Academy Award for Best Director - Best Director

The Academy Award for Best Directing (Best Director), usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to directors working in the motion picture industry. While nominations for Best Director are made by members in the Academy's Directing branch, the award winners are selected by the Academy membership as a whole.
History

Throughout the past 85 years, AMPAS has presented a total of 86 Best Director awards to 65 different directors. At the 1st Academy Awards (1927/1928), there were two directing awards—one for "Dramatic Direction" and one for "Comedy Direction". The Comedy Direction award was eliminated the next year and, indeed, the awards have overwhelmingly favored dramatic films ever since. At both the 34th Academy Awards (1961) and the 80th Academy Awards (2007), Best Director was presented to a co-directing team, rather than to an individual director.

The earliest years of the award were marked by inconsistency and confusion. In the Academy Awards' first year, actors and others such as cinematographers were nominated for all of their films produced during the qualifying period. However, since the directing award was for "directing" rather than "best director", it honored the director in association with only a single film—thus Janet Gaynor has two Frank Borzage films listed after her Best Actress nomination, but only one of them earned Borzage a directing nomination. The second year, the directing award followed the others in listing all of a director's work during the qualifying period, resulting in Frank Lloyd being nominated for three of his films—but, even more confusingly, only one of them was listed on the final award as the film for which he won. Finally, for the 1931 awards, this confusing system was replaced by the current system in which a director is nominated for a single film.

The Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 85 films that have been awarded Best Picture, 62 have also been awarded Best Director.[1] Only four films have won Best Picture without their directors being nominated: Wings (1927/28), Grand Hotel (1931/32), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and Argo (2012). The only two Best Director winners to win for films which did not receive a Best Picture nomination are notably during the early years; Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Knights (1927/28) and Frank Lloyd for The Divine Lady (1928/29).

Only four women have ever been nominated for Best Director: Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties (1976), Jane Campion for The Piano (1993), Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003), and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2009). Bigelow was the first, and to date the only, female director to win the Academy Award for Best Director.
Rules

Due to strict rules declared by the Directors Guild of America (DGA), only one individual may claim screen credit as a film's director. (This rule is designed to prevent rights and ownership issues and to eliminate lobbying for director credit by producers and actors.) However, the DGA may create an exception to this "one director per film" rule if two co-directors seeking to share director credit for a film qualify as an "established duo". In the history of the Academy Awards, established duos have been nominated for Best Director only four times: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (who won for West Side Story in 1961); Warren Beatty and Buck Henry (who were nominated for Heaven Can Wait in 1978), and Ethan & Joel Coen (who won for No Country for Old Men in 2007 and were nominated again in 2010 for True Grit).
Multiple nominations

The following 91 directors have received multiple Best Director nominations. The list is sorted by the number of total awards (with the number of total nominations listed in parentheses).

    4  : John Ford (5)
    3  : William Wyler (12)
    3  : Frank Capra (6)
    2  : Billy Wilder (8)
    2  : David Lean (7)
    2  : Fred Zinnemann (7)
    2  : Steven Spielberg (7)
    2  : Elia Kazan (5)
    2  : George Stevens (5)
    2  : Clint Eastwood (4)
    2  : Frank Lloyd (4)
    2  : Joseph L. Mankiewicz (4)
    2  : Miloš Forman (3)
    2  : Ang Lee (3)
    2  : Leo McCarey (3)
    2  : Lewis Milestone (3)
    2  : Oliver Stone (3)
    2  : Robert Wise (3)
    2  : Frank Borzage (2)
    1  : Woody Allen (7)
    1  : Martin Scorsese (7)
    1  : George Cukor (5)
    1  : Michael Curtiz (5)
    1  : John Huston (5)
    1  : Francis Ford Coppola (4)
    1  : Mike Nichols (4)
    1  : Joel Coen (3)
    1  : Bob Fosse (3)
    1  : Roman Polanski (3)
    1  : Sydney Pollack (3)
    1  : Carol Reed (3)

   

