OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel

J.C. Chandor for A Most Violent Year

Ava DuVernay for Selma

Jonathan Glazer for Under the Skin

Richard Linklter for Boyhood

AND THE WINNER IS:

RICHARD LINKLATER FOR BOYHOOD

This is the third win (second this year) and seventh nomination for Richard Linklater having previously won for animating Waking Life (2001) and this year for writing Boyhood. He was also nominated for director School of Rock (2003), writing Before Sunset (2004) & Before Midnight (2013) and animating A Scanner Darkly (2006).

Richard Linklater has such a nuanced style of direction and this really comes out in full force effect in Boyhood where the 12 year journey of all these characters of the Evans family is allowed to play out in quite effecting moments. Linklater allows his characters and world to just live in the moment and has always done that in his career with Boyhood being the most extreme example of how great his direction can be. An example of Linklater’s best work in this feature is how he can make simple scenes feel quite devastating where you always expect the worse to happen but like real life nothing horrific usually happens and this is why his direction can be quite underappreciated.