AFT Awards: Best Director

This is the twenty-sixth category of the 6th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category.

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):
All In, Amour, Arbitrage, Brave, Caroline and Jackie, Citizen Gangster, Detachment, Elles, Extraterrestrial, Flight, Footnote, Frankenweenie, Goodbye First Love, Grassroots, Life of Pi, People Like Us, Perfect Sense, Quartet, La Rafle, Return , Ruby Sparks, The Runway, Safety Not Guaranteed, The Sessions, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Black Tulip, The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best, The Five-Year Engagement, The Giant Mechanical Man, The Impossible, The Well-Digger’s Daughter, We Have a Pope, Your Sister’s Sister

Runners-up:
Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master)
Joe Wright (Anna Karenina)
Ridley Scott (Prometheus)
Morten Tyldum (Headhunters)
Craig Zobel (Compliance)

The winner:
Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) tactfully created an enormously compelling narrative and handled a difficult subject with skill and grace.

Other nominees:
Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) masterfully visited a whole new world of beauty and innocence. Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom) used his signature quirk to share a sweet and compelling love story. Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Rises) completed his Batman saga with an involving and excellent final chapter. Ben Affleck (Argo) left Boston to make a mature and enthralling international thriller.