2019 Oscars: The Directors (March)

Erik Anderson March 7, 2018

This year promises a wealth of directors all angling for Oscar votes. From previous Oscar winners to breakthroughs waiting to happen to a chance for a female director nominee two years in a row. There’s even a chance that two could be nominated in one year. After the most diverse lineup in Oscar history just last season, there will be a lot of scrutiny and expectations this year in hopes that last year wasn’t a one-off.

Then there’s Martin Scorsese. He just finished principal photography on The Irishman for Netflix but with his notoriously long post-production could he even be ready for this year? For now I’m leaving him off the list.

Here are some of the high profile directors, their films and studios (where available) for this year. Look for the beginning of official 2019 Oscar predictions soon.

Highly anticipated follow-ups from Oscar-winning directors in 2018

Damien Chazelle – First Man (Universal)

Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk (Annapurna)

Steve McQueen – Widows (20th Century Fox)

Adam McKay – Backseat (Annapurna)

Alfonso Cuarón – Roma

Asghar Farhadi – Everybody Knows

Sebastián Lelio – Gloria

Directors looking for a return to Oscar

Richard Linklater – Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Annapurna)

Spike Lee – Black Klansman (Focus Features)

Jason Reitman – The Front Runner

Terry Gilliam – The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Amazon)

Benh Zeitlin – Wendy (Fox Searchlight)

Paul Greengrass – Norway (Netflix)

Lenny Abrahamson – The Little Stranger (Focus Features)

David Mackenzie – Outlaw King (Netflix)

Mike Leigh – Peterloo (Amazon)

Yorgos Lanthimos – The Favourite (Fox Searchlight)

Directors looking for Oscar breakthroughs

Dan Fogelman – Life Itself

David Robert Mitchell – Under the Silver Lake (A24)

Felix van Groeningen – Beautiful Boy (Amazon)

Karyn Kusama – Destroyer (Neon)

Joel Edgerton – Boy Erased (Focus Features)

James Gray – Ad Astra (20th Century Fox)

Marielle Heller – Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Fox Searchlight)

David Lowery – Old Man and the Gun (Fox Searchlight)

Mimi Leder – On the Basis of Sex (Focus Features)

Jacques Audiard – The Sisters Brothers (Annapurna)

Lynne Ramsay – You Were Never Really Here (Amazon)

Director feature debuts that could break big

Ari Aster – Hereditary (A24)

Josie Rourke – Mary Queen of Scots (Focus Features)

Jonah Hill – Mid-90s (A24)

Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born (Warner Bros)

Here are the first Best Director predictions for the 2019 Oscars.

1. Spike Lee – Black Klansman
2. Adam McKay – Dick Cheney biopic aka Backseat
3. Damien Chazelle – First Man
4. Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk
5. Ryan Coogler – Black Panther

6. Marielle Heller – Can You Ever Forgive Me?
7. Karyn Kusama – Destroyer
8. James Gray – Ad Astra
9. Josie Rourke – Mary Queen of Scots
10. Mike Leigh – Peterloo

Any number of these other contenders could easily find themselves a major player as the year progresses:

Felix van Groeningen – Beautiful Boy
Dexter Fletcher – Bohemian Rhapsody
Joel Edgerton – Boy Erased
Jon M. Chu – Crazy Rich Asians
Asghar Farhadi – Everybody Knows
Julia Hart – Fast Color
Yorgos Lanthimos – The Favourite
Jason Reitman – The Front Runner
Sebastián Lelio – Gloria
Ari Aster – Hereditary
Kim Nyugen – The Hummingbird Project
Barry Jenkins – If Beale Street Could Talk
Wes Anderson – Isle of Dogs
Justin Kelly – JT Leroy
Thomas Vinterberg – Kursk
Debra Granik – Leave No Trace
Paolo Sorrentino – Loro
Terry Gilliam – The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Rob Marshall – Mary Poppins Returns
Jonah Hill – Mid 90s
Jennifer Kent – The Nightingale
David Lowery – Old Man and the Gun
Mimi Leder – On the Basis of Sex
David Mackenzie – Outlaw King
Alfonso Cuaron – Roma
Jacques Audiard – The Sisters Brothers
Bradley Cooper – A Star is Born
László Nemes – Sunset
Luca Guadagnino – Suspiria
Jason Reitman – Tully
David Robert Mitchell – Under the Silver Lake
Benh Zeitlin – Wendy
Richard Linklater – Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Steve McQueen – Widows
Paul Dano – Wildlife
Susanna White – Woman Walks Ahead
Robert Zemeckis – The Women of Marwen
Lynne Ramsay – You Were Never Really Here
Pippa Bianco – Untitled Pippa Bianco aka Share

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.