Auteur theory states that the final product that is any film solely belongs to the film's director, as he is ultimately the "author" of the film. Some may see this as narcissism and egotism run rampant, but it is a theory I fully subscribe to. While film is obviously an extremely collaborative art form, as can be attested to by staying to the end of the credits of any movie, it is on the directors shoulders that the responsibility of the film's final outcome rests. He or she is the one who must make the decisions that shape the voice and the aesthetic framework of the film which will eventually come to define it. Given my view on the paramount role that a director has on their film, it will probably come as no surprise to you that the Academy Awards' Best Director category is one of my favorite and most eagerly anticipated awards of the Oscars. Outside of Best Picture, there is no category that makes me more passionate than Best Director. The directors who have and haven't won this award have come to define some of biggest blights on the history of the Academy Awards. Critics who would delegitimize the worth of Oscar's ability to proclaim any film as a significant piece of cinema will often sight that fact that such highly regarded directors as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick never received a Best Director Oscar from the Academy and there really is nothing the Academy can say to refute this unfortunate fact. As Woody Allen once stated, "When you see who wins those things - or who doesn't win them - you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is." This is why I view Best Director as such an important award. In the end, who receives this award really says more about the Oscars themselves than it does about any particular director. Currently, there is a plethora of talented directors who have yet to be crowned with an Oscar, while other, maybe not as highly thought of directors (Tom Hooper anyone?) have managed to gain approval from the Academy. While the Academy has managed to rectify some of their more obvious omissions in the past decade by rewarding such cinematic giants as Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, and Danny Boyle with a Best Director award, other great contemporary auteurs such as Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Terrance Malick, David O. Russell, David Fincher, Ridley Scott, and David Lynch have yet to win the Best Director award, where as directors such as Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, David Cronenberg, Richard Linklater, and Tim Burton have never even received a nomination in the category, much less a win. In some of these cases, there is still time to for the Academy to redeem itself and award some of these immensely talented directors. This year in particular, the Academy may have the opportunity to award would-be first time winners such as David O. Russell, Ridley Scott, Bennett Miller, and Paul Greengrass, or they could add to the totals of such vaunted directors as Martin Scorsese and the Coen Brothers. Or, maybe, they'll just give George Clooney an Oscar, because... well, he's George Clooney. Whoever the Academy finally decides to deem the best director of 2013, it's likely to be a competitive race this year, which makes it entertaining for pundits such as myself. In the meantime, check out my list of the ten likeliest directors to end up with a nomination come 2014, and be sure to catch my next article too, which will dissect 2014's Best Original Screenplay category.