Saturn Award for Best Director
The Saturn Award for Best Director is one of the annual awards given by the American Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & 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, included the Best Director category for the first time at the 3rd Saturn Awards, for the 1974/1975 film years.
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 five, while Steven Spielberg is the most nominated director with twelve nominations. Only three other directors have won the award more than once: Peter Jackson, Bryan Singer and Ridley Scott. At the 22nd Saturn Awards, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the award, 15 years before becoming the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director.
Spielberg was also the first to win Best Director from both the Saturn Awards and the Academy Awards at the same year, but for different movies ; Peter Jackson was the first to win both for the same film while Alfonso Cuarón was the second.Winners and nominees
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
Multiple nominations
;13 nominations
;8 nominations
;7 nominations
- Peter Jackson
- Robert Zemeckis
;6 nominations
;5 nominations
- J. J. Abrams
- Tim Burton
- Christopher Nolan
;4 nominations
- Guillermo del Toro
- George Lucas
- Sam Raimi
- Ridley Scott
- Paul Verhoeven
;3 nominations
- John Badham
- Kathryn Bigelow
- Alfonso Cuarón
- Joe Dante
- William Dear
- Clint Eastwood
- David Fincher
- Terry Gilliam
- Ron Howard
- George Miller
- Matt Reeves
- Anthony and Joe Russo
- Quentin Tarantino
- David Yates
;2 nominations
- Woody Allen
- Chris Columbus
- David Cronenberg
- Frank Darabont
- Roland Emmerich
- Jon Favreau
- William Friedkin
- Rian Johnson
- Randal Kleiser
- Ang Lee
- Frank Marshall
- Nicholas Meyer
- Leonard Nimoy
- Jordan Peele
- Alex Proyas
- Guy Ritchie
- Martin Scorsese
- Zack Snyder
- Denis Villeneuve
- Peter Weir
- John Woo
- Zhang Yimou
Multiple wins
;5 wins
;4 wins
;3 wins
;2 wins
- Ridley Scott
- Bryan Singer