The Oscars – Best Director Awards – Film Quiz

Out of Africa is a 1985 American film directed and produced by Sydney Pollack. The film is based loosely on a book by Danish author Karen Blixen. Robert Redford and Meryl Streep play the leading characters. The film was nominated in 11 categories and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director (Sydney Pollack), Best Adapted Screenplay (Kurt Luedtke), and Best Original Score (John Barry).

Gandhi is a 1982 Indian-British biographical film directed by Richard Attenborough. Ben Kingsley is in the leading role.

Miloš Forman's Amadeus was the big winner at the 57th Academy Awards in 1985. The film received 11 nominations and won 8 Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Miloš Forman, and Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham. Woody Allen and David Lynch were nominated for Best Director two years later at the 59th Academy Awards, but neither won. Martin Scorsese was nominated for The Last Temptation of Christ at the 61st Academy Awards in 1989. The winner that year was Barry Levinson (Rain Man).

Schindler's List is directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg. It premiered in November 1993. The year after, the Academy rewarded it with seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.

In 2005, at age 74, Clint Eastwood became the oldest director to win an Oscar with the film Million Dollar Baby.

Annie Hall won four out of five nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Diane Keaton), Best Director (Woody Allen), and Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman).

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film directed by Danny Boyle. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

John Ford has won Best Director four times (The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man). During his career, Allen has won four Oscars but only one for Best Director. David Lean has won twice (The Bridge over the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia). Francis Ford Coppola has four nominations and one win (The Godfather Part II).

With Rebecca, the British director Alfred Hitchcock made his first American movie. The film starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. The film was nominated in nine categories and won Best Picture and Best Cinematography, Black and White, but Hitchcock did not win the Best Director Award.

Note: Orson Welles was not British.

Francis Ford Coppola won an Academy Award for Best Director for The Godfather Part II (1974).

Alejandro González Iñárritu won his second Oscar for Best Director with the film "The Revenant" (2015). He got his first Oscar the year before with "Birdman" (2014).

Forrest Gump is a 1994 film based on a novel by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis and stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field. It won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director for Robert Zemeckis, Best Actor for Tom Hanks, Best Adapted Screenplay for Eric Roth, Best Visual Effects, and Best Film Editing.

At the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony 2010, Kathryn Bigelow made history as the first female to win the Oscar for Best Director.

Ang Lee has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice, for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Life of Pi (2012). He has also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has the record for the most nominations for a foreign language film (10 nominations) and tied with Fanny and Alexander (Bergman) with the most wins (4).

Stanley Kubrick belongs to the group of well-known directors who have never won an Academy Award for Best Director, despite four nominations (Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lyndon)