Countdown to the Oscars: Best Director

Welcome to this year’s edition of Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, where we will break down each of the 23 categories, analyze the films, and make some guesses at their awards prospects.

Best Director

The nominees are:

Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest

Yorgos Lanthimos for Poor Things

Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer

Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall

Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest

Glazer is one of the most fascinating filmmakers of the 21st century. He has made just four features in 24 years. Each one of them is a penetrating psychodrama largely about humanity’s worst impulses. He’s also probably most recognizable as the director of the landmark music video for Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity,” one of the defining videos of the ‘90s.

The Zone of Interest is exactly the kind of film the Directors Branch of the Academy likes to nominate in that Glazer’s directorial stamp is all over it. Films are, of course, collaborative, and the acting, sound design, production design, cinematography, and everything else on this picture are superb, but there is not a frame in this movie that does not have Glazer’s authorial hand guiding it. It’s a Holocaust movie, and it’s an experimental art picture, but it’s also a probing domestic drama. Only Glazer could make all of those things fit into one package and make that package as perfect as this.

Yorgos Lanthimos for Poor Things

Lanthimos is one of the giants of international cinema right now and one of my favorite filmmakers working today. He broke into the public consciousness with his second solo feature, 2009’s Dogtooth, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. He pretty quickly made the leap to English-language features with 2015’s magnificent The Lobster, and his recent creative partnership with Emma Stone seems to have been invigorating for both. Every time she accepts an award for this film, she credits her friend “Yorgo” with bringing out the best in her.

Poor Things is a Lanthimos film, through and through. It is highly stylized, darkly funny, and sometimes just plain weird in the best ways. But, it may also be evidence that Lanthimos is lightening up a little bit. Films like Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer have had laughs, but they have always been couched in a weary despair, a bleakness that reminds of Lars Von Trier, among others. Poor Things, on the other hand, offers a joy of discovery, a wonderment that his other films lack, a note of hope that maybe this world could be a little better. It’s an interesting color on Lanthimos. I think I like it.

Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer

A Nolan Oscar win has felt inevitable for quite some time now, and I don’t just mean for Oppenheimer specifically. I mean the general air around Nolan is that he is the kind of filmmaker who should have an Academy Award. He represents exactly what the Academy and the industry at large want to be. He is a filmmaker who makes smart, critically acclaimed work that makes a ton of money every single time out, a perfect nexus between art and commerce. 

Oppenheimer is the apex of that experience: a three-hour historical drama that asks serious questions about war, science, and humanity’s capacity for violence but one which also made just shy of a billion dollars at the global box office. Perhaps it goes without saying that it is also superbly mounted, an epic tale that makes space for real human drama. It’s a truly remarkable achievement.

Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

This makes an even 10 Best Director nominations for Martin Scorsese, breaking a tie with Steven Spielberg as the most nominated living director. Woody Allen is sitting at seven, and those are the only three living directors with more than even four nominations. It’s an exclusive club, is what I’m saying, and Scorsese sits at the head of the table. William Wyler is the most nominated director ever with 12. It’s not off the table for Scorsese to get there, but let’s not get greedy. It’s enough to appreciate what’s right in front of us.

And, what’s right in front of us is one of the greatest filmographies of any American director in the history of the medium. Here are some of the movies he was not nominated for Best Director for: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, After Hours, Cape Fear, and Silence. Any one of those would be the best film on almost any other director’s resumé. That’s not even to mention Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed, or The Wolf of Wall Street.

The point is that we have to stop ourselves from getting complacent with a director like Scorsese – or, I should say, with Scorsese; there are no other directors like Scorsese. Killers of the Flower Moon is a masterpiece. It’s not normal for a director just to be churning out masterpieces. This is special in a way we are unlikely ever to see again. It’s an event. It’s a privilege to live at a time when he is making new movies. It’s important that we acknowledge that.

Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall

Lina Wertmüller. Jane Campion. Sofia Coppola. Kathryn Bigelow. Greta Gerwig. Chloé Zhao. Emerald Fennell. Triet. Those are the eight women ever nominated for Best Director. Hopefully, in the near future, the list will be too long to include without looking foolish. As always, it also feels fair to point out that Zhao is the only woman of color on the list, and among the six black directors ever nominated for this award, none has been a woman.

