Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director

Winners
Names and titles in bold indicate directors that won the Academy Award for Best Director. Names and titles with an asterisk (*) indicate films that were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, but did not win.
 * 1980 - Roman Polanski*, Tess
 * 1981 - Steven Spielberg*, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
 * 1982 - Steven Spielberg*, Raiders of the Lost Ark
 * 1983 - Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani, The Night of the Shooting Stars
 * 1984 - Bertrand Tavernier, A Sunday in the Country
 * 1985 - John Huston*, Prizzi's Honor
 * 1986 - David Lynch*, Blue Velvet / 'Oliver Stone', Platoon
 * 1987 - Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket
 * 1988 - Stephen Frears, Dangerous Liaisons
 * 1989 - Woody Allen*, Crimes and Misdemeanors
 * 1990 - Martin Scorsese*, Goodfellas
 * '1991' - Jonathan Demme, The Silence of the Lambs
 * 1992 - Robert Altman*, The Player
 * '1993' - Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List
 * 1994 - Quentin Tarantino*, Pulp Fiction
 * 1995 - Ang Lee, Sense and Sensibility
 * 1996 - Mike Leigh*, Secrets & Lies
 * 1997 - Curtis Hanson*, L.A. Confidential
 * 1998 - John Boorman, The General
 * 1999 - David O. Russell, Three Kings
 * 2000 - Cameron Crowe, Almost Famous
 * 2001 - David Lynch*, Mulholland Drive
 * '2002' - Roman Polanski, The Pianist
 * 2003 - Sofia Coppola*, Lost in Translation
 * 2004 - Zhang Yimou, House of Flying Daggers
 * '2005' - Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
 * '2006' - Martin Scorsese, The Departed
 * 2007 - Julian Schnabel*, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
 * 2008 - Gus Van Sant*, Milk and Paranoid Park
 * '2009' - Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
 * 2010 - David Fincher*, The Social Network
 * 2011 - Martin Scorsese*, Hugo
 * 2012 - Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
 * 2013 - Steve McQueen*, 12 Years a Slave
 * 2014 - Richard Linklater*, Boyhood
 * 2015 - Todd Haynes, Carol
 * '2016' - Damien Chazelle, La La Land
 * 2017 - Paul Thomas Anderson*, Phantom Thread
 * 2018 - Lynne Ramsay, You Were Never Really Here

Multiple wins

 * 3: Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg
 * 2: Kathryn Bigelow, Ang Lee, David Lynch, Roman Polanski