Martin Scorsese Makes History with 10th Best Director Nomination at Oscars 2024

Martin Scorsese is smashing records!

On Tuesday, the 81-year-old filmmaker became the most-nominated living director in Oscars history. Scorsese is only behind William Wyler, who holds the record with 12 nominations, per the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Wyler died in 1981, at age 79.

"It’s deeply gratifying to receive this recognition from the Academy, for myself and for so many of my collaborators on Killers of the Flower Moon," Scorsese said in a statement. "It was a remarkable experience to make this picture, to work together with the Osage community to tell the story of a genuine American tragedy, hidden in the shadows of official culture for far too long."

"I only wish that Robbie Robertson had lived to see his work recognized — our many years of friendship and Robbie’s growing consciousness of his own Native heritage played a crucial role in my desire to get this film onscreen," he added of the film's composer, who died two months before its release, at age 80.

Scorsese passed fellow Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg in his Best Director nod count, bringing his total to 10 with his work on Killers of the Flower Moon. The film is up for a total of 10 Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture.

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With a win, Scorsese would earn his second Oscar statuette, having nabbed the Best Director award previously for helming The Departed (2006).

He is up against Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall), Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer), Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) and Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest).

Among the acting nods for Killers of the Flower Moon include one for Lily Gladstone in the Best Actress category, and veteran Robert De Niro, who is up for Best Supporting Actor.

Gladstone, 37, also made history herself as the first Native American actress to be nominated for an Oscar. She's the fourth Indigenous actress to ever earn a nomination in the category.

Killers of the Flower Moon, based on a true story, depicts Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Molly Burkhart's relationship during several years in the 1920s, during which white settlers in Oklahoma orchestrated plots to murder a number of members of the Osage Nation in order to obtain their headrights to the tribe's oil deposits.

Scorsese was recently honored at the National Board of Review Awards Gala in New York City, where retired actor Daniel Day-Lewis presented him with the award for best director.

While giving the honor, Day-Lewis, 66, praised Scorsese for his vision and effort to create "enthralling" films, saying in part during the presentation, “Martin's work — with the light of his own making — he illuminated unknown worlds that pulsed with the dangerous, irresistible energy, worlds that were mysterious to me and utterly enthralling."

"He illuminated the vast beautiful landscape of what is possible in film, and he clarified for me what it is that one must ask of oneself, to work in faith," he continued.

Day-Lewis — who starred in Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993) and Gangs of New York (2002) — also shared a glimpse at his close relationship with the esteemed director, noting that "one of the greatest joys and most unexpected privileges of my life was to find myself one day working with him."

The 96th Academy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will air live on Sunday, March 10, from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, beginning at 7 p.m. ET.