    1  : John Schlesinger (3)
    1  : Warren Beatty (2)
    1  : Robert Benton (2)
    1  : Bernardo Bertolucci (2)
    1  : James Cameron (2)
    1  : Ethan Coen (2)
    1  : William Friedkin (2)
    1  : Ron Howard (2)
    1  : Peter Jackson (2)
    1  : Barry Levinson (2)
    1  : Vincente Minnelli (2)
    1  : Robert Redford (2)
    1  : George Roy Hill (2)
    1  : Steven Soderbergh (2)
    1  : Norman Taurog (2)
    0  : Robert Altman (5)
    0  : Clarence Brown (5)
    0  : Alfred Hitchcock (5)
    0  : King Vidor (5)
    0  : Federico Fellini (4)
    0  : Stanley Kubrick (4)
    0  : Sidney Lumet (4)
    0  : Peter Weir (4)
    0  : Ingmar Bergman (3)
    0  : Richard Brooks (3)
    0  : Stephen Daldry (3)
    0  : James Ivory (3)
    0  : Norman Jewison (3)
    0  : Stanley Kramer (3)

   

    0  : Ernst Lubitsch (3)
    0  : David Lynch (3)
    0  : Arthur Penn (3)
    0  : Ridley Scott (3)
    0  : William A. Wellman (3)
    0  : Sam Wood (3)
    0  : John Boorman (2)
    0  : David Fincher (2)
    0  : Stephen Frears (2)
    0  : Lasse Hallström (2)
    0  : Roland Joffé (2)
    0  : Henry King (2)
    0  : Gregory La Cava (2)
    0  : Mike Leigh (2)
    0  : Robert Z. Leonard (2)
    0  : Joshua Logan (2)
    0  : George Lucas (2)
    0  : Terrence Malick (2)
    0  : Alan Parker (2)
    0  : Alexander Payne (2)
    0  : Otto Preminger (2)
    0  : Jason Reitman (2)
    0  : Mark Robson (2)
    0  : Robert Rossen (2)
    0  : David O. Russell (2)
    0  : Jim Sheridan (2)
    0  : Josef von Sternberg (2)
    0  : Quentin Tarantino (2)
    0  : W. S. Van Dyke (2)
    0  : Gus Van Sant (2)
    0  : Peter Yates (2)

Winners and nominees

Each Academy Award ceremony is listed chronologically below along with the winner of the Academy Award for Directing and the film associated with the award. In the column next to the winner of each award are the other nominees for best director. Following the Academy's practice, the films below are listed by the years of their Los Angeles qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) in the year of release; for example, the Oscar for Best Director of 1999 was announced during the award ceremony held in 2000.

For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. For example, the 2nd Academy Awards presented on April 3, 1930, recognized films that were released between August 1, 1928 and July 31, 1929. Starting with the 7th Academy Awards, held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.
1920s

In the first year only, the award was separated into Dramatic Direction and Comedy Direction.
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1927/28 (Dramatic)     Frank Borzage
 – Seventh Heaven     Herbert Brenon – Sorrell and Son
King Vidor – The Crowd
1927/28 (Comedy)     Lewis Milestone
 – Two Arabian Knights     Ted Wilde – Speedy
1928/29     Frank Lloyd
 – The Divine Lady     Lionel Barrymore – Madame X
Harry Beaumont – The Broadway Melody
Irving Cummings – In Old Arizona
Frank Lloyd - Drag and Weary River
Ernst Lubitsch – The Patriot
1929/30     Lewis Milestone
 – All Quiet on the Western Front     Clarence Brown – Anna Christie and Romance
Robert Z. Leonard – The Divorcée
Ernst Lubitsch – The Love Parade
King Vidor – Hallelujah
1930s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1930/31     Norman Taurog
 – Skippy     Clarence Brown – A Free Soul
Lewis Milestone – The Front Page
Wesley Ruggles – Cimarron
Josef von Sternberg – Morocco
1931/32     Frank Borzage
 – Bad Girl     King Vidor – The Champ
Josef von Sternberg – Shanghai Express
1932/33     Frank Lloyd
 – Cavalcade     Frank Capra – Lady for a Day
George Cukor – Little Women

(The Academy also announced that Capra came in second, and Cukor last.)
1934     Frank Capra
 – It Happened One Night     Victor Schertzinger – One Night of Love
W. S. Van Dyke – The Thin Man

(The Academy also announced that Van Dyke came in second, and Schertzinger last.)
1935     John Ford
 – The Informer     Henry Hathaway – The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
Frank Lloyd – Mutiny on the Bounty

