20 Great Directors Who Never Won an Oscar (for Best Picture or Best Director)

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - April 7th 2025, 17:00 GMT+2

Cropped Alfred Hitchcock — Alfred Hitchcock

Oh, Alfred Hitchcock — the master of suspense, the king of voyeurism, and probably the only man who could turn Jimmy Stewart in a wheelchair into an action hero. *Rear Window* is a deliciously twisted ride through a Greenwich Village courtyard, complete with Grace Kelly climbing through windows in pearls and heels like a debutante Lara Croft. How this film didn’t earn him an Oscar remains one of Hollywood’s longest-running jokes — seriously, the man practically invented the modern thriller. And let’s not even get started on *Psycho* or *Vertigo*, which now receive far more critical love than they did when they were first released. Hitch never won an Oscar for Best Director or Best Picture, but he orchestrated suspense the way Mozart composed music. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped George Lucas — George Lucas

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas created a cinematic universe that became a religion for generations of nerds, dreamers, and action figure collectors. And yet... no Oscar for Best Director. *Star Wars: A New Hope*changed filmmaking forever with its groundbreaking special effects, its space opera storytelling, and Harrison Ford grinning his way into legend as Han Solo. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness — they all delivered lines that now feel tattooed onto the collective soul of the internet. Sure, Lucas got nominated, but *Annie Hall* beat him that year — which is either hilarious or tragic, depending on the color of your lightsaber.| © Lucasfilm Ltd.

Cropped Stanley Kubrick — Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick gave us *The Shining*, one of the most iconic horror films of all time — and the Academy responded with... silence? Jack Nicholson’s manic “Here’s Johnny!” is quoted more often than most Oscar-winning speeches. And Shelley Duvall deserved a statue just for surviving the production. Kubrick’s camera prowled through the Overlook Hotel like a ghost with a grudge, turning symmetrical hallways into psychological minefields. It’s absurd that *The Shining* didn’t even score major Oscar nominations, but hey, Kubrick probably just scared the Academy too much. He was playing 4D chess while everyone else was busy eating popcorn. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped Quentin Tarantino — Quentin Tarantino

Tarantino wrote a movie where John Travolta dances with Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson quotes the Bible before shooting someone, and Bruce Willis beats up a Gimp-wielding hillbilly. *Pulp Fiction* was the coolest film of the ’90s and probably the most imitated. Tarantino’s dialogue was so sharp it could have shaved Marcellus Wallace’s head. He won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, sure, but Best Director? Nope. Best Picture? Denied. He lost to *Forrest Gump*, which is sweet and all, but let’s be honest — Tarantino’s briefcase still shines brighter. | © Miramax Films

Cropped Tim Burton — Tim Burton

Tim Burton made a gothic fairytale about a soft-spoken boy with cutlery for fingers and somehow made it tender, tragic, and weirdly romantic. *Edward Scissorhands* gave Johnny Depp his most emo role long before Jack Sparrow swaggered onto the scene. And Winona Ryder floated around like a blonde angel in a suburban nightmare. The Academy said, “Cool look, bro,” and moved on. Burton’s flair for the oddball and macabre has always danced just outside Oscar’s comfort zone. But honestly, who needs a gold statue when you’ve got Vincent Price building robots in your attic? | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Alien — Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott gave us *Alien*, the sci-fi horror masterpiece where Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley became the undisputed queen of surviving interstellar terror – and the Academy responded with a polite golf clap. This movie redefined what horror could look like in space, introducing H.R. Giger’s nightmarish xenomorph to unsuspecting audiences and launching a franchise that’s still chest-bursting to this day. Let’s not forget *Blade Runner* or *Gladiator*, either – he directed that too, but lost Best Director *for his own movie that won Best Picture*. Classic Oscars move. Honestly, if Ridley ever wins, the real twist will be if it's not for something with sand, swords, or slimy aliens. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Fight Club — David Fincher

