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The New Hollywood film movement was already coming to a halt by the time the 1980s rolled in; and by the earlier part of the decade, those days of the American film industry were left in the past. As such, this was a decade that was altogether transformative for cinema—even outside of Hollywood. This resulted in some absolutely exceptional movies, a precious few of which led their directors to the honor most highly coveted by film directors: a Best Directing Academy Award victory.
Throughout the ’80s, there was a wide variety of Best Director winners. Some inspired choices, others not so much; some awards given for absolutely masterful and legendary films, others for movies that have failed to leave much of a mark as the decades have passed. In any case, though the ’80s didn’t see a single Best Director winner that was downright bad, some were undoubtedly better than others.
10
Sydney Pollack — ‘Out of Africa’ (1985)
Loosely based on the autobiographical book by Danish author Karen Blixen, Out of Africa is a nearly three-hour-long epic directed by Sydney Pollack. The director was one of the most prominent faces of ’70s Hollywood cinema, helping re-define the thriller genre with films of the caliber of Three Days of the Condor. It was this romantic drama, however, that earned him his first and only Best Picture and Best Director victories.
Alas, the awfully dull and overlong Out of Africa is generally regarded as one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time, and that’s in no small due to Pollack’s direction. He plays it far too safe with Out of Africa, directing it with the flattest energy and least powerfully melodramatic style imaginable. Subtle in every wrong way possible, his direction was arguably not nearly as strong as that of other nominees that year, most prominently Witness‘ Peter Weir and Ran‘s Akira Kurosawa.
9
James L. Brooks — ‘Terms of Endearment’ (1983)
James L. Brooks was a monumental figure mostly in the history of American television—sitcoms in particular—, but he was also a perfectly capable movie director. Case in point: Terms of Endearment, based on Larry McMurtry‘s novel, one of three Jack Nicholson movies that won Best Picture. It’s one of the greatest tragicomedies of the ’80s, a masterful melodrama infused with an irresistible sense of humor.
Brooks’ directing work here is far superior to Sydney Pollack’s in Out of Africa, but Terms of Endearment is nonetheless too understated of a film for his direction to stand out above the rest of the ’80s’ winners. You get a lot of Brooks’ TV sitcom and melodrama sensibilities in his direction here, and though that results in an undeniably compelling film, it’s not exactly the best direction of the decade.
8
Barry Levinson — ‘Rain Man’ (1988)
Though Rain Man is one of the quintessential American classics of the 1980s, it’s not nearly as flashy as other similar dramas from its time. Even still, this road trip dramedy has so much vibrant personality that it made its way to a whopping eight Academy Award nominations, of which it won four. Unfortunately, though it’s one of the movies Tom Cruise should’ve won an Oscar for, that wasn’t one of its victories.
Even still, Best Picture for Mark Johnson and Best Director for Barry Levinson aren’t all too shabby. The strength of Levinson’s direction here is that it’s perfectly quiet. The director took over the project with just two weeks’ notice, stripping the script from the melodramatic clichés that he was handed and instead choosing to approach Rain Man as an emotionally and psychologically realistic character study. It’s effective direction, but it’s typically flashier pieces of work that end up being more memorable Oscar winners.
7
Robert Redford — ‘Ordinary People’ (1980)
Needless to say, Robert Redford is best known as an actor—and one of the most important and groundbreaking of his generation, at that. But like the immensely ambitious artist that he was, he craved the authorship of the director’s chair. So, he specifically sought out Judith Guest‘s 1976 novel Ordinary People to develop it into his feature film directorial debut. The result is one of Pope Leo XIV‘s favorite movies of all time.
It’s a remarkably bold and mature debut. Ordinary People is an inherently small project, one wholly reliant on conversations, silent moments, exchanged glances, and pure emotions, a complicated concept that Redford handles flawlessly. It’s yet another instance of direction that isn’t quite flashy enough to compare to some of the ’80s’ far bigger Best Director-winning films, but it’s udeniably strong nonetheless.
6
Warren Beatty — ‘Reds’ (1981)
The nearly 200-minute-long historical epic Reds is one of those forgotten epic movies that have aged like fine wine, a biopic about John Reed, the journalist who chronicled the October Revolution in Russia. It was directed, written, and produced by Warren Beatty, who also stars as Reed. If there ever was a multi-hyphenate perfectly capable of taking on so many roles in such an ambitious movie, it was Beatty.
