Three Directing Duos Could Break a 100-Year Oscar Pattern

Three directing duos are simultaneously contending for Best Director nominations this year, a combination the Academy has produced only five times across nearly a century of ceremonies.

Christopher Nolan remains the frontrunner for The Odyssey, with 100% of the outlet's media pundits projecting a nomination. Solo helmers with double-digit support include Martin McDonagh (Wild Horse Nine), Olivia Wilde (The Invite), Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Three), Ryusuke Hamaguchi (All of a Sudden), and Jesse Eisenberg (The Debut). That is the established field. The duos are the variable.

Who are the three pairs?

• Los Javis — Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, directors of La Bola Negra, Netflix's Spanish-language queer love story.
• Lord and Miller — Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, directors of Project Hail Mary.
• Nathan Fielder and an Oppenheim collaborator — directors of You Can See Everything, the Theranos documentary.

What does history say?

If all three duos secure nominations, it would be an unprecedented clustering. The complete list of tandem Best Director nominees:

• Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, West Side Story (1961) — winners
• Warren Beatty and Buck Henry, Heaven Can Wait (1978)
• Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men (2007) — winners
• Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit (2010)
• Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) — winners

Five instances in roughly 100 years. Three of the five tandems won. Note what the sample does not tell us: it says nothing about the odds of three duos arriving in the same year, because it has never happened.

How strong is each candidacy?

La Bola Negra has been rising steadily in predictions since winning the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The film, adapted for the big screen from Netflix's Spanish-language property, tells its story across three time periods, with Guitarricadelafuente delivering a breakout performance as a closeted soldier attracted to an inmate. A TIFF People's Choice win is a reliable predictor of Best Picture nominations; it is a weaker signal for Best Director itself.

Lord and Miller bring the longest track record. The pair has worked together since the 2002 animated sitcom Clone High, collaborated on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and The Lego Movie (2014), and won Oscars for producing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). Project Hail Mary stars Ryan Gosling as a science teacher sent to space to save the planet. Their producing statuette proves Academy familiarity; it does not guarantee a directing branch handshake.

What does this change for the documentary race?

Fielder and Oppenheim are latecomers, entering the top 10 in predictions only this week after a record-setting box-office weekend and a 100% debut on Rotten Tomatoes. You Can See Everything, about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, is angling to become the first documentary ever nominated for Best Picture. Likewise, Fielder and Oppenheim would be the first directors nominated for a doc in the directing category. No precedent exists in either case — which cuts both ways. Branch voters have never done it, and momentum of this kind has also never forced the issue before.

The practical question for awards trackers: five nomination slots, one claimed in effect by Nolan, and at least six solo contenders polling in double digits. Three duos cannot all land unless at least two of those solo campaigns collapse. The math, not the history, may decide whether this year breaks the pattern.

Rare things cluster when nobody predicts them — until the ballots arrive.