10 Best Directors That Have Never Won An Oscar
Some of the best directors ever have never actually won Best Director.
The Academy Awards makes some goofs from time to time (fairly often, some would argue), but they still have considerable clout. Winning an Oscar is one of the most prestigious awards in filmmaking, and it’s a travesty that these ten legendary filmmakers have never won one.
Directors tend to be involved in lots of other movies behind the scenes, so any wins they may have snagged for producing et cetera have been discounted here. Likewise, while their movies may have won in other categories, this is strictly about that Best Director statuette.
Between them, they’ve made so many iconic movies, many of which have become definitive movies in their genre, year or even decade. Quite how some of them were passed over for Best Director is unbelievable.
Their legacy will last regardless of how many or how few awards they get, but it still seems unfair that this lot are missing out. Frankly, in some cases it feels like a bad joke.
Honourable mention here should go to Martin Scorsese too. The seminal filmmaker was ignored by the Academy for decades, before finally getting some recognition for The Departed in 2006.
10. David Lynch
David Lynch makes some seriously weird movies. They aren’t going to break box office records or spawn multi movie franchises; they’re just engaging, compelling tales which demand your full attention.
In short, he makes the kind of movies the Academy really should be recognising. Movies which take effort, craft, dedication, and a little bit of bonkers brilliance to pull off. Unfortunately though, despite making some of the greatest cult movies ever, David Lynch has never been awarded Best Director at the Oscars.
He’s been nominated for Best Director three times, but even that ignores some of his greatest movies. Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man earned him nods, with his writing for The Elephant Man also getting nominated without winning.
Eraserhead is not the Academy’s type of movie, and Dune was terribly received at the time before going on to critical acclaim later. Wild At Heart though seemed to be the type to pique the Academy’s interest, but alas not.
David Lynch isn’t the kind of director who seems to care much about awards; if he did, he’d make movies geared towards them. Still, it seems grossly unfair that the Academy have ignored him.