Martin Scorsese has now received the most Academy Award nominations of any living director. On Tuesday, the director received his 10th Best Director nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon, breaking the record previously held by Steven Spielberg.
With The Departed, Martin Scorsese received his only Academy Award for Best Director in 2006. For his work in Raging Bull, he received his first nomination in the same category in 1980. Since then, the director has been recognized for his work on Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, Goodfellas, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Irishman. Scorsese’s competition in this category this year includes Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest, Yorgos Lanthimos for Poor Things, Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer and Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall.
Steven Spielberg has been nominated for Best Director nine times. He received his first nomination for Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 and was most recently nominated for The Fabelmans in 2022. He has won the award twice, for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. William Wyler holds the record for the most nominations in this category with twelve. He died in 1981.
In addition to Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role (Lily Gladstone), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Robert Downey Jr.), Best Editing and Best Original Song, Killers of the Flower Moon received 10 Oscar nominations for the 96th Academy Awards.