The Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director usually move together. Of the 98 films that have won Best Picture, 71 have also been awarded Best Director. A film winning the top prize while its director sits out the nominations is rare.
Strictly speaking, that has happened only six times. This list covers all six in order. It then adds two close calls, winners whose directors were nominated but lost, because they show how narrow the gap can be.
Wings (1927/28)
The first Best Picture winner in Oscar history is also the first one on this list. William A. Wellman’s Wings is a WWI drama about two young men, one rich and one middle class, who love the same woman before becoming pilots. The film is remembered for its air combat sequences.
Wellman was left out of the directing race even though the first ceremony had two categories. There was a Best Director award for both comedy and drama, and Wings missed both. Frank Borzage and Lewis Milestone took those prizes.
Grand Hotel (1931/32)
Grand Hotel follows a group of very different guests in a luxurious Berlin hotel. It’s one of the very few films to win Best Picture without any acting nominations. That’s surprising given its cast, which included Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford.
Edmund Goulding directed it. Edmund Goulding was not nominated for Best Director, while Frank Borzage won that year for Bad Girl. The film’s only Oscar nomination was for Best Picture, which it won.
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
For decades, this was the film people pointed to as the modern example. It received nine nominations at the 62nd Academy Awards, the most of any film that year, but none for director Bruce Beresford. It’s a quiet story about an elderly Southern woman and her driver.
The directing race that year was oddly lopsided. Only three of the five Best Picture nominees had matching Best Director nominations, and Oliver Stone won for Born on the Fourth of July. Driving Miss Daisy still took the biggest prize.
Argo (2012)
Ben Affleck’s Cold War thriller built its awards run on momentum, even without a directing nomination. Affleck was snubbed in the Best Director category, which left 84 years of Oscar history standing against the film. Many commentators doubted it could still win.
It did. Argo won three awards, including Best Picture, and was the first film to win Best Picture without its director nominated since Driving Miss Daisy. It was the fourth film ever to do so. Ang Lee won Best Director that night for Life of Pi.
Green Book (2018)
Peter Farrelly’s road drama, about a pianist and his driver touring the segregated South in the early 1960s, became the fifth film to win Best Picture without a directing nomination. It also won Oscars for Mahershala Ali in a supporting role and for its original screenplay. Farrelly was not among the directing nominees.
Alfonso Cuarón won Best Director that year for Roma. Green Book has remained a debated winner since, partly because of how the Academy’s top two awards split. It’s a clear case of a film beloved by voters at large but not by the directors’ branch.
CODA (2021)
CODA is the most recent film to join this group. Siân Heder’s story follows a hearing teenager in a deaf family of fishermen. Its Best Picture win came as the panic over the COVID-19 pandemic was just dying down, and it was surprising but refreshing.
Troy Kotsur won Best Supporting Actor for the film, and it also took the adapted screenplay Oscar. Heder wasn’t nominated for directing, though her writing was honored. The film’s three wins matched its three nominations.
12 Years a Slave (2013), a Close Call
This one doesn’t count as a true snub, but it’s worth setting beside the others. Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave beat Gravity for Best Picture but did not win Best Director. McQueen was nominated, though.
Alfonso Cuarón took the directing award for Gravity. The split shows the more common outcome when the two categories disagree. A director is recognized, yet the Academy as a whole prefers another film.
Moonlight (2016), a Close Call
Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is the second close call. It beat La La Land for Best Picture, while Barry Jenkins did not win Best Director. Jenkins was nominated for directing, so it falls outside the strict list.
Damien Chazelle won Best Director for La La Land. That night became one of the most talked about in Oscar history because of the Best Picture envelope mix up. In the end, the award for the film went to Moonlight.
