Many have suggested that a better system to award Oscars would be to wait a few years before handing them out. Give films time to breathe, and see which ones remain in the public consciousness a couple of years after release, and which ones have faded. That’s not a bad idea, and is especially appealing when taking a deep-dive look back at 20 years of Oscar wins and losses. As it relates to the Best Director category, more than a few wins can be chalked up to “make-up” Oscars where the winner takes the prize for the “wrong” movie a couple of years after a better one, and some reflect the notion that everyone was caught up in the heat of the moment. All these years later, are people even watching The Artist?

So let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit the Best Director Oscar winners of the 21st century so far, ranking each win by how well it holds up, and noting who should have won for each year.

24 Ron Howard – 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001)

Who Should Have Won: David Lynch for 'Mulholland Dr.'

Boy, this was a weird year. A Beautiful Mind does not hold up well, nor did its subject hold up to accusations of anti-semitism. But we can’t talk about Ron Howard’s Oscar win without talking about Apollo 13. The Hollywood icon’s 1995 film was a critical darling and was earmarked as the frontrunner for all the big awards, only for Howard to be shockingly shut out of the Best Director race and for the film to lose Best Picture to Braveheart. So his win for A Beautiful Mind feels a bit like a mea culpa from the Academy, acknowledging their mistake (or for those outside the Director's branch, their frustration) with his lack of nomination in 1995. This is a thing that happens not infrequently with the Oscars – a win may not exactly match up with the right movie, but is seen as an acknowledgment of sorts of past work that was ignored or shut out.

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23 Tom Hooper – 'The King’s Speech' (2010)

Who Should Have Won: David Fincher for 'The Social Network'

I am still incensed about this win, so while I’m trying to be objective here, seriously WTF. Tom Hooper used some weird framing and won an Oscar for a feel-good historical drama we’ve seen countless times before, and David Fincher comes up empty-handed for crafting one of the defining films of (and about) the 21st century. Dumb.

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22 Roman Polanski – 'The Pianist' (2002)

Who Should Have Won: Rob Marshall for 'Chicago'

A difficult entry for sure. As a piece of artistry, The Pianist is pretty good. Based on an autobiographical memoir, the film tells the story of a Holocaust survivor played by Adrien Brody. And as a Holocaust survivor himself, Roman Polanski certainly brought a sense of gravitas and personal experience to the film. But as is indicative of him giving his acceptance speech via satellite for fear of being arrested if he stepped foot on U.S. soil, Polanski is also a fugitive convicted of unlawful intercourse with a minor. Good movie, solid direction, bad man. Meanwhile, Rob Marshall conjured one of the best movie musical adaptations in history.

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21 Clint Eastwood – 'Million Dollar Baby' (2004)

Who Should Have Won: Martin Scorsese for 'The Aviator'

Coming into 2004, Clint Eastwood had a lot of goodwill from nearly running the table with Mystic River the year before. It had been a while since Unforgiven, and the narrative was that Eastwood was back in fine form, and Mystic River kicked off a few years in which the Academy really liked recognizing whatever new Clint Eastwood movie had arrived. And Million Dollar Baby isn’t bad! It begins as a boxing drama and transitions into a dark and tragic story about its central characters, and Eastwood handles that tonal balance smoothly. And yet it does feel like Martin Scorsese probably should have won this for his epic spin on the life of Howard Hughes, for which he mirrored the cinematography of each era he covered.

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20 Alejandro González Iñárritu – 'Birdman' (2014)

Who Should Have Won: Richard Linklater for 'Boyhood'

There are parts of Birdman that are exhilarating, and other parts that are absolutely infuriating. But credit where credit’s due: Alejandro González Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki pulled off this “one-shot” movie. While the narrative itself gets pretty naval gazing, from a technical standpoint Birdman remains impressive, and Michael Keaton delivers a hell of a lead performance. But like with The Revenant, the film leaves you wishing it had a bit more substance under all those flashy camera tricks. And yet again, Iñárritu beats out another director doing something wholly revolutionary with Richard Linklater’s Boyhood.

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19 Alejandro González Iñárritu – 'The Revenant' (2015)

Who Should Have Won: George Miller for 'Mad Max: Fury Road'

The only director to ever win back-to-back Best Director Oscars won them for, frankly, just OK movies. If you set aside the degree of difficulty in executing The Revenant I think this lands even lower on this list, but while I’m not a huge fan of the film, I’ll admit what Alejandro González Iñárritu and Leonardo DiCaprio pulled off is impressive. This is a survival drama plain and simple, and working together with brilliant cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu puts the audience right in the headspace of DiCaprio’s lead character as he rises from a shallow grave to enact revenge. And yet it all kind of adds up to nothing new, whereas what George Miller did with Mad Max: Fury Road feels revolutionary in the annals of action cinema. Miller essentially reinvented the wheel with Fury Road, while Iñárritu simply made a very pretty wheel, and the Academy went with the latter.