The honor is well-deserved for Triet, who also joined Campion in 2023 as the only women ever to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Anatomy of a Fall is a masterwork of tension and storytelling, one of the finest courtroom dramas ever made, and a brilliant psychological thriller. It’s the kind of calling card a director can point to for the rest of her career and say, ‘If you give me what I need, I can give you one of these.’

The final analysis

It’s a little surprising that this is just Nolan’s second nomination for Best Director, given his status within the industry, but I think there’s a part of the Academy that has always been a little wary of the director’s weirder impulses. Films like The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar perhaps veered too closely to science-fiction for the high-minded Directors Branch. Even with the respectability Nolan lends them, superhero movies like the Dark Knight trilogy are outside the Academy’s wheelhouse.

No, they needed him to make something like Oppenheimer to feel comfortable fully embracing him. Well, he has made that now. And, here they are, ready to fully embrace him. It’s his time.

Will win: Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer

Should win: Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

Should have been here: Emerald Fennell for Saltburn

A note about my favorite snub: I could have gone with Gerwig here, too, or Radu Jude for Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, but it feels like Saltburn got a bad rap from the beginning. Critics thought it was beneath them and kind of buried it, apart from the many internet memes it inspired. The Academy didn’t bite. It seems in some circles, it’s almost embarrassing to admit you like this candy-coated thriller. That’s, of course, silly. Like what you like. I like Saltburn, and Fennell has the goods. And when the tide turns on this movie in five years and folks try to claim they were on board from the beginning, don’t let them forget how they missed the boat.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Director

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Director

The nominees are:

Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once

Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans

Todd Field for TÁR

Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness

From 1960-1999, a span of 40 years, Best Picture and Best Director split just four times. Mike Nichols won Director for The Graduate in 1967, when In the Heat of the Night won Picture. Bob Fosse won Director in 1972 for Cabaret, beating out Francis Ford Coppola for his Best Picture-winning The Godfather. In 1981, Warren Beatty won Director for Reds, which lost Picture to Chariots of Fire. And, in 1989, Oliver Stone won his second directing Oscar for Born on the Fourth of July but lost Picture to the ever-controversial Driving Miss Daisy. That’s it. Four times in 40 years.

Since 2000, it has happened nine times, six in the past 10 years. I am not sure exactly what explains that shift. As we have discussed in previous years, splits tend to happen when there is a film voters admire but don’t love in the race, going up against a film they love but which maybe doesn’t display the same technical prowess. La La Land vs. Moonlight. The Revenant vs. Spotlight. The Power of the Dog vs. CODA, etc. This tends to hold pretty true.

They match when the well loved film can also boast some sterling crafts achievements, such as Birdman, The Shape of Water, and Nomadland. But, even then, movies don’t tend to win big anymore. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King tied the all-time record with 11 Oscars in 2003. Since then, the highest totals came in 2008, when Slumdog Millionaire won eight awards, and 2009, when The Hurt Locker won six. Since 2012, no Best Picture winner has won more than four awards. That likely ends this year. Right now, the only question with Everything Everywhere All at Once is: How high can it go?

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once – Winning this award will make Kwan and Schinert the sixth- and eighth-youngest directing winners in history, respectively (Kwan is roughly eight months younger). Coincidentally, sandwiched between them at No. 7 on the list will be Lewis Milestone, who was 35 years, 36 days old when he won his second Best Director trophy for All Quiet on the Western Front. Kwan will be 35 years, 30 days old on Oscars Sunday. 

Milestone will remain the third-youngest winner, having won his first award just before his 34th birthday. Damien Chazelle sits at the top of that list, being roughly seven months younger than Norman Taurog was when he won for Skippy in 1931. Taurog held the record for 85 years before Chazelle came along with La La Land. Anyway, the Daniels. Usually, a Best Director Oscar gives you the freedom to do whatever you want the next time out, but if Swiss Army Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once don’t represent them doing whatever they want, then I can’t even imagine what it is they want to do. But, it sure will be interesting to see whatever it is.

