The American Film Institute will select its 50th life achievement award recipient in the next few months. We recently offered a poll about which top director should receive this AFI honor in 2025. Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The Conversation”) is your overwhelming choice with 34.62% of support based on our poll results.
Look out for two more separate polls about your favorite choices for actresses and actors soon.
Here are the results of the poll following Coppola in first place:
Ron Howard (11.54%)
Ridley Scott (10.58%)
Pedro Almodovar (9.62%)
Christopher Nolan (6.73%)
David Fincher (4.81%)
Spike Lee (3.85%)
Joel and Ethan Coen (3.85%)
Quentin Tarantino (2.88%)
Guillermo del Toro (2.88%)
Jane Campion (2.88%)
James Cameron (2.88%)
Robert Zemeckis (1.92%)
Ang Lee (0.96%)
Oliver Stone (0.0%)
Rob Reiner (0.00%)
SEE American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Recipients
Starting in the early 1970s, the AFI started choosing actors, actresses and directors with recipients being director John Ford (1973), actor James Cagney (1974), director/actor Orson Welles (1975), director William Wyler (1976), actress Bette Davis (1977), actor Henry Fonda (1978) and director Alfred Hitchcock (1979).
Past recipients still living (and therefore not eligible again) are: actor Jack Nicholson (1994), director Steven Spielberg (1995), actor/director Clint Eastwood (1996), director Martin Scorsese (1997), actor Dustin Hoffman (1999), actor Harrison Ford (2000), actress/director Barbra Streisand (2001), actor/director Tom Hanks (2002), actor Robert De Niro (2003), actress Meryl Streep (2004), director George Lucas (2005), actor Al Pacino (2007), actor/director Warren Beatty (2008), actor/producer Michael Douglas (2009), actor Morgan Freeman (2011), actress Shirley MacLaine (2012), director/actor Mel Brooks (2013), actress Jane Fonda (2014), actor/writer Steve Martin (2015), composer John Williams (2016), actress Diane Keaton (2017), actor/director George Clooney (2018), actor/director Denzel Washington (2019), actress Julie Andrews (2022) and actress/producer Nicole Kidman.
PREDICT the 2025 Oscar nominations through January 17
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