The Best Director race has yielded some of the most satisfying wins in recent memory. Longtime filmmakers, such as Sean Baker, Christoper Nolan, Bong Joon-ho, and Guillermo del Toro, received their flowers as a culmination of their careers and what they meant to the industry as movie-makers, accumulating an audience of devout fans and critical praise. This year, one of our most beloved directors may find himself in a similar conversation. Hint: all those directors’ films also won Best Picture.

Will An Industry Vet Get His Flowers?

After eleven Oscar nominations, it appears it’s time for Paul Thomas Anderson to win his first Best Director Oscar for One Battle After Another, much like Spielberg, Nolan, and Scorsese, who, after a long career of delivering genius, crowd-pleasing cinematic brushstrokes after another, it was fitting that the biggest and most acclaimed film of their careers would net them Oscars for Best Director. Anderson may soon find himself among the lineage of this thread, which could win him the gold. 

In what could be his most accessible film, the auteur has had his work cut out, garnering three Director nominations since his masterful There Will Be Blood from 2007. One Battle is his chance to showcase his talents to a larger audience, as Warner Bros has committed to 3,500 screens, including VistaVision premium screenings. It’s the largest canvas he’s tackled in his respected career, and a testament to remaining one of our most uncompromising artists who has had the opportunity to make the biggest and most beloved film of his career.

A recent winner returns, as Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet is catapulting her shots to winning a second Oscar (the first for a female director). Her tender, understated direction, perfectly suited to the meditative drama Nomadland, seems to have translated this meta-fictional take of Shakespeare and Hamlet into a powerhouse ode to grief and parental loss, transfiguring art, with Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal giving career-best performances. Critical and audience scores are high for what is a tragic film, yet the raw emotionality can be attributed to Zhao’s direction, making Hamnet a top contender at the Oscars.

Still from Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet,’ Credit to Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features

Let’s Not Forget Our First Contender in the Year

Let’s not forget Ryan Coogler for his Southern Gothic drama, Sinners. Perhaps the most successful intersection of art and commerce—an original, big-budgeted film from a respected artist who gambled big and reaped the rewards. Sinners was a box office, critical, and fan-favorite phenomenon. It’s been hard for directors behind populist films to receive a Director nomination. Denis Villeneuve (Dune), Greta Gerwig (Barbie), Ben Affleck (Argo), Ridley Scott (The Martian), and even Christopher Nolan (Inception) failed nominations, despite hitting the majority of precursors. 

Coogler may fare better due to his film not having any attachments to previously established brands/source material. The personal value in Sinners’ storytelling, and the publicized deal of regaining ownership of the film rights, all contribute to Coogler demonstrating his artistic authorship of a project that was a risky gamble but paid off immensely as one of the biggest cinematic events of the year.

Coogler has yet to receive a nomination, despite making some of the biggest films in the industry, including Black Panther (2018), which became the first superhero film nominated for Best Picture. He would become only the seventh black director ever nominated, the last one being Spike Lee for BlackKkKlansmen (2018), yet no winners. Should Sinners be recognized in every category with a nomination, except for Director, it would be a glaring blemish for a branch that only nominated its first black director in 1992 for John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood.

Still from Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners,’ Credit to Warner Bros.

Best Director Branch and the Expanded International Academy

In recent years, as the Academy has expanded its membership to include more international members, the Best Director lineup has become more inclusive of filmmakers who embody a broader range of artistic sensibilities. Last year, every nominee (and the winner, Sean Baker) premiered their film at Cannes and Venice, two of the most highly-regarded international film festivals. For the 2024 lineup, every nominee except for the winner, Christopher Nolan, premiered their film at either festival. The Director’s branch has aligned with artists such as Yorgos Lanthimos, Justine Triet, Jonathan Glazer, Brady Corbet, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Todd Field, Coralie Fargeat, and Jacques Audiard. Directors, who premiered their films for an international audience, are regarded as auteurs and whose voices resonate with the more cinephile taste of the branch. And it’s not coincidental that their films were top Oscar contenders for their respective years.

Why is this important? This year, Jafar Panahi won the Palme d’Or for It Was Just an Accident (In the last six years, five directors who have won the Palme were nominated for Best Director); Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value won the Grand Prix; and Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice won the International TIFF Audience award. All three are distributed by Neon, whose lucky streak of betting on Palme d’Or winners and non-English language films has paid off in two Best Picture and Director wins. In short, it is smart to bet on a film campaigned by Neon; the issue is that they have too many contenders, one or two may miss out on a nomination. All three films have exceptional critical and audience scores, heralded by celebrated directors whose fans feel it is their time for Oscar recognition. 

The last time a distributor succeeded with two director nominations was Lionsgate for the 2017 Oscars, with Damien Chazelle and Mel Gibson. Panahi’s Palme win has the best translation for a nomination, as four of the past five Palme winners have garnered Best Director nominations. Chan-wook’s No Other Choice has the most universal praise for its social relevance, commenting on economic struggles, job loss, and AI, while balancing dark comedic satire. Trier’s is a more personal and intimate family drama with the best likelihood of receiving acting and writing nominations.

Still from Jafar Panahi’s ‘It Was Just An Accident’

Other Contenders and Final Thoughts

And this isn’t considering previous winners in Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, both by Netflix, a master campaigner for established directors, having won twice in this category for Alfonso Cuarón and Jane Campion. Both films have an interesting mix of critical and fan positives. Frankenstein could help del Toro in terms of being a long-gestating passion project that is a singular vision from a master with a visionary touch from top to bottom. 

And we still have some of our fall contenders to grapple with, such as Josh Safdie’s ping-poing epic, Marty Supreme. A24 is no stranger to Best Director nominations, as eight of their nine Best Picture nominations have correlated to a Director nomination, starting with 2015’s Room all the way up to 2024’s The Brutalist, with Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) being their only winner in the category. Even though 2023’s Past Lives couldn’t bring Celine Song a Director nomination, their main contender that year, The Zone of Interest, nabbed a nomination for Jonathan Glazer. Should Supreme be a major contender come December (which I suspect it will be) and A24 executes an effective campaign (which they always do for their main contender), it shouldn’t be surprising that Safdie will receive a nomination for helming what is the most expensive original project from A24 that is part historical biopic and enveloping drama. 

The Best Director Branch is quite a finicky bunch to predict. Though their sensibilities have veered to being more inclusive to non-English, international auteurs, it’s still reliable to go with the top five Best Picture contenders breaking in, with some caveats like Paul Thomas Anderson getting in for Licorice Pizza, even though it was not a top-five contender. Similar to Ruben Östlund’s surprise nomination for Triangle of Sadness. Their films weren’t going to win Best Picture, but their sensibilities, along with their acclaim and stature, perfectly aligned with the branch that favors previous nominees who purport their uncompromising visions. We may find ourselves in similar waters, where three of our director nominees are behind top Oscar contenders, and the fifth slot may make room for a respected filmmaker who hasn’t been nominated before. 

Here are my October predictions for the 2026 Oscar Nominations in Best Director:

  1. Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another
  2. Chloe Zhao – Hamnet
  3. Ryan Coogler – Sinners
  4. Jafar Panahi – It Was Just an Accident
  5. Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme

Alternatives:

  1. Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value
  2. Park Chan-wook – No Other Choice 
  3. Guillermo del Toro – Frankenstein
  4. Kathryn Bigelow – A House of Dynamite
  5. Yorgos Lanthimos – Bugonia

Analysis Courtesy of Amritpal Rai

Feature Image Credit to Merrick Morton/Warner Bros. via IMDB