10 times a director had two movies nominated for ‘Best Picture’ in the same year
Cinema has evolved to a point where a high-profile director releasing two movies in the same year has become increasingly rare, which is largely down to the amount of moving parts it requires to craft a motion picture from beginning to end.
With a lower budget, smaller crew, and fewer resources, independent cinema opens the doors to filmmakers knocking out at least two features in a 12-month period, if not more, but it becomes rarer the higher somebody moves up the ladder. Still, there’s been a surprisingly large number of instances where two ‘Best Picture’ nominees in the same year have been helmed by the same person.
Theoretically, it should drastically increase the chances of being named victorious, especially during the extensive period where the list of nominees was limited to five. That being said, even having a 40% chance of success doesn’t always guarantee that’s how the dominoes are going to end up falling.
Ernst Lubitsch was the first to achieve this feat when his musicals One Hour with You and The Smiling Lieutenant battled for supremacy in 1932, but neither of them won. Six years later, Victor Fleming made the shortlist for Captain Courageous and The Good Earth, but seeing as he went uncredited for his work on the latter, it’s more of a technicality in this instance, not that it mattered when he went home empty-handed anyway.
For the third time in succession, Michael Curtiz had two movies nominated for ‘Best Picture’ and didn’t win, after The Adventures of Robin Hood and Four Daughters were defeated by You Can’t Take It With You, but Fleming refused to be denied when he became the first person to have two ‘Best Picture’ nominees in the same year happen to him twice.
Pitting The Wizard of Oz against Gone with the Wind, the filmmaker’s epic romantic drama finally stopped making a mockery of those increased odds before the legendary Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca took home the most notable prize the Oscars has to offer at the 1941 edition, where one of the titles it beat was the ‘Master of Suspense’s own Foreign Correspondent.
John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath overcame The Long Voyage Home to take home ‘Best Picture’ statue when the eyepatch-wearing icon was forced to battle himself. Then, Sam Wood’s double-down didn’t reap the desired rewards when Kings Row and Pride of the Yankees failed to stave off the threat of Mrs. Miniver.
Francis Ford Coppola got in on the act when The Godfather Part II topped The Conversation when recognising the best films of 1974, four years before Annie Hall prevented Herbert Ross’ The Goodbye Girl and The Turning Point from securing ‘Best Picture’ despite his increased odds.
Since then, it’s only happened once in the last 45 years, when Steven Soderberg’s labyrinthine crime drama Traffic and his own Erin Brokovich lost out to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, which must have been a real kick in the teeth, considering he had the market cornered with two of the five nominees.
10 directors with two ‘Best Picture’ nominees in one year:
- Ernst Lubitsch (One Hour with You and The Smiling Lieutenant)
- Victor Fleming (Captain Courageous and The Good Earth)
- Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood and Four Daughters)
- Victor Fleming (The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind)
- Alfred Hitchcock (Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca)
- John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath and The Long Voyage Home)
- Sam Wood (Kings Row and The Pride of the Yankees)
- Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather Part II and The Conversation)
- Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich and Traffic)