(The Academy also announced that write-in candidate Michael Curtiz, for Captain Blood, came in second, and Hathaway third.)
1936     Frank Capra
 – Mr. Deeds Goes to Town     Gregory La Cava – My Man Godfrey
Robert Z. Leonard – The Great Ziegfeld
W. S. Van Dyke – San Francisco
William Wyler – Dodsworth
1937     Leo McCarey
 – The Awful Truth     William Dieterle – The Life of Emile Zola
Sidney Franklin – The Good Earth
Gregory La Cava – Stage Door
William A. Wellman – A Star Is Born
1938     Frank Capra
 – You Can't Take It with You     Michael Curtiz – Angels with Dirty Faces
Michael Curtiz – Four Daughters
Norman Taurog – Boys Town
King Vidor – The Citadel
1939     Victor Fleming
 – Gone with the Wind     Frank Capra – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
John Ford – Stagecoach
Sam Wood – Goodbye, Mr. Chips
William Wyler – Wuthering Heights
1940s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1940     John Ford
 – The Grapes of Wrath     George Cukor – The Philadelphia Story
Alfred Hitchcock – Rebecca
Sam Wood – Kitty Foyle
William Wyler – The Letter
1941     John Ford
 – How Green Was My Valley     Alexander Hall – Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Howard Hawks – Sergeant York
Orson Welles – Citizen Kane
William Wyler – The Little Foxes
1942     William Wyler
 – Mrs. Miniver     Michael Curtiz – Yankee Doodle Dandy
John Farrow – Wake Island
Mervyn LeRoy – Random Harvest
Sam Wood – Kings Row
1943     Michael Curtiz
 – Casablanca     Clarence Brown – The Human Comedy
Henry King – The Song of Bernadette
Ernst Lubitsch – Heaven Can Wait
George Stevens – The More the Merrier
1944     Leo McCarey
 – Going My Way     Alfred Hitchcock – Lifeboat
Henry King – Wilson
Otto Preminger – Laura
Billy Wilder – Double Indemnity
1945     Billy Wilder
 – The Lost Weekend     Clarence Brown – National Velvet
Alfred Hitchcock – Spellbound
Leo McCarey – The Bells of St. Mary's
Jean Renoir – The Southerner
1946     William Wyler
 – The Best Years of Our Lives     Clarence Brown – The Yearling
Frank Capra – It's a Wonderful Life
David Lean – Brief Encounter
Robert Siodmak – The Killers
1947     Elia Kazan
 – Gentleman's Agreement     George Cukor – A Double Life
Edward Dmytryk – Crossfire
Henry Koster – The Bishop's Wife
David Lean – Great Expectations
1948     John Huston
 – The Treasure of the Sierra Madre     Anatole Litvak – The Snake Pit
Jean Negulesco – Johnny Belinda
Laurence Olivier – Hamlet
Fred Zinnemann – The Search
1949     Joseph L. Mankiewicz
 – A Letter to Three Wives     Carol Reed – The Fallen Idol
Robert Rossen – All the King's Men
William A. Wellman – Battleground
William Wyler – The Heiress
1950s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1950     Joseph L. Mankiewicz
 – All About Eve     George Cukor – Born Yesterday
John Huston – The Asphalt Jungle
Carol Reed – The Third Man
Billy Wilder – Sunset Boulevard
1951     George Stevens
 – A Place in the Sun     John Huston – The African Queen
Elia Kazan – A Streetcar Named Desire
Vincente Minnelli – An American in Paris
William Wyler – Detective Story
1952     John Ford
 – The Quiet Man     Cecil B. DeMille – The Greatest Show on Earth
John Huston – Moulin Rouge
Joseph L. Mankiewicz – 5 Fingers
Fred Zinnemann – High Noon
1953     Fred Zinnemann
 – From Here to Eternity     George Stevens – Shane
Charles Walters – Lili
Billy Wilder – Stalag 17
William Wyler – Roman Holiday
1954     Elia Kazan
 – On the Waterfront     Alfred Hitchcock – Rear Window
George Seaton – The Country Girl
William A. Wellman – The High and the Mighty
Billy Wilder – Sabrina
1955     Delbert Mann
 – Marty     Elia Kazan – East of Eden
David Lean – Summertime
Joshua Logan – Picnic
John Sturges – Bad Day at Black Rock
1956     George Stevens
 – Giant     Michael Anderson – Around the World in 80 Days
Walter Lang – The King and I
King Vidor – War and Peace
William Wyler – Friendly Persuasion
1957     David Lean
 – The Bridge on the River Kwai     Joshua Logan – Sayonara
Sidney Lumet – 12 Angry Men
Mark Robson – Peyton Place
Billy Wilder – Witness for the Prosecution
1958     Vincente Minnelli
 – Gigi     Richard Brooks – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Stanley Kramer – The Defiant Ones
Mark Robson – The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Robert Wise – I Want to Live!
1959     William Wyler
 – Ben-Hur     Jack Clayton – Room at the Top
George Stevens – The Diary of Anne Frank
Billy Wilder – Some Like It Hot
Fred Zinnemann – The Nun's Story
1960s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1960     Billy Wilder
 – The Apartment     Jack Cardiff – Sons and Lovers
Jules Dassin – Never on Sunday
Alfred Hitchcock – Psycho
Fred Zinnemann – The Sundowners
1961     Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins
 – West Side Story     Federico Fellini – La Dolce Vita