The first rule of the Oscars is: don’t talk about *Fight Club*. Because if you do, you’ll just get mad. David Fincher’s dark, brilliant, soap-splattered vision starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter was way ahead of its time – so much so that it freaked out critics and got zero love from the Academy. Fast-forward a couple decades and it's a certified cultural artifact. Fincher has flirted with Oscar gold (*The Social Network*, *Mank*, *Gone Girl*), but somehow always ends up as cinema’s most stylish runner-up. Maybe he needs a Fight Club sequel called *Academy Club*. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped The Grand Budapest Hotel — Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson's *The Grand Budapest Hotel* is basically an immaculately decorated pastry box of a movie – sugary sweet, a little melancholic, and filled with so many stars it’s practically a constellation. Ralph Fiennes is an absolute delight as M. Gustave, a concierge with more drama than an awards show, and he’s joined by a revolving door of Anderson regulars like Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, and Saoirse Ronan. The Academy tossed it a few technical awards, but nothing for Best Director or Best Picture, which is wild considering the whole movie feels like it was handcrafted for a golden statue. Maybe they just don’t like pink hotels. | © Fox Searchlight Pictures

Cropped citizen kane — Orson Welles

Orson Welles made *Citizen Kane* at 25 years old and basically broke cinema. The deep focus, the nonlinear storytelling, the mystery of “Rosebud” – it was revolutionary. And what did the Oscars do? Gave it one measly trophy for Best Original Screenplay. Welles lost Best Director *to John Ford* (a safe choice), and *Kane* lost Best Picture to *How Green Was My Valley*, a sentence that only film majors remember and still cry about. To this day, people call *Citizen Kane* the best film ever made – which is ironic, because the Academy treated it like a student project. | © RKO Pictures

Cropped Dune Part 2 — Denis Villeneuve

Denis Villeneuve turned Frank Herbert’s notoriously unfilmable *Dune* into an absolute sci-fi banger – twice. *Dune: Part Two* delivered IMAX-sized worm-riding, political betrayal, and Timothée Chalamet embracing his dark messiah phase like a gothic space Jesus. Throw in Zendaya doing cool knife stuff, Florence Pugh, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, and it’s a Gen Z fever dream of a space opera. Somehow, Villeneuve got snubbed again for Best Director, proving that the Academy still doesn’t really “get” sci-fi unless there are aliens playing violins or it’s made by Spielberg. Maybe Part Three will come with a pre-packaged Oscar in the spice. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped Paul Thomas Anderson — Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson gave us *There Will Be Blood*, a sweeping epic about capitalism, oil, and drinking milkshakes that felt like a 2.5-hour cinematic sermon delivered by Daniel Day-Lewis with the intensity of a volcano in a waistcoat. It lost Best Picture to *No Country for Old Men*, which – okay, fine – is also brilliant, but still. PTA has made a career of building complex, flawed characters played by heavyweights like Joaquin Phoenix (*The Master*), Julianne Moore (*Boogie Nights*), and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who practically lived in PTA’s cinematic universe. The man’s filmography is one long Oscar-worthy audition. What more do you want, Academy – a literal baptism in oil? | © Paramount Vantage

Cropped Federico Fellini — Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini practically turned self-indulgence into art with 8½, a surreal fever dream of a movie about a filmmaker (played by Marcello Mastroianni) who can’t make a movie. It's meta, it's magical, and it's the film students' North Star. Fellini won a few Oscars for Best Foreign Film, sure, but never the big kahuna – Best Director or Best Picture – even though he *basically invented* the auteur vibe before the term became a letterboxd tagline. His movies danced between reality and fantasy with the grace of a mime on a tightrope, and every director who’s ever shot a dream sequence probably owes him royalties. | © Cineriz

Cropped John Hughes — John Hughes

John Hughes never got an Oscar, and that’s criminal enough to get him Saturday detention with the *Breakfast Club*. *Ferris Bueller’s Day Off* is pure wish-fulfillment cinema: Matthew Broderick breaks the fourth wall, skips school, joyrides in a Ferrari, and somehow convinces every Chicagoan to dance in a parade. Hughes captured teenage angst and rebellion with so much heart and humor it still resonates decades later. Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy – his Brat Pack lineup shaped an era. Oscars may have ignored him, but his influence is baked into every coming-of-age movie since. Save Ferris? Nah, save the Academy’s dignity. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped Sidney Lumet — Sidney Lumet

Sidney Lumet made *12 Angry Men*, a black-and-white masterclass in tension and human morality, all set in one room and powered by Henry Fonda's slow-burn righteousness. It’s the kind of film that proves you don’t need explosions or CGI – just a script sharp enough to cut steel and a cast that knows how to boil under pressure. Lumet never won Best Director, despite also giving us *Dog Day Afternoon*, *Network*, and *Serpico*. The man could turn social decay into riveting drama like no one else. If there were an Oscar for “Director Most Likely to Change Your Belief System in Under 2 Hours,” Lumet would’ve swept it. | © United Artists