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18 Ang Lee – 'Life of Pi' (2012)

Who Should Have Won: Steven Spielberg for 'Lincoln'

We did Lincoln dirty. In hindsight, Steven Spielberg’s biopic had far more to say about America and its politics than we gave it credit for at the time, and while Ang Lee’s technical prowess in blending CG environments and characters with his live-action lead certainly makes Life of Pi a spectacle worth witnessing, this feels like another case of us taking Steven Spielberg for granted. He’s one of the best directors in history, and when he nails it – like he did with Lincoln – he nails it. But in 2012 CG-driven blockbusters were becoming more and more prevalent, and Lee certainly did a terrific job bringing Life of Pi to life with cutting-edge technology, and the visuals he conjures are truly breathtaking. Although ask anyone which film has aged better, and I’d wager most haven’t revisited Life of Pi since it was first released.

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17 Danny Boyle – 'Slumdog Millionaire' (2008)

Who Should Have Won: David Fincher for 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'

Slumdog Millionaire was an absolute phenomenon that took the country and the Oscars by storm in 2008, and for good reason. Danny Boyle’s kinetic filmmaking brings this fairy tale-esque story to life in a way that’s vivid yet still cinematic and ever-so-slightly untethered from reality. And while I still think the level of technical wizardry David Fincher brings to Benjamin Button maybe should’ve gotten it, Slumdog Millionaire remains one of the most entertaining Best Picture winners in recent memory.

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16 Michel Hazanavicius – 'The Artist' (2011)

Who Should Have Won: Terrence Malick for 'The Tree of Life'

The Artist was one of those flash-in-the-pan movies that surged at just the right time, swept the Oscars, and was never really heard from ever again. And yet, Michel Hazanavicius’ artistry in bringing silent-era Hollywood back to life is impressive, and he crafts a genuinely moving and compelling story here underneath the buzzworthy aesthetic. Is it better than the haunting poetry of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life? Absolutely not. But it’s pretty good!

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15 Ang Lee – 'Brokeback Mountain' (2005)

Who Should Have Won: Ang Lee for 'Brokeback Mountain'

Ang Lee is hard to pin down as a filmmaker. He’s as at ease behind something like Sense and Sensibility as he is behind something like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, so it shouldn’t have been surprising when he brought a thoughtful, intimate touch to Brokeback Mountain. And while 2005 doesn’t seem that long ago, a lot has changed in the ensuing years, and at the time it was still labeled “the gay cowboy movie.” Lee’s gentle approach with his actors and confident handle on the film’s tone brought this tragic love story to life in a really beautiful way, making it all the more upsetting that it lost Best Picture to Crash the same year.

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14 Guillermo del Toro – 'The Shape of Water' (2017)

Who Should Have Won: Guillermo del Toro for 'The Shape of Water'

Guillermo del Toro straight-up remade Creature from the Black Lagoon with sex, and won an Oscar for it in the process. The Shape of Water is a film that absolutely should not work, and for that reason alone GDT was the only human being on the planet capable of making this film. His entire career is built on the stories of outsiders, and indeed The Shape of Water is a movie entirely populated by characters who are othered – Sally Hawkins’ empathetic mute; Richard Jenkins’ closeted aspiring artist; Octavia Spencer’s strong-willed maid who’s told she’s less than simply because of the color of her skin; and of Doug Jones’ literal fish man. These are characters Del Toro understands deeply, and their stories soar thanks to his meticulous direction that values symbolism and theme in shot composition and camera movement. Guillermo del Toro’s first Best Director Oscar was a long time coming, and he won for one of his purest artistic statements.

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13 Kathryn Bigelow – 'The Hurt Locker' (2009)

Who Should Have Won: Kathryn Bigelow for 'The Hurt Locker'

It’s been over 10 years since Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director, and Bigelow’s win still holds up tremendously as one of the Oscars’ boldest decisions. James Cameron’s technical wizardry of Avatar was tempting, but in a shock to many, Bigelow pulled out the win for her candid, affecting portrait of PTSD during the Iraq War. It’s a testament to Bigelow’s filmmaking that The Hurt Locker excels as both a nail-biting thriller and a provocative chronicle of the lives of soldiers, and the difficulty in living daily life after being on edge at all hours of the day abroad. There were plenty who thought Cameron would be King of the World once more, and I still can’t quite believe Bigelow took this one home.

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12 Steven Soderbergh – 'Traffic' (2000)

Who Should Have Won: Steven Soderbergh for 'Traffic'

It’s still insane that Steven Soderbergh not only was nominated for Best Director twice in the same year, but won instead of splitting the votes. Traffic and Erin Brockovich could not be more different films, and yet they showcase Soderbergh’s strengths as a filmmaker – his tenacity, ambition, creativity, and terrific eye for character. Traffic was a pretty radical departure for the director, but his epically intimate chronicle of the War on Drugs through three very different points of view (each with a distinct aesthetic) is tremendously effective and cinematic all at once. And while an argument could be made that Ridley Scott should’ve won for Gladiator (that year’s Best Picture-winner), I think Soderbergh’s win has aged wonderfully as one of the Academy’s best decisions.

