Oscar at last? 5 overdue directors who could finally win this year
Earlier this year, Christopher Nolan finally won Best Director at the Academy Awards. He picked up prize for helming Best Picture champ “Oppenheimer.” That victory came after five prior Oscar nominations, all of which ended in losses. Anyhow, Nolan has now finally been given the rewards his talents deserve. But there are still plenty of filmmakers who are overdue a Best Director gong. Scroll down for a list of five overdue filmmakers who could compete for the award at the 2025 Oscars.
Pedro Almodóvar
Almodóvar has five Oscar nominations and two victories to his name, so he may not seem overdue. He was nominated for Best Foreign Language Feature Film in 1989 for “Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and in 2000 for “All About My Mother.” He won for the latter. He was then nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in 2003 for “Talk to Her,” winning for his writing. His latest citation came in 2020 for Best International Feature Film for “Pain and Glory.” However, he has never won a Best Director Oscar. That could change this year with his full-length English-language debut “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. The story follows an imperfect mother and her rift with her resentful daughter as well as the mother’s relationship with an author. Almodóvar is currently outside of our top five predicted Best Director nominees but he could work his way up in the coming months.
Luca Guadagnino
Guadagnino’s sole Oscar bid came in 2018 when he shared in the Best Picture nomination for “Call Me By Your Name.” This year, he has not one but two movies that could potentially be on Oscar voters’ radars: “Challengers” and “Queer.” The former stars as Zendaya as a tennis coach and Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor as tennis players who become embroiled in a love triangle as they compete for tennis greatness. Meanwhile, “Queer” follows Daniel Craig as a man who flees a drug bust in 1940s New Orleans only to end up infatuated with a young man in Mexico City. Currently, we are not predicting either Guadagnino movie to earn the Italian helmer a Best Director nomination.
Mike Leigh
Leigh has accumulated seven Oscar nominations to date. Five of those have come for Best Original Screenplay: “Secrets & Lies” (1997), “Topsy Turvy” (2000), “Vera Drake” (2005), “Happy-Go-Lucky” (2009), and “Another Year” (2011). The other two were for Best Director — for “Secrets & Lies” and “Vera Drake.” Leigh has yet to win. He is back in contention this year with “Hard Truths,” which is a tragicomic exploration of the contemporary world as well as human strengths and weaknesses. Like Almodóvar, Leigh is not in our top five predicted Best Director nominees at this time of writing.
Steve McQueen
McQueen won Best Picture in 2014 for “12 Years a Slave,” and was also nominated for Best Director. He lost that race to Alfonso Cuarón (“Gravity”). McQueen also directed the acclaimed “Hunger” and “Shame,” both of which starred Michael Fassbender, as well as “Widows” with Viola Davis center stage. His latest film is “Blitz” from Apple TV+. This one stars Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson and follows a young boy who goes on a London adventure during WWII only to find himself in the middle of incredible danger. We are predicting that McQueen will be nominated for Best Director for this film. He is in second place in our odds chart at this time of writing.
Denis Villeneuve
Like McQueen, Villeneuve has been nominated for Best Director. Unlike McQueen, he has never won an Oscar. His only Best Director bid came in 2017 for “Arrival” and he was nominated for both Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay (with Eric Roth and Jon Spaihts) in 2022 for “Dune.” Villeneuve is back in contention this year for “Dune: Part Two.” This one continues the “Dune” saga as Timothée Chalamet‘s Paul Atreides unites with the Fremen people of Arrakis to battle against House Harkonnen. We are predicting that, this time, Villeneuve will be nominated for Best Director. He is in third place in our odds chart at this time of writing.
At this time of writing, our predicted nominees for Best Director at the 2025 Oscars are McQueen (“Blitz”) and Villeneuve (“Dune: Part Two”) plus Sean Baker (“Anora”), Edward Berger (“Conclave”), and Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez”).
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