Todd Field for TÁR – If you haven’t noticed, I am just so happy to have Todd Field back and directing movies again. It was a long wait between Little Children in 2006 and this, but it was worth it because Field came back with a masterpiece. It is an undeniable work, announcing its brilliance from the very beginning with a wild gambit: opening with the full credits, run in reverse. Instantly, we are made aware this will be unlike any movie we have ever seen.

Field then delivers on that promise over and over again. It’s not just the precision of the camerawork or the propulsive rhythm of the storytelling or the high-wire balancing act of character and tone. It is the way Field orchestrates all of them, conducting his film like Lydia Tár might conduct a symphony except that Field is very real and the results are plain as day for anyone to see. If you want to call this a comeback film, then it is the greatest comeback film ever made. Let’s just hope the next one comes a little quicker.

Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans – Spielberg is already part of a lot of Oscars history. For instance, with this nomination, his ninth, he ties Martin Scorsese for the second-most nominated director of all time, three behind William Wyler. An interesting tidbit I found: Spielberg was already on the list of 32 directors nominated in consecutive years when he achieved the feat for Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 and ET: The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. Now, after being nominated last year for West Side Story and this year, he joins the list of eight directors who have achieved the feat twice or more.

I’ll give you that list, in addition to Spielberg: Wyler was nominated four years in a row from 1939-1942; John Ford (1939-1941) and John Huston (1950-1952) were each nominated in three consecutive years; Billy Wilder achieved the double three times; and Clarence Brown, Frank Capra, and Fred Zinneman did it twice. If we’re playing “one of these things is not like the other things,” I’ll admit I had never heard of Clarence Brown. He’s actually a six-time nominee, good for eighth all time. Of those, I have heard of but never seen National Velvet and The Yearling, and the other four I have never even heard of. A knowledge gap I’ll need to rectify.

As far as Spielberg and The Fabelmans, the master still has his fastball, as they say. No films look like Spielberg films. No one moves the camera like he does, with due credit to his longtime cinematographer Janusz Kamiński. There is something classical about the feel to everything he does, which suits this material well. I wouldn’t call it my favorite Spielberg film of recent vintage, but there is no mistaking what makes the legend a legend.

Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin – McDonagh gets unfairly painted as only a writer in certain film circles. It is true that his screenplays are second to none, but it is not true that he lacks a visual flair or a directorial stamp. On the contrary, his work reminds me most of ‘70s Terrence Mallick or William Friedkin: gritty but gorgeous. Everything is purposeful but never feels overplanned. Camera movements flow effortlessly, motivated by plot and character.

Coming from the stage, as he does, he is of course an actors’ director. Between this and his previous film, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, he has directed six different actors to nominations, garnering recognition in each of the four acting categories at the Oscars. That’s not an accident. The Banshees of Inisherin only works as well as it does because McDonagh is a smart, insightful director, in addition to being one of the great film writers of our time.

Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness – This is what most Oscars watchers would call the wild card slot. It’s the fifth Best Director nominee that always feels like a one-for-us nod from the Directors Branch. In recent years, that has mostly meant recognition for foreign auteurs making critically acclaimed arthouse pictures. Last year, that would have been Ryusuke Hamaguchi for Drive My Car. In 2020, Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round. Bong Joon-ho won it all from that position in 2019 with Parasite. In 2018, we got Paweł Pawlikowski with Cold War.

This time around, it’s Östlund’s turn with his Best Picture-nominated satire Triangle of Sadness. It’s likely Östlund’s fans, myself included, are more excited for this nomination than the Swedish auteur himself is, considering he is coming off winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes for this very film. That was his second Palme in as many features, an even shorter list than the one we talked about above with Spielberg. Triangle of Sadness is an excellent film, wonderfully directed by a world cinema master at peak form. Gotta love the Directors Branch for bringing him to the show.

The final analysis

The Daniels are just the fifth directing pair in history to be nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards. They will be the third pair to win, following Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story in 1961 and Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men in 2007. 

