The only time the directors of two different movies won a ‘Best Director’ Oscar
The Academy has nothing against having two filmmakers compete for, and occasionally win, a ‘Best Director’ Oscar, but as obvious as it sounds, that only applies if they directed the same movie.
That doesn’t happen very often, though, with the Everything Everywhere All at Once duo, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the most recent, and only the fourth pairing ever, to be nominated for the industry’s most prestigious directing award. It’s a rare occurrence, but it’s also a fortuitous one, with three of them taking to the stage to collect their prize.
West Side Story‘s Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins made history when they got a ‘Best Director’ statue each for the 1961 musical, and they’d be the only ones until Warren Beatty and Buck Henry were unsuccessful in claiming the big one for 1978’s Heaven Can Wait, losing out to Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter.
It would be another 30 years until it happened again, with Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men emerging victorious, before the siblings became the only filmmaking duo to earn more than one ‘Best Director’ nomination at the Oscars when they were shortlisted for True Grit, with the collective known as Daniels upping the two-for-one hit rate to a decent 60%.
Oscars can also be awarded to two different people if voting ends in a tie, but that’s hardly a frequent outcome, either. In fact, it’s only happened six times in the nearly-century the Academy Awards have been running, but the race for ‘Best Director’ has never culminated in the directors of two different pictures being declared co-winners.
As the glitziest gala in Tinseltown continues to evolve, new categories are being added and removed, with casting and stunts two of the newest additions to the roster. At the very first edition, held in May 1929, the Oscars kicked off by rewarding the directors behind the best films of 1927 and 1928, with two different sets of criteria.
For the first and only time, the directorial prize was split in two, with three filmmakers competing for ‘Best Directing – Dramatic’ and another three going head-to-head for ‘Best Directing – Comedy’. Six names battling for two directing Oscars seems a little much, which is probably why the people in charge opted to immediately retire the comedic side of the equation and focus on the best director in any genre.
Lewis Milestone nabbed dramatic honours for Two Arabian Knights, beating out The Circus‘ Charlie Chaplin and Speedy‘s Ted Wilde, while 7th Heaven‘s Frank Borzage took home the comedic prize at the expense of Sorrell and Son‘s Herbert Brenon and The Crowd‘s King Vidor.
When the Oscars returned for its sophomore year, any filmmaker’s chances of being named ‘Best Director’ had been cut in half, with the split a one-and-done experiment. Seven names were now competing for the accolade, and another slice of history was made, with eventual winner Frank Lloyd nominated for two films, winning for The Divine Lady, with Weary River giving him an obvious advantage over the rest of the field.