Stanley Kramer – Judgment at Nuremberg
Robert Rossen – The Hustler
J. Lee Thompson – The Guns of Navarone
1962     David Lean
 – Lawrence of Arabia     Pietro Germi – Divorce, Italian Style
Robert Mulligan – To Kill a Mockingbird
Arthur Penn – The Miracle Worker
Frank Perry – David and Lisa
1963     Tony Richardson
 – Tom Jones     Federico Fellini – 8½
Elia Kazan – America, America
Otto Preminger – The Cardinal
Martin Ritt – Hud
1964     George Cukor
 – My Fair Lady     Michael Cacoyannis – Zorba the Greek
Peter Glenville – Becket
Stanley Kubrick – Dr. Strangelove
Robert Stevenson – Mary Poppins
1965     Robert Wise
 – The Sound of Music     David Lean – Doctor Zhivago
John Schlesinger – Darling
Hiroshi Teshigahara – The Woman in the Dunes
William Wyler – The Collector
1966     Fred Zinnemann
 – A Man for All Seasons     Michelangelo Antonioni – Blowup
Richard Brooks – The Professionals
Claude Lelouch – A Man and a Woman
Mike Nichols – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1967     Mike Nichols
 – The Graduate     Richard Brooks – In Cold Blood
Norman Jewison – In the Heat of the Night
Stanley Kramer – Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Arthur Penn – Bonnie and Clyde
1968     Carol Reed
 – Oliver!     Anthony Harvey – The Lion in Winter
Stanley Kubrick – 2001: A Space Odyssey
Gillo Pontecorvo – The Battle of Algiers
Franco Zeffirelli – Romeo and Juliet
1969     John Schlesinger
 – Midnight Cowboy     Costa Gavras – Z
George Roy Hill – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Arthur Penn – Alice's Restaurant
Sydney Pollack – They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
1970s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1970     Franklin J. Schaffner
 – Patton     Robert Altman – MASH
Federico Fellini – Satyricon
Arthur Hiller – Love Story
Ken Russell – Women in Love
1971     William Friedkin
 – The French Connection     Peter Bogdanovich – The Last Picture Show
Norman Jewison – Fiddler on the Roof
Stanley Kubrick – A Clockwork Orange
John Schlesinger – Sunday Bloody Sunday
1972     Bob Fosse
 – Cabaret     John Boorman – Deliverance
Francis Ford Coppola – The Godfather
Joseph L. Mankiewicz – Sleuth
Jan Troell – The Emigrants
1973     George Roy Hill
 – The Sting     Ingmar Bergman – Cries and Whispers
Bernardo Bertolucci - Last Tango in Paris
William Friedkin - The Exorcist
George Lucas – American Graffiti
1974     Francis Ford Coppola
 – The Godfather Part II     John Cassavetes – A Woman Under the Influence
Bob Fosse – Lenny
Roman Polanski – Chinatown
François Truffaut – Day for Night
1975     Miloš Forman
 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest     Robert Altman – Nashville
Federico Fellini – Amarcord
Stanley Kubrick – Barry Lyndon
Sidney Lumet – Dog Day Afternoon
1976     John G. Avildsen
 – Rocky     Ingmar Bergman – Face to Face
Sidney Lumet – Network
Alan J. Pakula – All the President's Men
Lina Wertmüller – Seven Beauties
1977     Woody Allen
 – Annie Hall     George Lucas – Star Wars
Herbert Ross – The Turning Point
Steven Spielberg – Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Fred Zinnemann – Julia
1978     Michael Cimino
 – The Deer Hunter     Woody Allen – Interiors
Hal Ashby – Coming Home
Warren Beatty & Buck Henry – Heaven Can Wait
Alan Parker – Midnight Express
1979     Robert Benton
 – Kramer vs. Kramer     Francis Ford Coppola – Apocalypse Now
Bob Fosse – All That Jazz
Édouard Molinaro – La Cage aux Folles
Peter Yates – Breaking Away
1980s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1980     Robert Redford
 – Ordinary People     David Lynch – The Elephant Man
Roman Polanski – Tess
Richard Rush – The Stunt Man
Martin Scorsese – Raging Bull
1981     Warren Beatty
 – Reds     Hugh Hudson – Chariots of Fire
Louis Malle – Atlantic City
Mark Rydell – On Golden Pond
Steven Spielberg – Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982     Richard Attenborough
 – Gandhi     Sidney Lumet – The Verdict
Wolfgang Petersen – Das Boot
Sydney Pollack – Tootsie
Steven Spielberg – E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
1983     James L. Brooks
 – Terms of Endearment     Bruce Beresford – Tender Mercies
Ingmar Bergman – Fanny and Alexander
Mike Nichols – Silkwood
Peter Yates – The Dresser
1984     Miloš Forman
 – Amadeus     Woody Allen – Broadway Danny Rose
Robert Benton – Places in the Heart
Roland Joffé – The Killing Fields
David Lean – A Passage to India
1985     Sydney Pollack
 – Out of Africa     Héctor Babenco – Kiss of the Spider Woman
John Huston – Prizzi's Honor
Akira Kurosawa – Ran
Peter Weir – Witness
1986     Oliver Stone
 – Platoon     Woody Allen – Hannah and Her Sisters
James Ivory – A Room with a View
Roland Joffé – The Mission
David Lynch – Blue Velvet
1987     Bernardo Bertolucci