I could pretend like there’s some competition in this race, but there’s not really even a whiff of it in the air. Like the Coen Brothers before them, there is every likelihood the Daniels will win three awards on the big night: Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay. It’s a helluva coming out party for a duo with just one previous feature on their resumé.

Will win: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once

Should win: Todd Field for TÁR

Should have been here: Sarah Polley for Women Talking

A note about my favorite snub: There couldn’t be anything else here. Women Talking is the best film of the year, and apart from perhaps Todd Field’s work on Tár, it is also the best directed. From the color palette to the performances, to the way the camera soars in and out of certain sequences, Polley’s work is first in its class, and she deserved to join that all-too-short list of women nominated for Best Director.

Next time: Best Actor

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Director

Best Director nominee Denis Villeneuve (left), with Amy Adams, on the set of Arrival.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Director

The nominees are:

Damien Chazelle for La La Land

Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge

Barry Jenkins for Moonlight

Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea

Denis Villeneuve for Arrival

More than any other award, Best Director feels like a coronation. It is the honor that says: Welcome to the club, you are one of us. Four of these men – and once again, they are all men, for the 85th time in 89 years – are first-time nominees in this category. An Oscar is the greatest encouragement the Academy can give, a promise from members they find value in your work and wish to support it.

For the fifth nominee, though, the only one in this group who is an Oscar winner already, a victory here would mean something far different. Gibson’s exile from the Hollywood mainstream was entirely of his own making. We are all familiar with the multiple vile, racist, misogynist outbursts that made him a pariah in cinema circles. His name will forever be attached to that ugliness, and even now, more than a decade later, the question remains whether we can forgive his trespasses. This nomination suggests an answer, but an Oscar win would be the definitive statement of forgiveness from a town that once loved him so.

Damien Chazelle for La La Land – The “it” director of the moment is Chazelle, whose blockbuster musical drama has taken Hollywood by storm and enchanted the movie-going public at a time in our culture when enchantment is in short supply. In some ways, this has felt preordained since Chazelle hit the scene with his Oscar-winning triumph Whiplash two years ago. Once that film took home three trophies, it was clear Chazelle was working firmly in the Academy’s wheelhouse. Fast forward to today, and that assessment looks as on point as ever.

None of the adulation is undeserved, as the 32-year-old wunderkind has demonstrated a remarkable facility for devising ingenious individual sequences and cobbling those moments into a wonderful whole. This is the biggest canvas he has had to paint on yet, and the result is, to borrow a word from the film’s advertising, magic. Combining technically masterful long-take musical numbers that leave audiences gaping in wonder with a story that is as much an ode to the artistic process as it is a romance, Chazelle crafts a film that feels both utterly original and achingly familiar. It is like a half-remembered dream to which you always wished to return, and Chazelle possesses the wizardry to take you there.

La La Land amazes with the sheer audacity of producing an old-school Hollywood movie musical for today’s world. It works because it plays equally well to dreamers and cynics, offering validation to the hopeful and disaffected alike. Chazelle puts his heart, soul, and every ounce of talent into this thing, and as long as Hollywood does not steal him away to make the next big superhero movie, it seems like he has much more of himself to give.

Barry Jenkins for Moonlight – If anyone were to challenge Chazelle for the prize, it would be Jenkins for a film that could not be more different from La La Land. You have never seen a movie like Moonlight. It is a coming-of-age tale that asks you to see yourself in someone who likely could not be more different from you. Few of us know firsthand the trials Little/Chiron/Black faces in his life, but Jenkins does, and through him, we are able to empathize with the character’s experience.

One would not think a moody, contemplative film about a world so far removed from most of us could be this engaging, this enthralling, and this magnificent. Moonlight, which is ultimately a film about subverting expectations, subverts the expectations of the audience. Perhaps you have heard it is sad or slow, or perhaps you believe it will not appeal to you. Well, it is not sad; on the contrary, it is quietly triumphant. Slow is a matter of patience and willingness, and no film is slow that is guided by as sure and steady hands as these. Whether it will appeal to you is simply a question of whether you are able to feel sympathy and understanding for someone not like yourself.

