--- title: How Are Best Director and Best Picture Oscar Nominations Different? | TIME description: When Oscar nominations are announced, people are often confused by the differences between Best Director and Best Picture. TIME culture writer Daniel D'Addario explains canonical: https://time.com/video/lvS576Qr/ og:title: How Are Best Director and Best Picture Oscar Nominations Different? og:description: When Oscar nominations are announced, people are often confused by the differences between Best Director and Best Picture. TIME culture writer Daniel D'Addario explains og:url: https://time.com/video/lvS576Qr/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/lvS576Qr/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Are Best Director and Best Picture Oscar Nominations Different? twitter:description: When Oscar nominations are announced, people are often confused by the differences between Best Director and Best Picture. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How Are Best Director and Best Picture Oscar Nominations Different? [Watch (HLS stream): How Are Best Director and Best Picture Oscar Nominations Different?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/lvS576Qr.m3u8) (3:11)  _Published 2015-01-16. When Oscar nominations are announced, people are often confused by the differences between Best Director and Best Picture. TIME culture writer Daniel D'Addario explains_ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:46 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Here Are the 2020 Oscar Nominations](/video/TUnzDfIa/) ### Here Are the 2020 Oscar Nominations [Oscar Nominees for Best Picture](/video/IUeRjjug/) ### Oscar Nominees for Best Picture [Oscar Prediction: Best Director and Picture](/video/ikJYg1Jf/) ### Oscar Prediction: Best Director and Picture --- ## Transcript When the Oscar nominations come out, people are often confused that some movies that got nominated for best picture, don't get nominated for best director. And some movies that get nominated for best director, don't have corresponding best picture nominations. This seems really confusing because, if a movie has the best direction, shouldn't it be one of the best movies of the year. But in fact it's very easily explained. The best picture nominations are voted on by the entire Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This includes directors, produces, actors, make up artists, sound engineers, costume designers. All different sorts of people. And they have very different tastes. Whereas the Best Director nominations are voted on only by directors. When you see a Best Director nominee that didn't end up in the Best Picture field, it's usually something that has a very specific and strong style that directors recognized and responded to. We saw this when Foxcatcher did not get a Best Picture nod. [ UNKNOWN ] What do you hope to achieve, Mark? The film was really hard to love. Because it had a very chilly, foreboding style. That was emblematic of Bennet Miller's previous work. And director's clearly recognized it and loved it, even though people less familiar with the craft of directing. Didn't respond to it at all. My name's Greg Schwartz and I have an interview with Dr. Lester. One famous example was Being John Malkovich, a movie that was way too weird, though has many fans to get a Best Picture prize at the Oscars. You seem to walk through a [ INAUDIBLE ]. Then, after about 15 minutes- That's not me! Me, I didn't say that! You're spit out- However, it was so visually imaginative. The directors branch of the Academy gave Spike Jones his first nomination in 1999. [ MUSIC ] Another example is Pedro Almodovar, who directs film in the Spanish language. It was probably too little seen for the Academy to give it the best picture prize, but directors were familiar with Almodovar's long history behind the camera, and gave him a best director nomination for Talk to Her. The predominantly white and male directors branch tends to nominate individuals who look like themselves. For her second big Oscar film, Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow was considered a frontrunner to potentially win the Academy Award and was not nominated. Recently, Ava Duvernay, the Director of Selma who is an African American woman was also not nominated, though both Zero Dark Thirty and Selma were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. There have been times when the Best Director prize. As well as the nominations leading up to it, have scenes like honoring a career. Recent nominees have included Martin Scorsese for directing the Wolf of Wall Street, or Woody Allen for directing Midnight in Paris. These may not have been the favorite films of the Academy in general. But they represented a culmination of a long career. People vote on the basis not only of your current work but also your history and your reputation. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Are Best Director and Best Picture Oscar Nominations Different?","description":"When Oscar nominations are announced, people are often confused by the differences between Best Director and Best Picture. 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