 – The Last Emperor     John Boorman – Hope and Glory
Lasse Hallström – My Life as a Dog
Norman Jewison – Moonstruck
Adrian Lyne – Fatal Attraction
1988     Barry Levinson
 – Rain Man     Charles Crichton – A Fish Called Wanda
Mike Nichols – Working Girl
Alan Parker – Mississippi Burning
Martin Scorsese – The Last Temptation of Christ
1989     Oliver Stone
 – Born on the Fourth of July     Woody Allen – Crimes and Misdemeanors
Kenneth Branagh – Henry V
Jim Sheridan – My Left Foot
Peter Weir – Dead Poets Society
1990s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
1990     Kevin Costner
 – Dances with Wolves     Francis Ford Coppola – The Godfather Part III
Stephen Frears – The Grifters
Barbet Schroeder – Reversal of Fortune
Martin Scorsese – Goodfellas
1991     Jonathan Demme
 – The Silence of the Lambs     Barry Levinson – Bugsy
Ridley Scott – Thelma & Louise
John Singleton – Boyz n the Hood
Oliver Stone – JFK
1992     Clint Eastwood
 – Unforgiven     Robert Altman – The Player
Martin Brest – Scent of a Woman
James Ivory – Howards End
Neil Jordan – The Crying Game
1993     Steven Spielberg
 – Schindler's List     Robert Altman – Short Cuts
Jane Campion – The Piano
James Ivory – The Remains of the Day
Jim Sheridan – In the Name of the Father
1994     Robert Zemeckis
 – Forrest Gump     Woody Allen – Bullets Over Broadway
Krzysztof Kieślowski – Three Colors: Red
Robert Redford – Quiz Show
Quentin Tarantino – Pulp Fiction
1995     Mel Gibson
 – Braveheart     Mike Figgis – Leaving Las Vegas
Chris Noonan – Babe
Michael Radford – Il Postino
Tim Robbins – Dead Man Walking
1996     Anthony Minghella
 – The English Patient     Joel Coen – Fargo
Miloš Forman – The People vs. Larry Flynt
Scott Hicks – Shine
Mike Leigh – Secrets & Lies
1997     James Cameron
 – Titanic     Peter Cattaneo – The Full Monty
Atom Egoyan – The Sweet Hereafter
Curtis Hanson – L.A. Confidential
Gus Van Sant – Good Will Hunting
1998     Steven Spielberg
 – Saving Private Ryan     Roberto Benigni – Life Is Beautiful
John Madden – Shakespeare in Love
Terrence Malick – The Thin Red Line
Peter Weir – The Truman Show
1999     Sam Mendes
 – American Beauty     Lasse Hallström – The Cider House Rules
Spike Jonze – Being John Malkovich
Michael Mann – The Insider
M. Night Shyamalan – The Sixth Sense
2000s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
2000     Steven Soderbergh
 – Traffic     Stephen Daldry – Billy Elliot
Ang Lee – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ridley Scott – Gladiator
Steven Soderbergh – Erin Brockovich
2001     Ron Howard
 – A Beautiful Mind     Robert Altman – Gosford Park
Peter Jackson – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
David Lynch – Mulholland Drive
Ridley Scott – Black Hawk Down
2002     Roman Polanski
 – The Pianist     Pedro Almodóvar – Talk to Her
Stephen Daldry – The Hours
Rob Marshall – Chicago
Martin Scorsese – Gangs of New York
2003     Peter Jackson
 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King     Sofia Coppola – Lost in Translation
Clint Eastwood – Mystic River
Fernando Meirelles – City of God
Peter Weir – Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
2004     Clint Eastwood
 – Million Dollar Baby     Taylor Hackford – Ray
Mike Leigh – Vera Drake
Alexander Payne – Sideways
Martin Scorsese – The Aviator
2005     Ang Lee
 – Brokeback Mountain     George Clooney – Good Night, and Good Luck.
Paul Haggis – Crash
Bennett Miller – Capote
Steven Spielberg – Munich
2006     Martin Scorsese
 – The Departed     Clint Eastwood – Letters from Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears – The Queen
Alejandro González Iñárritu – Babel
Paul Greengrass – United 93
2007     Ethan & Joel Coen
 – No Country for Old Men     Paul Thomas Anderson – There Will Be Blood
Tony Gilroy – Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman – Juno
Julian Schnabel – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
2008     Danny Boyle
 – Slumdog Millionaire     Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant – Milk
2009     Kathryn Bigelow
 – The Hurt Locker     James Cameron – Avatar
Lee Daniels – Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
Jason Reitman – Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds
2010s
Year     Winner
film     Nominated
2010     Tom Hooper
 – The King's Speech     Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Ethan & Joel Coen – True Grit
David Fincher – The Social Network
David O. Russell – The Fighter
2011     Michel Hazanavicius
 – The Artist     Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick – The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne – The Descendants
Martin Scorsese – Hugo
2012     Ang Lee
 – Life of Pi     Michael Haneke – Amour
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild
International presence

