Scorsese Tops Spielberg as Living Director with Most Oscar Nominations

Legendary director Martin Scorsese received his 10th Oscar nomination for Best Director on Tuesday, giving him the most Oscar nominations of a living director.

According to Entertainment Weekly , he ousted Steven Spielberg who previously held the most nominations. Scorsese was nominated Tuesday for his work on “Killers of the Flower Moon."

The film is based on the book by David Grann and examines the murder of the Osage people in the 1920s.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly in November, he stated, “One of the things we were discussing was the fact that for God’s sake, after everything, it becomes entertainment.”

“And you can say, well, this film becomes entertainment, too, in which case then we have to take the responsibility. We hope that it’s entertainment with some depth and enrichment that maybe can approach some kind of truth,” he added.

Upon the film’s release, Scorsese posted a still from one of the scenes to Instagram. He also wrote, “I put everything I had into Killers of the Flower Moon, and I was blessed to work with so many remarkable people at every stage.”

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He also noted, “It took a long time to bring it to the screen. Now I just want people to see it, to absorb it, to be with it.”

Entertainment Weekly reported that Scorsese received his first Oscar nomination for “Raging Bull” in 1980. Although he has been nominated for Best Director 10 times now, he has only won in the category once — for “The Departed” in 2007.

Spielberg has won Best Director twice. In 1994 he received the award for “Schindler’s List,” and again in 1999, he won for his work on “Saving Private Ryan,” per IMDB .

Despite the neck-and-neck Oscar race between Spielberg and Scorsese, William Wyler, director of Ben-Hur, remains the director who received the most nominations overall. Wyler, who died in 1981, was nominated for 12 Oscar awards and won three, via IMDB .