6 Legendary Filmmakers Who Haven’t Won a ‘Best Director’ Oscar (and When They Should Have Won It)

If Mank goes on to win 'best picture' at this year’s Oscars (which it won’t and absolutely should not), many will see it as a guilty nod towards a historic wrong. David Fincher’s Netflix debut follows the much-disputed story behind the creation of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, a film that lost out at the 1942 Academy Awards (winning only one of its nominations, for ‘best original screenplay’) but is now widely regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made. When it came down to it, Orson Welles was beaten to ‘best director’ and ‘best picture’ by four-time winner John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley. He even lost out to Gary Cooper in the ‘best actor’ category.

It wasn’t until 1971 that Welles was acknowledged by the Oscars committee again, when they decided to give him an Academy Honorary Award. He sent screenwriter and director John Huston to the ceremony in his place, where his friend lambasted the judges for their treatment of Welles down the years. He could have bagged the top prizes for any number of his films, but we happen to think this is his best work.

It’s strange to think that it took 92 years for a foreign-language film to win ‘best picture’, considering that a fair few have been nominated down the years. The earliest came in 1938, with La Grande Illusion, and ten others arrived before Parasite managed to trample the “one-inch barrier” of subtitles, as director Bong Joon Ho put it.

Still, many masters of foreign cinema have missed out on 'best picture' nominations over the past century, and Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa – the auteur behind classics like Seven Samurai and Rashomon – is one of the most glaring omissions. He had to settle for a ‘best director’ nod in 1985 for his ground-breaking retelling of King Lear, Ran (where he lost out to Sydney Pollack’s efforts on Out of Africa.) It wasn’t even submitted for the ‘best foreign language film’ category, as Kurosawa had angered the Japanese film industry by not turning up to the premiere. That may have had something to do with it not being nominated for ‘best picture’ at the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Awards, too.

It fell to director Sydney Lumet to campaign to get him a ‘best director’ nomination, and much like Citizen Kane, Ran has since been hailed as one of the most influential films of all-time.

Kurosawa was finally given an honorary award in 1989, which also proved to be one of the most infamous Oscars ceremonies in history (a real achievement, considering the previous year included the diabolical 'Proud Mary' opening number). That’s because one film was missing from the main categories, which Kim Basinger brought attention to when she walked on stage to present ‘best picture’. “We’ve got five great films here, and they’re great for one reason: because they tell the truth.” she said. “But there is one film missing from this list that deserves to be on it, because ironically it might tell the biggest truth of all. And that’s Do the Right Thing.”

Released eight months earlier to critical acclaim and plenty of controversy, Spike Lee's film follows the flaring of racial tensions in a predominantly Black Brooklyn neighbourhood on the hottest day of the year, which eventually devolves into a horrific act of police brutality; its politics remain depressingly relevant, thirty years on. But back in 1990 it was ignored for the 'best director' and 'best picture' categories, which were won by Oliver Stone and Driving Miss Daisy respectively.

Spike Lee spoke out about the latter in 1990, calling out Morgan Freeman for playing "a subservient role,” and critics called out the film's whitewashed depiction of race relations. Twenty-five years later, Lee relished in their contrasting legacies. “Nobody’s talking about motherfuckin’ Driving Miss Daisy," he told The Daily Beast. "That film is not being taught in film schools all across the world like Do the Right Thing is. Nobody’s discussing Driving Miss motherfuckin’ Daisy.” He had to wait until 2019 for a 'best director' nomination, for BlacKkKlansman.

Three ‘best picture’ nominations for Stan, with no wins to show for it. What’s more, the film that should probably have won that title more than any other, 2001: A Space Odyssey, wasn’t even shortlisted in 1968. Instead Kubrick was nominated for ‘best director’, which he lost to Sir Carol Reed’s Oliver! (also that year’s 'best picture' winner. Consider yourself mugged off, Mr Kubrick), and 2001 ultimately had to settle for ‘best special visual effects’.

In fairness, 2001 was arguably too experimental, too out there, to appeal to the Academy, and Kubrick’s films were generally up against some true all-time greats. A Clockwork Orange lost out to The French Connection, while One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest beat Barry Lyndon. Other miscarriages of justice include Dr Strangelove's 1964 loss to Jack L Warner’s My Fair Lady, as well as Full Metal Jacket's omission in 1988.

It feels somewhat inevitable that Quentin Tarantino will pick up a ‘best director’ gong soon enough– it’s how these things generally go. A filmmaker/actor who has historically missed out on the awards they actually deserved eventually wins won they arguably do not (case in point: Martin Scorsese for The Departed, after he lost with Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and Goodfellas.)

Still, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood felt like a laser focused attempt by Tarantino to win at least one of the top prizes. Three years earlier, Damien Chazelle scooped ‘best director’ for La La Land, another love letter to Hollywood (albeit a slightly less gruesome one), and 2011’s The Artist won both ‘best director’ and ‘best picture’. Ditto Birdman, ish. Come award night, Tarantino’s ninth film only nabbed 'production design' and 'best supporting actor' gongs (for Brad Pitt). Tarantino has often said that he’ll only make ten films before retiring, which leads us to ask: will he keep to that promise, and if he does, will his last film have what it takes?

He was unlucky in 1994 with Pulp Fiction – up against Robert Zemeckis’s Forrest Gump and Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption. Inglorious Basterds' ‘best director’ and ‘best picture’ losses in 2009, to Katheryn Bigolow’s The Hurt Locker, were fair, too. It’s arguable that the year he truly deserved both prizes was the year that he wasn’t even nominated: for Reservoir Dogs in 1992, when the titles went to Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.

It’s not that Alfred Hitchcock was ignored by the Oscars – he was nominated for ‘best director’ a total of five times – it’s just that the Academy didn’t follow their own script. The British filmmaker lost out for Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound and Rear Window across the span of fourteen years, but surely 1960’s Psycho would finally win him the prize and reward his patience?

Of course, that expectation didn’t account for the mixed reviews that Psycho was initially met with, or the fact that the Academy historically hated horror. The ‘best director’ award went to Billy Wilder for his work on The Apartment, and Hitchcock was never nominated again – even for The Birds which, like Psycho, has only grown in cultural stature. But perhaps it was 1958's Vertigo, which wasn't nominated in the first place, that really should have won it for him. In the end, Hitchcock had to settle for a Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award in 1967.