All of this is to say Jenkins has made a perfect film, and his greatest success is forcing the audience to meet him where he wants to go. This is not an easy film – no great art is – but it is a necessary, poignant reminder of the joys and sorrows of people we never see. Everything flows from Jenkins, who guides Moonlight along a path that is sometimes shocking in its honesty, often aching in its beauty, and always leading toward transcendence.

Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea – Lonergan earned his master of fine arts degree in dramatic writing. He is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright. He is a three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay, including this year for this film. It is safe to safe Lonergan is best known as a writer and, more than that, a writer of deeply humanistic dramas about finding connections in those closest to us. On this account, Manchester by the Sea is firmly within his wheelhouse.

What is not often spoken of is Lonergan the director, particularly as a guider of performances. Manchester by the Sea is the only film this year with three acting nominations to its credit, and yes, the performers are wonderful and talented, but it takes a specific kind of director to coax such tremendous work from a cast. Whatever that specific skill is, Lonergan is clearly possessed of it. This is most evidenced by the performance he draws out of young actor Lucas Hedges, who at 19 years old and in just his ninth big-screen appearance, sets a bar that will be hard to clear for his young peers.

The direction of the film is what one might call unfussy. Lonergan mostly hangs back and lets the words and performances do the heavy lifting, which is of course the right call for the material. When it comes time to show off, Lonergan and his able crew, including cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes, are more than game. But in a film about repressed emotions, it is Lonergan’s restraint as a director that reveals his ultimate strength.

Denis Villeneuve for Arrival – The Quebecois director has been making films for more than 20 years, but he has rocketed to fame in the last six or seven. After directing the Best Foreign Language Film nominee Incendies in 2010, he made the jump to big Hollywood features with Prisoners, which though I found it tiresome was highly regarded. He also made the critically adored mindbender Enemy and the popular, Oscar-nominated Sicario, which was released last year.

I have been in the minority on his films, finding them self-conscious, macho, and didactic – at least, his most recent few features. For me, Arrival is his first English-language feature truly worthy of the praise heaped upon it. Villeneuve directs the science-fiction epic like a low-key character study, letting the audience become invested in the plot through the people, not the action. There is some self-conscious flashiness here, but it feels of a piece with the story and the drama. Nothing is done simply for the sake of appearances.

Villeneuve, like Chazelle, is on his way up in the directing world, and he is already in post-production on the high-profile Blade Runner sequel Blade Runner 2049. He does not necessarily need the support or encouragement of the Academy, though I doubt he would reject it. Rather, this is an acknowledgement a filmmaker the Academy has had its eye on for a while now has made a film members simply adored.

Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge – Finally, we arrive back at Gibson – Mel, to his fans and supporters – and the question of whether forgiveness is possible, necessary, or just. I am of two minds, though I have the luxury of so being since I was not among the many targets of Gibson’s hate-filled invectives. My belief as a fan of cinema and art in general is that great art is great art, regardless of who produced it. If we agree the populace votes with its wallets, I think I am in the majority here, considering the record sales for someone like Michael Jackson, among other examples. If Gibson has produced work worthy of praise, we should praise it, though that should in no way be construed as forgetfulness or forgiveness.

On the other hand, in the world today, perhaps the last thing we need is to reward a rich, white racist and misogynist. Just because this describes well the leader of the free(ish) world does not mean we must celebrate such traits elsewhere. No one can know what is in Gibson’s heart, whether it has truly changed or if he feels no genuine remorse whatsoever. What we can know is what he has said in the past, words which are well documented and unavoidable. I do not know the answer, and I do not believe anyone else does or even can. I am saying I cannot judge you for what you feel, whatever it may be.

My feelings are thus: As a director, Gibson’s work on dark, gritty action-thrillers – among which let us count The Passion of the Christ for simplicity’s sake – has always been superb. He has a brilliant instinct for where to place the camera for maximum tension and effect, and his sense of pace and energy is astounding. Hacksaw Ridge is wobbly in its opening passages, where Gibson seems unsteady in setting up his war story, but once the war story hits and Gibson is in his element, the action is unparalleled. I will not tell anyone what to feel about the actions of the man, but I must say the actions of the director are tremendous.