Cropped Sergio Leone — Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone didn’t just direct *The Good, the Bad and the Ugly –* he *composed* it, one grimy, dusty frame at a time, like a gunslinger poet with a wide-angle lens. With Clint Eastwood squinting his way into legend and Ennio Morricone’s whistling score haunting everyone’s dreams, Leone reinvented the Western and made it operatic. The Academy? Crickets. Not even a courtesy nod. The man gave us the concept of the “spaghetti western,” where bullets flew slower and staredowns lasted longer than most speeches. It’s ironic: Leone’s movies are timeless, but the Oscar voters clearly had somewhere else to be. | © United Artists

Cropped Ingmar Bergman — Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman made existential dread look stylish. In *The Seventh Seal*, Max von Sydow plays a knight who literally plays chess with Death. And somehow, it’s not silly – it’s poetic, haunting, and surprisingly funny in that deeply Swedish way. Bergman wrestled with God, mortality, and the meaning of life while most directors were still figuring out where to put the camera. His films (*Wild Strawberries*, *Persona*, *Fanny and Alexander*) are emotional deep-dives that should come with a philosophical guidebook. And yet, the Oscars ghosted him like a flaky first date. It's like awarding a coloring book over the Mona Lisa. | © Svensk Filmindustri

Cropped Michael Mann — Michael Mann

*Heat* is the movie that finally put Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in the same room, and for that alone Michael Mann should’ve gotten a lifetime achievement award with a bullet hole through it. The film is slick, brooding, and obsessed with professionalism in the way only Mann movies are. You’ve got Val Kilmer rocking a ponytail, a shootout that echoes like a war zone, and a heist genre elevated to high art. Mann’s style 2 cool blue tones, brooding men, neon-soaked loneliness – has influenced everything from *The Dark Knight* to *Drive*. But Oscar voters apparently prefer criminals who cry more and shoot less. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped Robert Altman — Robert Altman

Robert Altman’s *Nashville* is a 24-character, 5-day, country-music-fueled tapestry of American chaos. It’s like a cinematic juggling act where no ball ever drops, and somehow Lily Tomlin, Keith Carradine, and Jeff Goldblum all show up like it’s no big deal. Altman didn’t just direct – he orchestrated. Whether it was MASH*, *The Player*, or *Short Cuts*, he created layered worlds where conversations overlapped and plotlines collided like real life (but better lit). He got an honorary Oscar eventually, which is Academy code for, “Oops, our bad.” But we all know he should’ve walked off with the real thing in the ’70s. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped the truman show — Peter Weir

Peter Weir predicted the age of reality TV and surveillance culture with *The Truman Show*, starring Jim Carrey in arguably his most beautifully restrained performance – no talking butt cheeks in sight. Ed Harris plays the godlike director pulling Truman’s strings, and the whole thing is so emotionally on point it feels like a pastel-colored Twilight Zone. Weir also gave us *Dead Poets Society* and *Witness*, proving he had a knack for heart-stirring drama with just enough edge to make you uncomfortable. But still – no Oscar. Maybe if Truman had been mauled by a bear or hallucinated a ghost, the Academy would’ve paid attention. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped Arthur Penn — Arthur Penn

Arthur Penn’s *Bonnie and Clyde* changed everything. It turned Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway into outlaw royalty, romanticized crime with slow-motion bloodshed, and basically kicked off the New Hollywood era. The Academy was so scandalized at first, it barely knew what to do – but the movie was too iconic to ignore forever. Still, Penn walked away Oscar-less, despite also directing *Little Big Man* and *The Miracle Worker*. His influence is undeniable, even if the only golden thing he got was the glint of sunlight off Clyde’s getaway car. Oscars may not always know what’s cool – but Arthur Penn sure did. | © Warner Bros.

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Hollywood has long been home to some of the most visionary filmmakers in the world – but not all of them have received the recognition they deserve. In this article, we’re diving into 20 of the best directors who never won an Oscar for Best Picture or Best Director. Despite crafting critically acclaimed masterpieces, influencing generations of filmmakers, and shaping the art of cinema, these directors were overlooked by the Academy in its top two categories. Whether due to tough competition, controversial subject matter, or simply bad luck, their Oscar snubs remain some of the most talked-about in film history. From international auteurs to American icons, here are the masters of cinema the Oscars missed.