Steven Spielberg extends Oscar Best Director nomination record

Steven Spielberg extends record as only person nominated for Best Director Oscar in 6 different decades

The Fabelmans director first notched the record with his 2022 nomination for West Side Story.

Published on January 24, 2023 08:57AM EST

Steven Spielberg has extended a major record on 2023 Oscar nominations morning.

After his 2022 nod for directing West Side Story made him the first person to receive Best Director nominations across six different decades, the 76-year-old Hollywood veteran pushed his track record even further into the Oscars history books by receiving another Best Director nomination for helming The Fabelmans.

In addition to scoring nominations for Best Director, The Fabelmans — Spielberg's semi-autobiographical drama inspired by his childhood before becoming a budding filmmaker — also received Academy recognition in the Best Picture (for which Spielberg received another nomination as a producer), Best Actress (Michelle Williams), Best Supporting Actor (Judd Hirsch), Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Production Design, and Best Music (Original Score) categories.

Steven Spielberg attends the 94th Annual Oscars Nominees Luncheon at Fairmont Century Plaza on March 07, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. — Steven Spielberg at the Oscar nominations luncheon. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Since his first Best Director nomination for 1978's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg gained individual recognition in the Academy's Best Director lineups for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Schindler's List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Munich (2005), Lincoln (2012), and West Side Story (2021), winning the award for both Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan at the 1994 and 1999 ceremonies. His third competitive Oscar victory also came in 1994, when he won as a producer for Schindler's List.

Spielberg's 2022 nod pushed him past the record, in which he was previously tied with Martin Scorsese, who'd been nominated for Best Director over five decades for Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Hugo (2011), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and The Irishman (nominated in 2020, but released in 2019).

After debuting to stellar reviews on the fall festival circuit, The Fabelmans quickly became a front-running Best Picture contender, starring Michelle Williams as a fictionalized version of Spielberg's mother and Paul Dano as a dramatized portrait of his father, while Gabriel LaBelle channels a young Spielberg stand-in.

The 95th Academy Awards will air Sunday, March 12, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on ABC. See the full list of 2023 Oscar nominations here.

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best films.

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Steven Spielberg extends record as only person nominated for Best Director Oscar in 6 different decades

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