In every department, Beatty does an absolutely phenomenal job. Reds is as great as the sum of its equally incredible parts: the exceptional cast, the meticulous historical research, the enormous production, and the nearly-flawless script. Through it all, Beatty remains perfectly in control, finding ways to never let the film’s ridiculous ambition overpower its story and themes.
5
Richard Attenborough — ‘Gandhi’ (1982)
Gandhi isn’t a perfect film, but it sure is one of the most impressively gargantuan Best Picture Oscar winners in history. It’s one of those biopics that are still a must-watch today, because even though it’s a bit too long and a bit too impersonal, it’s also a historical epic of a size and caliber that’s unlike anything English-language cinema is producing nowadays.
It’s so undoubtedly massive and impressive a display that it’s worthy of nothing if not the utmost admiration.
Richard Attenborough‘s direction is a bit too straightforward in both its emotional potency and visual grammar for it to stand out as one of the ’80s’ best directing efforts, but it’s so undoubtedly massive and impressive a display that it’s worthy of nothing if not the utmost admiration. The sheer scale of the film and many of its bigger scenes is extraordinary, but it’s Attenborough’s wise decision to let Ben Kingsley‘s Oscar-winning performance be the core of the movie at all times that stands out as his strongest directing decision.
4
Oliver Stone — ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ (1989)
Oliver Stone was one of the most powerful and important voices of 1980s Hollywood, arguably one of the most sharply political mainstream directors in town throughout the decade. There can be much debate on what his most political movie is, but there’s one answer that’s bound to come up more than most, and that’s Born on the Fourth of July.
One of the best Vietnam War epics of all time, Born on the Fourth of July is yet another instance of an Oscar-worthy Tom Cruise performance, but Stone’s performance is arguably the real star of the show here. Powerfully surreal and at times even hallucinatory or nightmarish, his work is the perfect example of an Oscar-winning directing effort that’s showy enough to be unforgettable but not so much that it overpowers the story.
3
Bernardo Bertolucci — ‘The Last Emperor’ (1987)
Bernardo Bertolucci was a true giant of international cinema, effectively bridging the gap between the arthouse style of European filmmaking and the lavish, high-budget style of Hollywood cinema. Case in point: the international production The Last Emperor, an epic biopic retelling the life of Puyi, the titular last emperor of China.
It’s one of the most perfectly-directed epic movies ever made, a masterpiece that won every single last one of the nine Academy Awards it received a nomination for, including Best Director for Bertolucci. The film is visually and technically astonishing, but Bertolucci’s true achievement is how he leverages those production values purely and fully to elevate the story’s psychological exploration of its characters.
2
Oliver Stone — ‘Platoon’ (1986)
Oliver Stone belongs to many elite groups of master filmmakers, one of them being the group of directors who have won two Best Director Oscars for movies made in the same decade. Three years before Born on the Fourth of July, Stone directed what many would still confidently call his magnum opus: Platoon, one of those R-rated war movies that can be called masterpieces.
It’s one of the greatest ensemble films of the ’80s, and that’s largely—if not perhaps even mostly—thanks to Stone’s exceptional direction. Elevated by the powerfully surreal visual language that characterized Stone’s oeuvre throughout the ’80s, Platoon makes the audience feel every last bit of the terror, anxiety, grit, and violence of the Vietnam War. Technically perfect and narratively hard-hitting, Platoon is the masterpiece that it is largely because it’s so impeccably directed.
1
Miloš Forman — ‘Amadeus’ (1984)
Does a biopic need to be strictly faithful to the facts in order to be great? There’s a very strong argument to be made that it doesn’t, because there are plenty of historically inaccurate movies that are still masterpieces, including Miloš Forman‘s masterful Amadeus. This biopic about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may somewhat exaggerate the extent of his rivalry with Antonio Salieri, but the result is one of the most powerful dramas about artistic obsession ever made.
Bold, ambitious, and flawless in how it balances its epic scale with its intimate character-driven scope, Amadeus may well be one of the best movies of the ’80s as a whole. He pulls extraordinary performances out of F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce while keeping the focus on the story’s balance between tragedy, emotion, and even razor-sharp moments of humor. It’s a monumental achievement unlike anything else any other Best Director Oscar winner of the ’80s achieved throughout the decade.
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Diego Pineda Pacheco
Almontather Rassoul
