The Director With The Most Oscar Wins Is A Western Icon

On May 16, 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out its first two Academy Awards for Best Director to Frank Borzage ("7th Heaven") and Lewis Milestone ("Two Arabian Knights"). This was the only year the organization distinguished between drama and comedy, but it would not be the last time either of these men took home the top prize in their field. Milestone would win again in 1930 for his heartbreaking adaptation of "All Quiet on the Western Front," while Borzage, a visual storytelling master whose every film you should absolutely watch, triumphed anew in 1932 with the pre-code classic "Bad Girl."

Throughout the Academy Awards' history, 21 directors have earned more than one Best Director Oscar. 18 have won it twice (Alfonso Cuarón was the most recent filmmaker to join the two-time ranks with "Roma"), while Frank Capra and William Wyler are the only three-time winners. Some would say it's an honor to have never won, and with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Stanley Kubrick heading up the list of the snubbed, there's a persuasive argument to be made on this front. But human beings don't create art in a vacuum (okay, Kubrick kinda did), and, whether they'll openly admit it or not, they do value the adulation of their peers. No one likes to lose.

When it came to adulation, no one felt the love more than an American filmmaker who thrived in the most American of genres, the Western: John Ford. He worked in other genres as well, and, perhaps surprisingly, only won Oscars when he wasn't mythologizing the country's 19th century pursuit of its manifest destiny.

The ornery, cigar-chomping, hard-drinking John Ford began directing Hollywood features in 1917, and went on to complete over 130 films. His fierce, brawling spirit was instilled in him by his Irish immigrant parents, and his movies often celebrated such defiance — though he also had a sentimental streak a mile wide.

Ford is best known today as the father of American movie Western, which he perfected in 1939 with the brisk, rollicking "Stagecoach." The film also made John Wayne one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood, and the two men enjoyed a (mostly) chummily contentious relationship until Ford's death in 1973. But "Stagecoach" would mark the only time he was nominated a Western. Amazingly, his record four Academy Award wins for Best Director were all for different kinds of pictures.

Ford's first Oscar came in 1935 for the political drama "The Informer," which also earned Victor Mclaglen a Best Actor trophy for his portrayal of an Irish Republican who ratted out four of his compatriots. Ford next lost the 1939 Best Director Oscar to Victor Fleming, who brought home "Gone with the Wind" for producer David O. Selznick. Ford was up again the following year, and won for his adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath;" Ford made it two consecutive wins by swiping the award from the far more deserving Orson Welles (nominated for "Citizen Kane") with his barely-above-average production of "How Green Was My Valley." 11 years later, Ford received his final Best Director nomination, and won for the beloved Irish romcom "The Quiet Man" (his only Oscar for a Wayne collaboration).

Will anyone ever tie, let alone best Ford's four-Oscar haul in this category? I hate to be morbid, but time is running out for two-time winner Steven Spielberg. Of the Best Director two-fisters still working today, Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Ang Lee have the best shot at equaling Ford. But for now, Ford's record appears to be completely safe.