Saturn Award for Best Director
{{short description|Award}}
{{Infobox award
| name = Saturn Award for Best Director
| image =
| image_upright =
| caption =
| awarded_for = Best directing of the year for a genre film
| presenter = Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films
| country = United States
| year = 1974/1975
| holder = Denis Villeneuve for Dune: Part Two (2023/2024)
| website = {{URL|http://www.saturnawards.org}}
}}
The Saturn Award for Best Director (or Saturn Award for Best Direction) is one of the annual awards given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The Saturn Awards, which are the oldest film-specialized awards to reward genre fiction achievements, in particular for science fiction, fantasy, and horror (the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation is the oldest award for science fiction and fantasy films), included the Best Director category for the first time at the 3rd Saturn Awards, for the 1974/1975 film years.{{cite news|url=https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000004/1975|title=1975 Saturn Awards|work=The Internet Movie Database|access-date=2018-06-30|archive-date=2017-03-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170302110436/http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000004/1975|url-status=live}}
History
The award is also the oldest to honor film directors in science fiction, fantasy and horror. It has been given 36 times, including a tie for the 1977 film year.
James Cameron holds the record of the most wins with six (for seven nominations), while Steven Spielberg is the most nominated director with fourteen nominations (for four wins). Only three other directors have won the award more than once: Peter Jackson (three times), Bryan Singer and Ridley Scott (two times). As of 2024, Cameron is the only director to have won the award two years in a row (having won at both the 17th and 18th ceremonies for The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, respectively). At the 22nd Saturn Awards, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the award, and is one of three female directors to win the award (the others being Lana and Lily Wachowski). Roland Emmerich became the first of four LGBTQ person to win the award at the 23rd ceremony (the others being the Wachowskis and Singer), while John Woo became the first person of Asian descent to win the award at the 24th ceremony and Ryan Coogler became the first African-American to win the award at the 44th ceremony.
Winners and nominees
= 1970s =
| class="wikitable" width="95%" align="center" |
| width=7% | Year
! width=31% | Director ! width=31% | Film |
|---|
| 1974/1975 (3rd) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Mel Brooks | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Young Frankenstein |
| 1976 (4th) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Dan Curtis | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Burnt Offerings |
| rowspan=5|1977 (5th) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |George Lucas | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Star Wars |
| style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Steven Spielberg
|style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Close Encounters of the Third Kind |
| Nicolas Gessner |
| Carl Reiner
| Oh, God! |
| Don Taylor |
| rowspan=5|1978 (6th) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Philip Kaufman | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Invasion of the Body Snatchers |
| Warren Beatty and Buck Henry |
| Richard Donner
| Superman |
| Robin Hardy |
| Franklin J. Schaffner |
| rowspan=5|1979 (7th) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Ridley Scott | style="background:#B0C4DE;" |Alien |
| John Badham
| Dracula |
| Nicholas Meyer |
| Peter Weir |
| Robert Wise |
= 1980s =
= 1990s =
= 2000s =
= 2010s =
= 2020s =
| class="wikitable" width="95%" align="center" |
| width=7% | Year
! width=31% | Director ! width=31% | Film |
|---|
| rowspan="7" | 2021/2022 (50th) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Matt Reeves | style="background:#B0C4DE;" | The Batman |
| Guillermo del Toro |
| Joseph Kosinski |
| Jordan Peele
| Nope |
| S. S. Rajamouli
| RRR |
| Steven Spielberg |
| Jon Watts |
| rowspan="7" | 2022/2023 (51st) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" | James Cameron | style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Avatar: The Way of Water |
| Greta Gerwig
| Barbie |
| James Gunn |
| James Mangold |
| Mark Mylod
| The Menu |
| Christopher Nolan |
| Danny and Michael Philippou |
| rowspan="7" | 2023/2024 (52nd) | style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Denis Villeneuve | style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Dune: Part Two |
| Fede Álvarez |
| Wes Ball |
| Tim Burton |
| Shawn Levy |
| JT Mollner |
| Takashi Yamazaki |
Multiple nominations
;14 nominations
- Steven Spielberg
;8 nominations
- Bryan Singer
;7 nominations
- James Cameron
- Peter Jackson
- Christopher Nolan
- Robert Zemeckis
;6 nominations
- J. J. Abrams
;5 nominations
- Tim Burton
- Guillermo del Toro
;4 nominations
- George Lucas
- Sam Raimi
- Matt Reeves
- Ridley Scott
- Quentin Tarantino
- Paul Verhoeven
;3 nominations
- John Badham
- Kathryn Bigelow
- Alfonso Cuarón
- Joe Dante
- William Dear
- Clint Eastwood
- David Fincher
- Terry Gilliam
- Ron Howard
- George Miller
- Jordan Peele
- Anthony and Joe Russo
- Denis Villeneuve
- David Yates
;2 nominations
- Woody Allen
- Chris Columbus
- David Cronenberg
- Frank Darabont
- Roland Emmerich
- Jon Favreau
- William Friedkin
- James Gunn
- Rian Johnson
- Randal Kleiser
- Ang Lee
- Frank Marshall
- Nicholas Meyer
- Leonard Nimoy
- Alex Proyas
- Guy Ritchie
- Martin Scorsese
- Zack Snyder
- Peter Weir
- John Woo
- Zhang Yimou
Multiple wins
;6 wins
- James Cameron
;4 wins
- Steven Spielberg
;3 wins
- Peter Jackson
;2 wins
- J. J. Abrams
- Ridley Scott
- Bryan Singer
References
{{reflist}}
{{Saturn Award for Best Director}}
{{Saturn Awards}}