Steven Spielberg Ties Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, More With Golden Globes Best Director Win

At the 2023 Golden Globes, Steven Spielberg tied Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Milos Forman and David Lean with the second-most best director wins.

This year’s win marks Spielberg’s third win for best director at the Globes, and he’s been nominated 14 times in the category, the most of any director. It also marks his first win for a competitive Globe, rather than an honorary one, in nearly a quarter-century.

Following his win Tuesday night for his film The FabelmansSpielberg took the stage to tell the world why it took so long for him to tell his personal story on the big screen, and why he finally had the courage to do so.

“I have been hiding from this story since I was 17 years old,” Spielberg said. “I put a lot of things in my way of the story. I told the story in parts and parcels all through my career. ET has a lot to do with the story, Close Encounters has a lot to do with the story. But I never had the courage to hit the story head on. Until Tony Kushner, when we were working on Munich, which was a long time ago, sat me down and said, ‘start telling me about all these stories I’ve heard about your life.’ And we started a conversation and the conversation lasted all through Munichall thought Lincolnall through West Side Story.“

He continued: “I think everything I’ve done up to this point has made me ready to finally be honest about the fact that it’s not easy to be a kid, the fact that everybody sees me as a success story and everybody sees all of us the way they perceive us based on how they get information, but nobody really knows who we are until we’re courageous enough to tell everyone who we are and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out when I could tell that story. And I figured out when I turned about 74 years old, I said, ‘you better do it now. You better do it now!’ I’m really really happy I did.”

The Fabelmans is a semi-autobiographical story loosely based on Spielberg’s adolescence and first years as a filmmaker, told through the eyes of Sammy Fabelman, played by Gabriel LaBelle. The film also stars Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen and Judd Hirsch.

Spielberg was nominated alongside James Cameron (Avatar: The Way of Water), Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Baz Luhrmann (Elvis) and Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin).

The HFPA, which presents the Golden Globes, is owned by Eldridge Industries. The News84Media is owned by PME Holdings, LLC, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge.

Read the full Golden Globes winners list here.