As the Academy Awards are based in the United States and are centered on the Hollywood film industry, the majority of Academy Award winners have been Americans. Nonetheless, there is significant international presence at the awards, as evidenced by the following list of winners of the Academy Award for Best Director.

    Australia: Mel Gibson, Tom Hooper (Gibson, a U.S. citizen, moved with his family to Australia at the age of 12. Hooper, born in the U.K., is a dual citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom as his mother was born in Australia.)
    Austria: Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann (Both Wilder and Zinnemann moved to America in their twenties and became naturalized U.S. citizens.)
    Canada: James Cameron (Cameron was applying to become a U.S. citizen.[1])
    Czech Republic: Miloš Forman (naturalized U.S. citizen since 1977)
    France: Michel Hazanavicius
    Germany: William Wyler, Mike Nichols (after moving to America in 1921, Wyler became a naturalized U.S. citizen in his twenties. Wyler was born in Alsace which was part of the German Empire then, but now is part of France. Nichols' family moved from Germany when he was eight-years old to the United States, and he became a naturalized U.S. citizen five years later in 1944.)
    Italy: Bernardo Bertolucci
    New Zealand: Peter Jackson
    Poland: Roman Polanski (also French citizenship)
    Taiwan: Ang Lee (naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in America since 1979.)
    United Kingdom: Richard Attenborough, Danny Boyle, David Lean, Sam Mendes, Anthony Minghella, Carol Reed, Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, and Tom Hooper

