Goya Award for Best Director
Annual award by the Spanish Film Academy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Goya Award for Best Director (Spanish: Premio Goya a la mejor dirección) is one of the Goya Awards presented annually by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain (AACCE) since the awards debuted in 1986. It is given in honor of a film director or directing team that has demonstrated outstanding directing ability in making a Spanish film.
| Goya Award for Best Director | |
|---|---|
The 2026 recipient: Alauda Ruiz de Azúa | |
| Native name | Premio Goya a la mejor dirección |
| Awarded for | Best direction of a Spanish film of the year |
| Country | Spain |
| Presented by | Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain (AACCE) |
| First award | 1st Goya Awards (1986) |
| Most recent winner | Alauda Ruiz de Azúa Sundays (2025) |
| Website | Official website |
History
The category has been presented ever since the first edition of the Goya Awards. Fernando Fernán Gómez was the first winner of this award for his film Voyage to Nowhere.
Pedro Almodóvar holds the record of most wins and nominations for this category, with three wins out of twelve nominations, winning for All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006) and Pain and Glory (2019). Fernando León de Aranoa, who won for Barrio (1998), Mondays in the Sun (2002) and The Good Boss (2021), and J. A. Bayona, who won for The Impossible (2012), A Monster Calls (2015), and Society of the Snow (2023), share the record of most wins. Directors Fernando Trueba, Alejandro Amenábar, Isabel Coixet, and Rodrigo Sorogoyen have received this award twice. As of 2025, only three female directors have received the award: Pilar Miró, Icíar Bollaín and Isabel Coixet, the latter being the only woman to win the award twice.
In 2024, Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez became the first directing duo to win the award, for their work in Saturn Return. In 2025, with his nomination for Afternoons of Solitude, Albert Serra became the first director to be nominated for the award for a non-fiction film.
In the list below the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees.
Winners and nominees
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| ‡ | Indicates the winner |
|---|
1980s
| Year | Director | English title | Original title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 (1st) [1][2] | Fernando Fernán Gómez | Voyage to Nowhere | El viaje a ninguna parte |
| Emilio Martínez Lázaro | Lulu by Night | Lulú de noche | |
| Pilar Miró | Werther | ||
| 1987 (2nd) | José Luis Garci | Course Completed | Asignatura aprobada |
| Bigas Luna | Anguish | Angustia | |
| Vicente Aranda | El Lute: Run for Your Life | El Lute: camina o revienta | |
| 1988 (3rd) | Gonzalo Suárez | Rowing with the Wind | Remando al viento |
| Pedro Almodóvar | Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown | Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios | |
| Ricardo Franco | Berlin Blues | ||
| Antonio Mercero | Wait for Me in Heaven | Espérame en el cielo | |
| Francisco Regueiro | Winter Diary | Diario de invierno | |
| 1989 (4th) | Fernando Trueba | Twisted Obsession | El sueño del mono loco |
| Vicente Aranda | If They Tell You I Fell | Si te dicen que caí | |
| Fernando Fernán Gómez | The Sea and the Weather | El mar y el tiempo | |
| Josefina Molina | Esquilache | ||
| Agustí Villaronga | Moon Child | El niño de la luna | |
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple nominations
The following 37 directors have received multiple Best Director nominations.
| Name | Awards | Nominations |
|---|---|---|
| Pedro Almodóvar | 3 | 12 |
| Fernando León de Aranoa | 3 | 4 |
| J. A. Bayona | 3 | 3 |
| Isabel Coixet | 2 | 6 |
| Fernando Trueba | 2 | 5 |
| Alejandro Amenábar | 2 | 5 |
| Rodrigo Sorogoyen | 2 | 3 |
| Vicente Aranda | 1 | 6 |
| Icíar Bollaín | 1 | 5 |
| Alberto Rodríguez | 1 | 5 |
| José Luis Garci | 1 | 4 |
| Álex de la Iglesia | 1 | 4 |
| Pilar Miró | 1 | 3 |
| Imanol Uribe | 1 | 3 |
| David Trueba | 1 | 3 |
| Fernando Fernán Gómez | 1 | 2 |
| Ricardo Franco | 1 | 2 |
| Carlos Saura | 1 | 2 |
| Agustí Villaronga | 1 | 2 |
| Daniel Monzón | 1 | 2 |
| Cesc Gay | 1 | 2 |
| Javier Fesser | 1 | 2 |
| Isaki Lacuesta | 1 | 2 |
| Aitor Arregi | 0 | 4 |
| Jon Garaño | 0 | 4 |
| Montxo Armendáriz | 0 | 3 |
| Agustín Díaz Yanes | 0 | 3 |
| Emilio Martínez Lázaro | 0 | 3 |
| Gracia Querejeta | 0 | 3 |
| Benito Zambrano | 0 | 3 |
| Manuel Martín Cuenca | 0 | 3 |
| Adolfo Aristarain | 0 | 2 |
| José Luis Cuerda | 0 | 2 |
| Bigas Luna | 0 | 2 |
| Julio Medem | 0 | 2 |
| Juanma Bajo Ulloa | 0 | 2 |
| Carlos Vermut | 0 | 2 |
| Paula Ortiz | 0 | 2 |
| Carla Simón | 0 | 2 |
| Oliver Laxe | 0 | 2 |