The final analysis

The La La Land train really does feel unstoppable at this point, and as the conductor of that speeding locomotive, Chazelle is likely to pick up this award. He would be the youngest Best Director winner in Academy history, edging out Norman Taurog, who was 32 years and 9 months when he won for Skippy in 1931. Of all the history La La Land can make on Oscar night, this bit seems most assured.

Will win: Damien Chazelle for La La Land

Should win: Barry Jenkins for Moonlight

Should have been here: Pablo Larraín for Jackie

Tomorrow: Best Actress

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Director

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu directs Leonardo DiCaprio in Best Picture frontrunner The Revenant.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

A quick programming note: Yesterday, I said we would cover Best Foreign Language Film today. However, instead, we will look at Best Director. Best Foreign Language Film will follow Wednesday with Best Animated Feature on Thursday and finally Best Picture on Friday.

Best Director

The nominees are:

Lenny Abrahamson for Room

Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant

Thomas McCarthy for Spotlight

George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road

Adam McKay for The Big Short

Four of these directors have never been nominated for Best Director before. The last time that happened in this category was 2007. In that year, interestingly enough, there were six nominated directors, and five had never been nominated. Joel Coen was the only previous nominee, and he shared the award win with his brother, Ethan Coen, for No Country for Old Men. This year, Iñárritu is the only previous nominee, having won just last year for Birdman.

Another bit of trivia: It has been 65 years since a director has won this award in back-to-back years. In fact, it has happened only twice. Joseph L. Mankiewicz won in 1949 for A Letter to Three Wives and in 1950 for All About Eve, while John Ford won in 1940 for The Grapes of Wrath and in 1941 for How Green Was My Valley. Iñárritu has a very real shot this year of becoming the third name on that list.

How about this? Though Best Picture and Best Director are strongly correlated – both awards have gone to the same film 63 of 87 times – no director has ever directed back-to-back Best Picture winners. Even when Ford and Mankiewicz won Best Director twice in a row, only in the second years did their films win Best Picture. Well, Iñárritu directed last year’s Best Picture winner and helmed one of this year’s frontrunners. The feat would be unprecedented.

Finally, since 1990, only four times has the winner of the Directors Guild Award not gone on to win the Oscar for Best Director. Iñárritu has already made history by becoming the first back-to-back winner of the Directors Guild Award. In that same span, the Directors Guild winner has directed the Best Picture winner all but five times. All of this means we could be set up for a historic night at the Academy Awards, but the other four nominees might have something to say about that.

Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant – If it were up to me, this would not even be a question. The Revenant is not only the most beautiful film this year, but it is among the most beautiful films ever made. In scope, ambition, and execution, there is no film that comes close in this lineup, and I say that with all due respect to the other nominees. The magic that Iñárritu captured is unparalleled.

Working from a fairly bare-bones script, Iñárritu turns the film into a meditation on god, nature, and man’s place in the universe. By allowing the narrative to drift freely through memory and dreams, then back to the harshness of life, Iñárritu crafts a wholly sensory experience that engulfs viewers in its mélange of sights, sounds, and emotions. This is to say nothing of the hardships the production faced in even filming such an epic tale of survival.

When taking this all into account, Iñárritu’s achievement is just stunning. So much so it boggles the mind. It is high art depicting a brutal reality on the largest canvas imaginable. There is nothing to which it compares, and if Iñárritu makes history, it will be a hard-earned, richly deserved distinction, coming on the back of the most majestic film of the year and a true masterpiece.

George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road – Perhaps I have dipped into hyperbole, making the case too strongly for my preferred winner. The truth is Miller’s work is awe-inspiring in a completely different way. Mad Max: Fury Road is a big, bold statement, a referendum on the action genre while being an almost perfect exemplar of the genre. For a film that feels so wild, so out of control, like it might fly off the rails at any time, Miller’s precision in the writing, choreographing, shooting, and editing is what makes everything click into place.