However, no director has won for a film that is entirely in a foreign language.

There have been 21 directors nominated for films entirely or significantly in a foreign (non-English) language.

    Federico Fellini (nominated for 4 films, which were all in Italian)
    Ingmar Bergman (nominated for 3 films, which were all in Swedish)
    Pietro Germi (Italian)
    Hiroshi Teshigahara (Japanese)
    Claude Lelouch (French)
    Gillo Pontecorvo (Italian-born director nominated for The Battle of Algiers, which was in French and Arabic)
    Costa Gavras (Greek-born director nominated for French-language film Z.)
    Jan Troell (Swedish)
    François Truffaut (French)
    Lina Wertmuller (Italian)
    Edouard Molinaro (French)
    Wolfgang Petersen (German)
    Akira Kurosawa (Japanese)
    Lasse Hallström (Swedish. He was also nominated for the English-language film The Cider House Rules.)
    Krzysztof Kieslowski (Polish-born director nominated for French-language film Three Colours: Red)
    Michael Radford (an English-born director nominated for the Italian-language film Il Postino.)
    Roberto Benigni (Italian)
    Ang Lee (Taiwanese-born director nominated for the Mandarin-language film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He would later win for the English-language films Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi.)
    Pedro Almodóvar (Spanish)
    Fernando Meirelles (Brazilian Portuguese)
    Clint Eastwood (an American director nominated for the Japanese-language film Letters from Iwo Jima, which has a few brief scenes in English).
    Julian Schnabel (an American director nominated for the French-language film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.)
    Michael Haneke (French)

Nominations for films primarily in English with some scenes (of a notable length) in another language include:

    Jules Dassin for Never on Sunday (Greek)
    Bernardo Bertolucci for Last Tango in Paris (French)
    Francis Coppola for The Godfather Part II (Italian) (Winner)
    Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves (Lakota and Pawnee) (Winner)
    Steven Soderbergh for Traffic (Spanish) (Winner)
    Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (fictional Elven) (winner)
    Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel (Spanish, Arabic, French, Japanese, Japanese Sign Language, Berber)
    Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire (Hindi) (Winner)
    Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds (French, German and Italian)
    James Cameron for Avatar (fictional Na'vi language)

Several international nominees (regardless of the language used in their respective films) include:

    Australia: Bruce Beresford, Scott Hicks, Chris Noonan and Peter Weir
    Austria: Otto Preminger, Josef von Sternberg and Michael Haneke
    Brazil: Héctor Babenco, Fernando Meirelles
    Canada: Atom Egoyan, Arthur Hiller, Norman Jewison and Jason Reitman
    Cyprus: Michael Cacoyannis
    France: Michel Hazanavicius, Claude Lelouch, Louis Malle and François Truffaut
    Germany: William Dieterle, Ernst Lubitsch, Wolfgang Petersen
    Greece: Costa Gavras
    Ireland: Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan and Kenneth Branagh
    Italy: Roberto Benigni, Federico Fellini, Pietro Germi, Gillo Pontecorvo, Lina Wertmüller, Franco Zeffirelli and Michelangelo Antonioni
    Japan: Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Teshigahara
    Mexico: Alejandro González Iñárritu
    New Zealand: Jane Campion
    Poland: Krzysztof Kieślowski
    Spain: Pedro Almodóvar
    Sweden: Ingmar Bergman, Lasse Hallström and Jan Troell
    United Kingdom: Alfred Hitchcock, John Boorman, Peter Cattaneo, Charles Crichton, Stephen Daldry, Stephen Frears, Laurence Olivier, Paul Greengrass, Roland Joffé, Mike Leigh, Adrian Lyne, Hugh Hudson, Alan Parker and Ridley Scott

Oscars 2013 - 85th Academy Awards

The 85th Academy Awards ceremony (referred to as The Oscars[4]) took place February 24, 2013. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) presented its annual Academy Awards to honor the best films of 2012 that played in the United States. The ceremony was held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California.[5] Seth MacFarlane hosted the Academy Awards for the first time.[1][6] It was the most watched ceremony since the 76th Academy Awards in 2004, with 42.40 million viewers.[7]

Life of Pi won four awards (the most for the evening), including Best Director for Ang Lee.[8] Argo won three awards, including Best Picture.[8] Les Misérables also won three awards. Django Unchained, Lincoln and Skyfall won two awards each. Other winners were Silver Linings Playbook, Brave, Zero Dark Thirty, Anna Karenina, Searching for Sugar Man, Inocente, Curfew, Amour and Paperman with one award each. Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress award for her role in Silver Linings Playbook, becoming the second youngest winner in the category.[8] Daniel Day-Lewis won a third Best Actor award (the most for any actor) for portraying the titular character in Lincoln.
Winners and nominees
The nominees for the 85th Academy Awards were announced on January 10, 2013, at 5:30 am PST (13:30 UTC) (8:30 am EST) at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Seth MacFarlane, host of the 85th annual Academy Awards, and actress Emma Stone. This marks the first time since 1973 (when Charlton Heston hosted) that the ceremony's host also announced the award nominations.[12]

