Best Director

Borzage With a corsage In Seventh Heaven delights At the well known Milestone Of Two Arabian Nights While Frank Lloyd Is overjoyed In acting shady With The Divine Lady After his 29th joint When he got lippy Milestone stayed Quiet When Taurog played Skippy With Borzage’s Bad Girl In Lloyd’s Cavalcade whirl In Mississippi Capra, Once It Happened, found Ford The Informer InDeed Goes to Town In a Cap rated warmer Leo McCarey learns The Awful Truth From Capra a third time - You Can’t Take it With And Victor Fleming who so often sinned Finds his reward Gone with the Wind John Ford makes The Grapes of Wrath tick Then a septet directing that year’s Best Pic Ford (that’s 3) Willy Wyler Michael Curtiz McCarey Billy Wilder Makes show business his Wyler again Elia Kazan Houston’s Treasure den Sierra Madre survives For Mankiewicz to pen A Letter to Three Wives Again we have 7 with the 50s Best Pics The first being the holder - Joe Mankiewicz Then a ring-in George Stephens with A Place in the Sun And 4 times John Ford with The Quiet Man Fred ‘Dinner Man’ Zinnemann E Kazan, Delbert Mann For Stephens pictor’ally A Giant leap After which David Leans on the Bridge of Minnelli's Gigi To watch Wyler’s triptych Which has Ben Hur Molesting her It’s Wilder’s second win In an Apartment Then Bob Wise and his twin Pairing with Robbins, Jerome Lean again in the vanguard with Lawrence Before Tony Richard- son and George Cukor get home Wise singly, wisely Zinnemann Nichols bursts the bubble Sowing The Graduate’s Robinson trouble And nicks the tack Til Sir Carol Reed an’ Schlesinger man- fully get it back In the 70s again, most best pictures hold sway Foiled only by the shaft of Fosse’s Cabaret Frank Schaffner foreshadows Friedkin, Bill Followed by Fosse and George Roy Hill Frank Cappola, Milos Forman John Avildsen Woody Allen, Mike Chimino an’ Robert Benton The 80s draws a duo bucking the trend Beatty in 82, Ollie Stone at the end Robert Redford Ordinarily Precedes Warren Beatty with Reds But Dicky Attenborough and James L Brooks hold their heads Forman’s bib and brace For Amad-ace Sydney Pollock’s dressed by Gucci Stone sets the pace For Bernardo Bertolucci Barry Levinson’s ReiningAnd levitating and learning to fly Stone’s second is Born on the Fourth of July The 90s, and 3 more actors join the fun And only Spielberg in 99 spoils Best Pic’s run Kevin Costner, Jon Demme-l Clint, Spielberg’s Listed seller Bob Zemeckis, Our Mel And Tony Minghella James Cameron Is a Titan Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan Sam Mendes At the end is Still in there tryin’ To do his duty With an American Beauty In the 2000s half have taken Best Pic But not Steve Soderberg’s terrific Traffic Ron Howard gets both, but 03 is missed When Roman Polanski incites The Pianist But ringing in 2004 Peter Jackson evens the score Clint, Ang Lee M Scorsese’s go Joel and Ethan And Danny Boyle foil Kathy Bigelow Tom Hooper has the Speech of a King M Hazanavicius is an Artist in spring Ang Lee calculates Pi A Cuarón defies Gravity Iñárritu’s Birdman takes both But his Revenant is loth To share the Spotlight Chazelle is La La At beating Moonlight The Shape of Water doesn’t ripple Roma gets the tipple And so too Parasite Zhao lands Nomadland While CODA bows to the Power of the Dog Kwan and Scheinert shine With Everything Everywhere All at once Oppenheimer stands firmer And Aroma Takes the sconcePaul Thomas AndersonFinds himself in botherWith One Battle After Another