AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 234: Best Director Oscar Winners Tier Ranking – Part 1
On episode 234 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by AwardsWatch Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello and AwardsWatch contributors Dan Bayer, Cody Dericks, and Josh Parham to tier rank the 97 winners for Best Director from the Academy Awards.
While everyone is breakdown the summer box office and the state of movies from the month of May, the AW team turn to the month of June by going back to a favorite exercise from last year, an extensive tier of an Oscar category. After doing Best Picture last year, the team moves onto the next most prestigious category at the Oscars; Best Director and its 97 winners. In trying to place these winners in the correct spot, the team had to come together and decide on whether to place the films in the S (all-time winner), A, B, C, D, or F tier and explain the ranking. The episode was so much fun that it had to be split into two parts, with this episode covering all the films up to 1980, placing a couple of classics making their way into the S tier early on.
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This podcast runs 2h46m. We will be back next week with Part 2 of the Best Director tier rankings. Till then, let’s get into it.
Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro)
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