Miller is a living legend with a small but beloved body of work. Since 1979, he has directed just nine feature films, four of them in the Mad Max series. Somehow, the same man responsible for Max Rockatansky, Imperator Furiosa, and Immortan Joe is also largely responsible for giving us Babe the pig and Happy Feet.

He is a six-time nominee across four different categories and won his only Oscar for Best Animated Feature as the director of Happy Feet – when you watch Mad Max: Fury Road, try to wrap your mind around that. However, this is his first nomination for directing, and with Iñárritu already a winner, there could be a push to award Miller for his distinguished career and his remarkable achievement this year.

Adam McKay for The Big Short – Now, if it seems odd Miller would have directed multiple animated children’s hits and the decidedly not-for-children Mad Max films, try on this bit of cognitive dissonance: The director of Anchorman and Step Brothers is now a multiple Oscar nominee. Here is the thing about that, though, you do not get to where McKay has gotten in his career without being a bright, savvy, talented filmmaker.

McKay had already proven all those things throughout his career, but with The Big Short, he has proved he is engaged, engaging, and passionate about the state of the nation. That is a lot more than can be said for many other artists. McKay’s stamp is all over The Big Short with its smart editing, unfussy camera setups, and snot-nosed attitude. Not everything works all the time in this film, but McKay’s willingness to step outside the box and look at the financial crisis and world banking collapse from a skewed view is always an asset.

Thomas McCarthy for Spotlight – McCarthy has been rightly lauded for his and Josh Singer’s work in piecing together the screenplay for Spotlight; however, some have also taken the opportunity to deride McCarthy’s direction of the film as flat or uninspired. Such charges could not be further off base. These commenters seem to believe if a film is not flashy or does not call attention to itself, the direction must not be that special. This belief is so obviously wrong it is laughable, but here we are, having to defend one of the best films of the year as well directed.

Anyone watching closely will see the care and thought that has gone into every frame of Spotlight, from the strategic positioning of the camera when the reporters are going through the archives – wide enough to show us the enormity of the undertaking – to the scattering of churches throughout the background, a subtle reminder of the church’s influence over everyday life in Boston.

The film’s bravura closing passage, set to a children’s choir performing “Silent Night,” is among the most memorable and effective sequences of the year, thrilling, cathartic, and utterly haunting. If voters cannot see the artistry in McCarthy’s accomplishment, they probably should not have a vote. McCarthy may not win this award against his flashier competition, but his inclusion is without a doubt merited.

Lenny Abrahamson for Room – Most pundits, yours truly included, had predicted the other four nominees in this field, being as they directed the four frontrunners for Best Picture. The fifth slot we had chalked up for Ridley Scott for The Martian or maybe Todd Haynes for Carol or Steven Spielberg for Bridge of Spies. However, when Room showed up in four major categories – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay – it was clear the Academy had fallen hard for this brutal, beautiful little movie.

Abrahamson deftly blends an impressionistic art-house film with a pulpy thriller to deliver one of the truly unique viewing experiences of the year. With the story confined for the first hour to a single room, Abrahamson opens up the characters’ world with an array of carefully employed camera angles and selective edits. He shows us a tragic situation through the eyes of a child who does not yet know enough about life to understand the tragedy, and in doing so, Abrahamson turns a difficult viewing experience into one of the must-see films of the year.

The final analysis

Abrahamson’s is the only name on this list it would be an out-and-out shock to hear called out on Oscar night. Any of the other four could win, and each would tell us something different about where the night is headed. If either McKay or McCarthy wins, that would be the clincher for their respective films. The Academy showing its love in that way would be the ultimate indication one of those films will win Best Picture.

If Miller wins, we would have to question the love for The Revenant, and because Mad Max: Fury Road at this point is a highly unlikely winner, the door would be open for either Spotlight or The Big Short to claim the top prize. If Iñárritu wins – and all signs are pointing that way – anything could still happen. A split has not been uncommon in recent years between Best Picture and Best Director, but Iñárritu clutching his second directing Oscar in a row would invite the possibility that history is about to unfold.

Will win: Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant

Should win: Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant

Should have been here: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky for The Tribe

Tomorrow: Best Foreign Language Film