Christopher Nolan and Every Winner of Best Director at the Oscars - and How to Stream Them

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The directors of popcorn blockbusters and low-budget indies might try to say otherwise, but there’s no denying that winning Best Director at the Academy Awards is the biggest honour a film-maker can achieve. The winner at the 2024 Academy Awards - Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer - is the latest addition to a hallowed list. See below for our guide on where to stream every film that has won Best Director at the Oscars.

In recent years, there has been a clear move by the Academy towards answering the criticism that if you want to be named Best Director, you had better be a white man from America or the UK. Along with co-director Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan won in 2023 for Everything Everywhere All at Once, a movie centred on the Chinese-American community. That came two years after Chinese-born Chloé Zhao scooped the statue for Nomadland; the year before that, Korean director Bong Joon-ho was the winner with Parasite.

The 2010s were all about the “Three Amigos”, Mexican directors Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón. Friends for decades, the trio’s parallel careers, all of which included stints working in Mexican television, peaked at the same time, leading to this incredible run of Best Director wins from 2013 to 2018: Cuarón (Gravity), Iñárritu (Birdman), Iñárritu (The Revenant), someone else (Damien Chazelle for La La Land), Del Toro (The Shape of Water), Cuarón (Roma). ¡vamos!

Move back into the White Guy era, and you have a solid list of classics by some of cinema’s greatest exponents. Clint Eastwood won for Unforgiven and again, more than a decade later, for Million Dollar Baby. Martin Scorsese may have been overlooked in his early career, but the Academy finally made up for it by handing him the Best Director Oscar for The Departed. Steven Spielberg also does not live or die by how many awards he wins, but he did take the directing Oscar for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan.

Here’s a quiz question for your film-fan friends: name the three directors to have won the Best Director Oscar in consecutive years? Alejandro González Iñárritu is one, of course, but major kudos if you know the others without Googling: John Ford (for The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley in 1940/41) and Joseph L Mankiewicz (for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve in 1949/50).

Ford leads the all-time winner list with four Best Director Oscars, having also won for The Informer and The Quiet Man. Will that record ever be beaten? Probably not, but owning just one Best Director Oscar is the sign of an extraordinary film-making career. Find out where to watch all the films that have earned that prize with our streaming guide below.

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  1. Oppenheimer

    Oppenheimer

    2023

    #1

    A dramatization of the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who had a large hand in the development of the atomic bombs that brought an end to World War II.

  2. Everything Everywhere All at Once

    #2

    A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.

  3. The Power of the Dog

    #3

    Charismatic rancher Phil Burbank inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his brother brings home a new wife and her son, Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love.

  4. Nomadland

    Nomadland

    2020

    #4

    A woman in her sixties, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.

  5. Parasite

    Parasite

    2019

    #5

    All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

  6. Roma

    Roma

    2018

    #6

    In 1970s Mexico City, two domestic workers help a mother of four while her husband is away for an extended period of time.

  7. The Shape of Water

    The Shape of Water

    2017

    #7

    An other-worldly story, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962, where a mute janitor working at a lab falls in love with an amphibious man being held captive there and devises a plan to help him escape.

  8. La La Land

    La La Land

    2016

    #8

    Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.

  9. The Revenant

    The Revenant

    2015

    #9

    In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.

  10. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

    #10

    A fading actor best known for his portrayal of a popular superhero attempts to mount a comeback by appearing in a Broadway play. As opening night approaches, his attempts to become more altruistic, rebuild his career, and reconnect with friends and family prove more difficult than expected.

  11. Gravity

    Gravity

    2013

    #11

    Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first Shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The Shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone-tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness of space. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.

  12. Life of Pi

    Life of Pi

    2012

    #12

    The story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.

  13. The Artist

    The Artist

    2011

    #13

    Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

  14. The King's Speech

    The King's Speech

    2010

    #14

    The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.

  15. The Hurt Locker

    The Hurt Locker

    2008

    #15

    During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

  16. Slumdog Millionaire

    Slumdog Millionaire

    2008

    #16

    A teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".

  17. No Country for Old Men

    #17

    Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.

  18. The Departed

    The Departed

    2006

    #18

    To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop curries favor with the mob kingpin, a career criminal rises through the police ranks. But both sides soon discover there's a mole among them.

  19. Brokeback Mountain

    Brokeback Mountain

    2005

    #19

    In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.

  20. Million Dollar Baby

    Million Dollar Baby

    2004

    #20

    Despondent over a painful estrangement from his daughter, trainer Frankie Dunn isn't prepared for boxer Maggie Fitzgerald to enter his life. But Maggie's determined to go pro and to convince Dunn and his cohort to help her.

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