7 Actors Who Became Directors and Won the Oscar for Directing

Acting and directing look like neighboring jobs, yet the Academy has rarely handed its top directing prize to someone better known for being in front of the camera. When it has, the stories tend to be interesting. Some of these people were matinee idols who wanted more control. Others were character actors who quietly learned the craft from the inside.

The seven names below all appeared on screen before or while they built directing careers, and each took home the Oscar for Best Director. The details are drawn from well documented awards history, so you can check any of them against the Academy’s own records.

Robert Redford

Redford was a major movie star long before he directed anything, thanks to films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. His first time behind the camera was Ordinary People, a family drama released in 1980. It was a risky choice for a golden boy, since the material was quiet and emotionally raw.

The gamble paid off at the ceremony held in early 1981. Ordinary People won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Redford. He didn’t appear in the film himself, which helped it stand as a director’s work first.

Clint Eastwood

Eastwood became famous through Westerns and the Dirty Harry films, then steadily moved into directing in the 1970s. For years critics treated his directing as a side note to his screen persona. Unforgiven, released in 1992, changed that conversation.

That film won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. He won again for Million Dollar Baby, which took the prize at the ceremony held in 2005. He was in his seventies by then, which made him the oldest winner of the directing award at that time.

Kevin Costner

Costner was a rising leading man when he made his directorial debut with Dances with Wolves in 1990. The film ran very long, used a good deal of the Lakota language with subtitles, and was a Western at a time when the genre looked unfashionable. Plenty of people in the industry doubted it would work.

It earned seven Oscars, among them Best Picture and Best Director for Costner. He also starred in it as Lieutenant John Dunbar. Winning on a first attempt is uncommon, and he has kept directing since, including the Horizon film series.

Mel Gibson

Gibson was already a global star from Mad Max and Lethal Weapon when he directed Braveheart, released in 1995. He also played William Wallace, the Scottish rebel at the center of the story. Large scale battle scenes were the film’s signature, and he handled them with a hands on approach.

Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. His later directing work includes Hacksaw Ridge, which brought him another Best Director nomination. His public reputation has been complicated, but the Braveheart win remains a matter of record.

Warren Beatty

Beatty had been a leading man since Splendor in the Grass and Bonnie and Clyde, and he also worked as a producer and writer. With Reds, released in 1981, he took on a sprawling story about the American journalist John Reed and the Russian Revolution. He directed, produced, co wrote and starred, which was an enormous load for one person.

The film earned him the Best Director Oscar at the ceremony held in 1982. Reds received three Oscars in total. Beatty had been nominated for directing once before, for Heaven Can Wait, which he co directed with Buck Henry.

Ron Howard

Howard’s story starts unusually early. He was a child actor on The Andy Griffith Show, then played Richie Cunningham on Happy Days as a young adult. He moved into directing in the late 1970s and gradually built a reputation as a dependable, versatile filmmaker.

His big night came with A Beautiful Mind, released in 2001. The film won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Howard. Later films like Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon kept him in the awards conversation too.

Sydney Pollack

Pollack’s path began in acting. He studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and took on screen roles, then shifted toward directing in the 1960s. Even after he became a director, he kept appearing on screen now and then, including in Tootsie and Michael Clayton.

His Oscar came for Out of Africa, a 1985 romantic drama starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Pollack. He died in 2008, and the film remains the high point of a long and varied career.