Best Director is turning into a team sport. Two of the top five contenders in Gold Derby’s odds are directing duos: Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, the Spanish pair known as Los Javis, rank second for La Bola Negra, and Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim are surging at No. 5 for You Can See Everything. They’re all chasing Christopher Nolan, who leads for The Odyssey three years after winning for Oppenheimer. See where all of the top contenders rank in our photo gallery above.
Our Best Director odds are derived from the combined forecasts of three unique groups: experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, editors who cover awards year-round for this website, and the top 24 users who had the best accuracy scores last year.
Los Javis and Fielder and Oppenheim aren’t the only directing duos in the race. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller rank ninth for Project Hail Mary. Only four directing teams have ever been nominated in this category, and never more than one in the same year. Three of them won: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story, Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men, and most recently Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Martin McDonagh sits third for Wild Horse Nine, followed by Olivia Wilde for The Invite. Wilde also ranks second in Best Actress, and no woman has ever been nominated for directing and acting in the same year.
Fielder and Oppenheim have made the biggest jump in recent weeks, and Oppenheim is pulling double duty this season as the director of Primetime, too. Their climb came as Denis Villeneuve slid out of the Top 5 for the yet-to-be-screened Dune: Part Three. He was left out of this category for both previous Dune films.
Oscar nominations will be announced Jan. 21, and the 99th Academy Awards air March 14, 2027, on ABC with Conan O’Brien hosting for the third straight year. Be sure to make your own predictions before nominations are revealed.
