The Top Five Winners of the Best Director Academy Award

With the 82nd Academy Awards only weeks away, the world waits for the announcement of this year's award for Best Director. This Academy honor has been a tradition of the Oscars for over 80 years and has been coveted by many. While winning an Oscar for Best Director is a great achievement, here are some of the people, who have earned the honor more than once.

1. John Ford

Born near the end of the nineteenth century, John Ford loved films. With a career spanning five decades, he directed over 140 films. He was admired by his colleagues and influenced some of the greatest directors of all time. Ford began his career in silent films and emerged as one of the film industry's pioneers.

In his career, John Ford was nominated five times by the Academy. He received four Oscars for Best Directing which is a record for the Academy Awards. His wins came from such amazing works as The Informer (1935), Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952).

Ford was a remarkable man, who continued to make films through the late 1960s, including the classic the Man Who Shot Liberty Vance. He was honored for his personal commitments and courage with numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

2. William Wyler

Few directors in the history of American filmmaking could claim the success that belongs to William Wyler. While most may know of Orson Welles or Cecile B. DeMille, the name of William Wyler is not as well recognized. But, his work is.

Wyler's career spanned almost five decades. No other director in the history of the Academy has received more Best Director nominations. He holds the record at 12 nominations. His body of work includes such classic films as Wuthering Heights, Roman Holiday and The Little Foxes. However, he earned his Best Director nods for Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best of Our Lives (1946) and Ben Hur (1959.)

Born Wilhelm Weiller, this young Jewish immigrant also became influential in Hollywood. In his career, he directed nearly 70 films and earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1976.

3. Frank Capra

Frank Capra was the man who gave us the timeless classics Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It's A Wonderful Life (1946) which earned him Oscar nominations. However, it was his work on It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and You Can't Take it With You (1938.)

Capra's work always convey a deep belief in the ultimate goodness of people. His films are considered some of the best American films of all time. He was honored, in 1982, with a salute by the American Film Institute and earned his Medal of the Arts in 1986, just 5 years before his death at age 94.

4. Billy Wilder

Nicknamed the Viennesse Pixie, Billy Wilder would wow Hollywood with his incredible talent for writing and directing. He has countless Golden Globe, WGA and DGA awards and nominations. As for Oscars, he had been nominated seven times as Best Director and won twice for his films The Lost Weekend (1946) and The Apartment (1961).

While he earned two Best Director Awards, he had earned four others. Three Oscars for Best Writing (The Lost Weekend, The Apartment and Sunset Boulevard) and one for Best Picture (The Apartment.) Wilder also received the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1988.

5. David Lean and Fred Zinnemann (tie)

Britain offered great gifts to American cinema. One of those gifts was Director David Lean. Lean began his career in film in 1927 and by the time of his death in 1991, he had offered works that were majestic and moving. He directed such notable films as Dr. Zhivago (1965) and A Passage to India (1984); however, it was for Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957) that Lean won his Oscars.

Fred Zimmerman is famous for say that I'm not in pictures to promote my private personality. I'm in it for the joy of it." From his work, which included High Noon, it's clear that he really loves film. He directed the film debuts of such greats as Oscar winners Meryl Strepp and Marlon Brando. In his career, he earned eight Oscar nominations and won twice for Best Director. His winning films were A Man for All Seasons (1966) and From Here to Eternity (1954.) He earned two other Oscars. One for the documentary film Benjy (1951) and a Best Picture statuette for A Man For All Seasons.

Honorable Mentions

There are a number of directors, who have won two Oscars for best directing. They include Frank Borzage, Clint Eastwood, Milos Forman, Frank Lloyd, Elia Kazan, Joseph Mankiewicz, Leo McCarey, Lewis Milestone, Steven Spielberg, and Oliver Stone. And many more are still making great films.

For the people who share their cinematic vision with all of us, a Best Director Oscar is the highest honor Hollywood can bestow. Over the eight plus decades that the Academy Awards have been offered, several gifted men and women have been nominated. Only time will tell if the legacy of these film greats will be replaced by the works of younger filmmakers.

For More information regarding, the Academy Awards and the Best Director winners, check out the following websites:

http://www.williamwyler.com/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000697/bio

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000180/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003593/

http://www.filmsite.org/bestdirs.html