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11 Jane Campion — 'The Power of the Dog' (2021)

Who Should Have Won: Jane Campion for 'The Power of the Dog'

The Power of the Dog, both written and directed by Jane Campion, is a rich and compelling character study that only gets stronger upon rewatch. Campion expertly unravels who these characters are, only giving us slight hints at their interior lives, and watching them explode when faced with each other. But among this incredible character work, Campion places her cast in some of the most gorgeous landscapes that recall classic Westerns and with expanses that feel like they go on forever. Everything from a mountain range to a shadowy bedroom is filmed with the same love and care, and it makes you wonder how Campion didn't already have a Best Director Oscar.

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10 Chloé Zhao — 'Nomadland' (2020)

Who Should Have Won: Chloé Zhao for 'Nomadland'

The construction of Best Picture winner Nomadland is deceptively simple. Writer/director Chloé Zhao used many non-professional actors and a naturalistic style to make it feel as though what we were witnessing was not constructed, but caught. The camera lingers on the faces of these Nomads, telling their stories by merely capturing their complete essence. There is a purpose and method to Zhao's film, and it's honestly a thing of technical beauty. It was fitting that in a year marked by so much loss and melancholy, Best Director went to a filmmaker who shined a spotlight on that humanity so often forgets, crafting a stark reminder that even when we're alone, we're surrounded.

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9 Alfonso Cuarón – 'Roma' (2018)

Who Should Have Won: Alfonso Cuarón for 'Roma'

Alfonso Cuarón doesn’t make many films, but when he does… look out. Roma is personal to the point of therapy in that Cuarón literally recreated his childhood home and had actors re-enact extremely specific memories from his upbringing, and yet the film does not feel like a vanity project. Instead, it feels almost experimental or progressive in its effect, as Cuarón’s ultra-high-definition black-and-white photography doesn’t flash back to memories, it conjures them fully formed, for all to see and hear and feel on the big screen. Watching Roma is an exercise in empathy as we see the world of this family through the eyes of young Yalitza Aparicio’s Cleo, but the trick to Roma is in Cuarón’s filmmaking. Watching the movie scene-by-scene has a cumulative effect, as Cuarón builds moments on top of one another until you get to the finale and are overwhelmed with emotion, bursting into tears for reasons that aren’t entirely clear beyond how deeply you feel for the characters onscreen. That’s the magic of the movies.

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8 Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert - 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (2022)

Who Should Have Won - Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'

There are some directors on this list who deserved their award because it seems impossible that their films even exist. That's certainly the case for Daniels, who with Everything Everywhere All at Once, created a film that seems like it should be a mess, as it explores the multiverse, action, drama, comedy, Ratatouille parodies, butt plugs, talking rocks, hot dog fingers, and pretty much anything else you can expect. But why Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert truly deserved this award is because it all comes together in a way that makes sense, is never exhausting, and is always an insane amount of fun. If this is only Daniels' second film, who knows what could come next for this duo.

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7 Damien Chazelle – 'La La Land' (2016)

Who Should Have Won: Barry Jenkins for 'Moonlight'

Haters gonna hate and all that, but La La Land is a terrific film and Damien Chazelle’s direction is downright phenomenal. He conjures a colorful, candy-coated musical ode to Los Angeles and dreamers that’s also a deeply felt love story and a harsh film about expectations vs. reality, and how we react when we meet a crossroads in our lives. The tonal tight-rope walk is a thing to behold, and it’s a testament to Chazelle’s talent that a scene in which the two lead characters float into the sky doesn’t detract but instead deepens your connection to – and investment in – their romance and well-being.

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6 Christopher Nolan — 'Oppenheimer' (2023)

Who Should Have Won: Christopher Nolan for 'Oppenheimer'

It's quite absurd that before winning the Best Director Oscar, Christopher Nolan had only been nominated for Best Director one previous time, with 2017's Dunkirk. And despite being nominated several times previously for Memento and Inception as well, this was his first win in an already impressive career. But even though it took him far too long to get on the Oscars stage, his win for directing Oppenheimer was certainly the right film for him to finally take home an Academy Award. With Oppenheimer, Nolan took all the tricks and tools he likes to use in his films and compressed them into the story of one man who had a massive impact on the world. But Nolan still brings the same level of scope and grandness to Oppenheimer that he brings to his other films, switching between timelines, creating unbelievable imagery, and telling a complex story in a concise way. With Oppenheimer, Nolan took the standard biopic and blew it to smithereens.

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5 Martin Scorsese – 'The Departed' (2006)

Who Should Have Won: Martin Scorsese for 'The Departed'

Okay yes, Martin Scorsese should have won the Best Director Oscar at least two times before – if not more – but that doesn’t make The Departed or his work therein any less great. After making “Oscar movies” with Gangs of New York and The Aviator, Scorsese merely attempted to make a great popcorn movie with The Departed and ended up winning his first-ever Best Director Academy Award. The film is a crime thriller on an epic scale, but it’s packed with the characters and meaty themes you expect from a master filmmaker like Scorsese.

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