Which filmmaker is the bookies' favourite to win Best Director at the Oscars?

The 96th Academy Awards will occur on 10 March 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

The Oscars ceremony is dedicated to celebrating the best of film each year whether it be from an artistic or technical point of view. It is generally considered to be the most prestigious movie award ceremony in the world and has been running since the first ceremony took place at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in 1929.

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The most coveted awards are for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director, though each of the 23 awards given on the night comes with its own degree of prestige.

Each category winner is awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the 'Academy Award of Merit' though it is colloquially known now as simply an 'Oscar'.

With regards to the Best Director award, there is one major front-runner, according to betting website Oddschecker.

Oscar Odds 2024

Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) - 1/33

Christopher Nolan is the odds-on favourite to win the Best Director gong for Oppenheimer.

Official premise:

'During World War II, Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves Jr. appoints physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer and a team of scientists spend years developing and designing the atomic bomb. Their work comes to fruition on July 16, 1945, as they witness the world's first nuclear explosion, forever changing the course of history.'

Oppenheimer cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Jason Clarke and Tom Conti.

Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) - 25/1

Killers of the Flower Moon is directed and co-written by Martin Scorsese and is based on the non-fiction novel 'Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI' written by David Grann. 

The official premise reads:

'Members of the Osage tribe in northeastern Oklahoma are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920s, sparking a major BOI investigation directed by a 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover and former Texas Ranger Tom White, described by Grann as "an old-style lawman."'

Killers of the Flower Moon cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser.

Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) - 25/1

According to our own MovieMeter community, the best movie of the year is Poor Things.  Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Emma Stone, the official premise reads:

'A young woman, Bella, is brought back to life by her guardian, the scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter. Initially naïve, Bella is eager to learn about the world around her, albeit under Baxter's protection. Wanting to see more, she runs off with Duncan Wedderburn, a slick and debauched lawyer, and travels across continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella demands equality and liberation.'

Poor Things cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef and Christopher Abbott.

The other directors nominated are Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest and Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall.