Oscar's Best Director 2024

The five nominees are...

Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Nolan has got this, deservedly so. I haven't seen The Zone of Interest or Poor Things yet. I personally wouldn't have nominated Scorsese or Triet, but I was expecting them to get nominated. I think Alexander Payne should have been nominated for The Holdovers.

Nobody is beating Nolan. This is his year, and rightfully so.

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“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!” ~ Rocky Balboa

Sadly I don't think this is Martin Scorsese's year to draw level with Peter Farrelly on amount of Oscars won.

Nolan wins it. I guess it will be nice for some Oscars to be awarded to a UK Director.

No contest here, it's Nolan's turn. Personally, I think Nolan has done better work, but it's defiinitely his turn.

I now declare Christopher Nolan, the winner of the academy award for Best Directing for the motion picture Oppenheimer.

Long may he reign!!!!

That broke me up that Gerwig got passed over..

Still, there's a female director left on the list, so she might sneak in the win..

Oddsmakers have her as the second least likely to win, so the implicit assumptions behind this prediction (and others like it) should probably be at least somewhat reevaluated.

Two of my three favourite films of last year so far were by female directors. Neither of them were Greta Gerwig though.

Which were!?

Past Lives and Saltburn

snap!

Looking forward to seeing both of these.

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Just saw Anatomy of a Fall so I have now seen three of the five nominees. If anyone beats Nolan, it will be Triet.

Have now sat through all of these films. Sadly, I am predicting this will be Nolan's year, but not necessarily for the right reasons. Much like Scorcese's for The Departed, it feels like this is his year for a collection of works that he has done rather than specifically for Oppenheimer.



And really, it's unfair, because holy schnikes this is a stacked catagory!


Scorcese was Scorcese's usual excellence, Larthimos' Poor Things is bold, unique and gave me a sense in my mind's eye of almost Greenway-esque astetics on top of everything else, while Triet's work on Anatomy (which f finally caught up with at the weekend with the AD) is stellar. But then today, Glazer's The Zone of Interest has raised the bar again. I really would struggle to pick one, although would either probably push for Triet or Grazer... but holy schnikes, this is seriously stacked.


It'll be Nolan. It'll be one of those ones in years to come that people will say, right director for the wrong movie and he's paid his dues, all that sort of thing, and they'll be right because this isn't Nolan's best, but it'll be Nolan's year.

I voted Nolan....I'm big supporter of Haynes for The Holdovers but he's not nominated.


Zone of Interest was very close but the gimmick ran thin and they didn't end the story properly.


Poor Things was solid but it was mid level Lanthimos I think it's going to get shut out.


Anatomy of a Fall is good but like I've said before it lifts to much from The Staircase.


Killers of the Flower Moon I admired some of the choices Scorsese made but I also hated the continuity issues and I felt like it almost fetishized the native culture over the actual crimes.

Todd Haynes didn't direct The Holdovers. You meant Alexander Payne. Haynes directed last year's May December.

Yeah I always get them confused

I've only seen 3 of these films, but I think I'd go with Nolan. Although I enjoyed "Anatomy of a Fall" more, I think "Oppenheimer" was a much more ambitious effort. It was more difficult to direct, was technically more impressive, and had a higher degree of complexity to it. To me, those elements should be relevant to what is considered "Best Director".

As per usual there was deviation from the five names selected by the Academy's Directors Branch and the DGA. Scorsese, Nolan, and Lanthimos made both nomination lists, but Triet and Glazer took the spots that Alexander Payne and Greta Gerwig filled on the DGA Award ballot.



Anatomy of a Fall is Justine Triet's fourth feature, and while her previous efforts had garnered good attention this is her big breakthrough, winning the Palm d'Or last year in Cannes. She is only the eighth woman ever nominated for Best Director, and the first Frenchwoman, but she won't join Jane Campion, Chloé Zhao, and Kathryn Bigelow as winners. Not this time.



Jonathan Glazer first grabbed attention as a director of music videos and television commercials, his most lastingly famous being the simple yet indelible "Virtual Insanity" for Jamiroquai. He transitioned to features with Sexy Beast, which nabbed Ben Kingsley a well-earned Oscar nomination then divided critics and audiences with Birth starring Nicole Kidman and Under the Skin starring Scarlett Johansson. The Zone of Interest adapts Martin Amis' novel showing more of the Nazi brand of banality of evil. Glazer is a good filmmaker but feels like one whose Oscar fortunes rely completely on the type of genre he is working. Concentration Camps got him nominations, but he won't win, and if he gravitates to material like Under the Skin it's unlikely he'll be back anytime soon.



Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos seems to be exclusively attracted to challenging material, starting with Dogtooth, which instantly made him an international star and competed for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It didn't win but it announced his presence on the scene. His English-language debut The Lobster was even more surreal and got him an Original Screenplay nomination. The Killing of a Sacred Deer was apparently too dark for the Academy, but The Favourite was lavished with nine nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture! And now Poor Things has managed eleven nominations, including Yorgos' second as Best Director. It is a gloriously bonkers, dark, satirical, and wonderful flick, but it would be pretty shocking to hear his name read from that envelope come Oscar night. Unlike Glazer it feels like Lanthimos can and will come back into the Oscar fold with just about any crazy idea he has.



Martin Scorsese moved from greatest filmmaker around to elder statesman to living legend a couple decades ago. The eighty-one-year-old is still at it, thank goodness, and Killers of the Flower Moon brings him up to double-digits for Best Director nominations (Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, GoodFellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman). Only William Wyler collected more (twelve) and Marty now sits one ahead of longtime friend Steven Spielberg's nine. Of course, Wyler had three wins (as did Frank Capra), Spielberg has two, and nobody will probably ever catch John Ford's four Best Director wins. Will Marty stay stuck on his one win, for The Departed of all things? I suspect he will this time, though if he has another two or three movies left in him - and I pray to the cinema gods that he does - he's gotta get that second directorial win somewhere!



Christopher Nolan's huge and vocal fanbase has considered him something of a perpetual Oscar snub. Counting his Best Picture nominations as a producer and his screenwriting nods he is now up to eight Academy Award nominations, though this is only his second as Best Director. He was previously nominated for Dunkirk, the year del Toro won for The Shape of Water. Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, and some comic book super hero trilogy made him one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation, though knowing the type of fare Oscar usually honors it shouldn't be a total shock that it is the wartime historical epics of Dunkirk and Oppenheimer that have brought him the most love from the Academy. That Oppenheimer also added box office juggernaut to the mix should make this Nolan's turn. Deservedly so.