Martin Scorsese finally won the Best Director Oscar at his sixth nomination (for “The Departed”), thus becoming one of the five oldest filmmakers to be recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Oldest Winners
Right now, the oldest winners are Roman Polanski, 69, who won the Oscar at his third nomination for “The Pianist,” in 2002, and George Cukor who was 65, when he won the Oscar for “My Fair Lady,” at his fifth nomination.
If you want to know more about the Oscars, please consult my book:
All About Oscar: History and Politics of the Academy Awards (hardcover, paperbak)
Youngest Directors
The youngest winners in the Academy annals are Damien Chazzelle, 32, for “La La Land,” and Norman Taurog, also 32, for “Skippy.”
Lewis Milestone was 33, when he won Best Comedy Director at the first year of the Oscars, for “Two Arabian Nights.”
Joining him that year was Frank Borzage, who was 35, for “Seventh Heaven.”
Other young achievers include Sam Mendes, 34, for “American Beauty,” in 1999.
My study shows that of the 69 Oscar-winning directors:
16 directors were in their 30s;
32 directors in their 40s;
16 directors in their 50s;
5 directors in their 60s.
Hence, if you want to predict the most prevalent age at winning the Best Director Oscar, stick close to 45:
About half of the winning directors were in their 40s.
The 5 oldest winners are atypical in many ways:
Roman Polanski began his career in Poland and foreign-born director tend to get recognition from their peers at a later age than their American counterparts.
Ditto for British-born Carol Reed, who was nominated twice, back-to-back, in 1949 for “The Fallen Idol,” and in 1950 for “The Third Man.” He won for an uncharacteristic movie genre, a musical, Oliver! At his third nomination.
George Cukor is one of most nominated directors in the Academy’s history, having been nominated five times, the first in 1933, at age 34, for “Little Women,” starring Katharine Hepburn. His other nominations are for “The Philadelphia Story” (1940), also starring Hepburn, “A Double Life (1947), and “Born Yesterday,” in 1950.
Martin Scorsese won at age 64 at his 6th nomination, for The Departed, in 2006.
The For Clint Eastwood, who’s 88, directing is sort of a second career, having begun his work in the industry as a screen and TV (“Rawhide”) actor; Eastwood made his debut in 1973, at the age of 43 with “Play Misty for Me.”
Oscar-winning Directors by Age Group
Early Thirtysomething: 30 to 34: 4
Lewis Milestone
Norman Taurog
Sam Mendes
Damien Chazelle
Late Thirtysomething: 35 to 39: 14
Frank Borzage
Frank Capra
Leo McCarey
Billy Wilder
Elia Kazan
Delbert Mann
Tony Richardson
Mike Nichols
William Friedkin
Francis Ford Coppola
Kevin Costner
Mel Gibson
Steven Soderbergh
Tom Hooper
Early Fortysomething: 40 to 44: 18
Frank Lloyd
John Ford
William Wyler
John Huston
Joseph Mankiewicz
Jerome Robbins (co-winner with Robert Wise)
John Schlesinger
John Avildsen
Woody Allen
Michael Cimino
Robert Redford
Warren Beatty
James L. Brooks
Oliver Stone
Robert Zemeckis
Anthony Minghella
James Cameron
Peter Jackson
Michel Hazanovicius
Late Fortysomething: 45 to 49: 13
George Stevens
Fred Zinnemann
David Lean
Robert Wise
Bob Fosse
Milos Forman
Robert Benton
Bernardo Bertolucci
Barry Levinson
Jonathan Demme
Steven Spielberg
Ron Howard
Fiftysomething: 50 to 59: 16
Victor Fleming
Michael Curtiz
Vincente Minnelli
Franklin Schaffner
George Roy Hill
Richard Attenborough
Sydney Pollack
Ang Lee
Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Danny Boyle
Kathryn Bigelow
Alfonso Cuaron
Alejandro Inarritu
Guillermo del Toro
Bong, Joon-ho (South Korean0)
Sixtysomething: 60 or Older: 5
George Cukor (won at fifth and last nomination)
Carol Reed (British won at third and last nomination)
Clint Eastwood (won at first nomination, began career as actor)
Roman Polanski (Polish director, won at third and last nomination)
Martin Scorsese (won at sixth nomination)
Notes
Many directors have won multiple Oscars. My study considers the age at which the filmmakers had won their first Oscar.
Only two Oscar-winning movies were co-directed: “West Side Story” in 1961 (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, who, by the end of the shoot, were not on speaking terms!), and “No Country for Old Men” in 2007. (brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen).
