Best Director

Best Picture Best Actor Best Actress Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress Best Director

With movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm under his belt, Ang Lee has proven himself to be a skilled and versatile director – the kind of filmmaker Hollywood has just been waiting to bestow with its greatest honour. While he lost out on the opportunity in 2000 (Crouching Tiger earned Lee a statue for Best Foreign Language Film but he lost to Steven Soderbergh in the directing category), there is little doubt in anyone’s mind that Lee is about to get his due. A Golden Globe and a Director’s Guild Award for best directing – not to mention Brokeback Mountain’s frontrunner status in the Best Picture category (and the two statues often go hand-in-hand) -- make him the clear favourite for Best Director.

The rest of the Best Director race has an Oscar vet pinned against three newcomers to the big show. Canadian Paul Haggis, whose directorial debut Crash qualifies as the sleeper hit of 2005, won’t likely overtake Lee despite his skill at weaving together such a complex story, nor will Capote’s Bennett Miller. And Steven Spielberg, nominated for Munich, isn’t likely to take home his third Oscar because frankly, the film just doesn’t compare to its competitors.

As for George Clooney, who brought his career tally of Oscar nods from zero to three this year for his work behind the camera on Good Night, and Good Luck and in front of it in Syriana, he may not take home the trophy for directing, but don’t expect this Hollywood favourite to go home empty-handed on awards night.