002: Roman Polanski — The Pianist
- Chicago won Best Picture instead.
2003: Peter Jackson — The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Jackson also directed all of The Hobbit movies.
2004: Clint Eastwood — Million Dollar Baby
- Eastwood won Best Director and Best Picture for Million Dollar Baby, but didn’t win Best Actor.
2005: Ang Lee — Brokeback Mountain
- Lee has also directed movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, though Brokeback Mountain didn’t win Best Picture.
2006: Martin Scorsese — The Departed
- Scorsese has just one Oscar — this one — despite getting his first nomination in 1981.
2007: Joel and Ethan Coen — No Country for Old Men
- The Coen brothers also snagged Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country for Old Men.
2008: Danny Boyle — Slumdog Millionaire
- Boyle has also directed 127 Hours.
2009: Kathryn Bigelow — The Hurt Locker
- Bigelow snagged her second Oscar nomination for Zero Dark Thirty.