The film receiving the most nominations was Lincoln with twelve, followed by Life of Pi with eleven.[13][14]
Awards

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.[15]
Best Picture     Best Director

    Argo – Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, and George Clooney
        Amour – Margaret Menegoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, and Michael Katz
        Beasts of the Southern Wild – Dan Janvey, Josh Penn, and Michael Gottwald
        Django Unchained – Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin, and Pilar Savone
        Les Misérables – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, and Cameron Mackintosh
        Life of Pi – Gil Netter, Ang Lee, and David Womark
        Lincoln – Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy
        Silver Linings Playbook – Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen, and Jonathan Gordon
        Zero Dark Thirty – Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow, and Megan Ellison

   

    Ang Lee – Life of Pi
        Michael Haneke – Amour
        David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
        Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
        Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Actor     Best Actress

    Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln as Abraham Lincoln
        Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook as Pat Solitano, Jr.
        Hugh Jackman – Les Misérables as Jean Valjean
        Joaquin Phoenix – The Master as Freddie Quell
        Denzel Washington – Flight as William "Whip" Whitaker

   

    Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook as Tiffany Maxwell
        Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty as Maya
        Emmanuelle Riva – Amour as Anne Laurent
        Quvenzhané Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild as Hushpuppy
        Naomi Watts – The Impossible as Maria Bennett

Best Supporting Actor     Best Supporting Actress

    Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained as Dr. King Schultz
        Alan Arkin – Argo as Lester Siegel
        Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook as Pat Solitano, Sr.
        Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master as Lancaster Dodd
        Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln as Thaddeus Stevens

   

    Anne Hathaway – Les Misérables as Fantine
        Amy Adams – The Master as Peggy Dodd
        Sally Field – Lincoln as Mary Todd Lincoln
        Helen Hunt – The Sessions as Cheryl Cohen-Greene
        Jacki Weaver – Silver Linings Playbook as Dolores Solitano

Best Writing – Original Screenplay     Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay

    Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino
        Amour – Michael Haneke
        Flight – John Gatins
        Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
        Zero Dark Thirty – Mark Boal

   

    Argo – Chris Terrio from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez & The Great Escape by Joshuah Bearman
        Beasts of the Southern Wild – Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin from Juicy and Delicious by Lucy Alibar
        Life of Pi – David Magee from Life of Pi by Yann Martel
        Lincoln – Tony Kushner from Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
        Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell from The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

Best Animated Feature     Best Foreign Language Film

    Brave – Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
        Frankenweenie – Tim Burton
        ParaNorman – Sam Fell and Chris Butler
        The Pirates! Band of Misfits – Peter Lord
        Wreck-It Ralph – Rich Moore

   

    Amour (Austria) in French – Michael Haneke
        Kon-Tiki (Norway) in English and Norwegian – Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg
        No (Chile) in Spanish – Pablo Larraín
        A Royal Affair (Denmark) in Danish – Nikolaj Arcel
        War Witch (Canada) in French – Kim Nguyen

Best Documentary – Feature     Best Documentary – Short Subject

    Searching for Sugar Man – Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn
        5 Broken Cameras – Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
        The Gatekeepers – Dror Moreh, Philippa Kowarsky, and Estelle Fialon
        How to Survive a Plague – David France and Howard Gertler
        The Invisible War – Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering

   

    Inocente – Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
        Kings Point – Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
        Mondays at Racine – Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
        Open Heart – Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
        Redemption – Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill

Best Live Action Short Film     Best Animated Short Film

    Curfew – Shawn Christensen
        Asad – Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura
        Buzkashi Boys – Sam French and Ariel Nasr
        Death of a Shadow (Dood Van Een Schaduw) – Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele
        Henry – Yan England

   

    Paperman – John Kahrs
        Adam and Dog – Minkyu Lee
        Fresh Guacamole – PES
        Head over Heels – Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly
        The Longest Daycare – David Silverman

Best Original Score     Best Original Song

    Life of Pi – Mychael Danna
        Anna Karenina – Dario Marianelli
        Argo – Alexandre Desplat
        Lincoln – John Williams
        Skyfall – Thomas Newman

   

    "Skyfall" from Skyfall – Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
        "Before My Time" from Chasing Ice – J. Ralph
        "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted – Walter Murphy and Seth MacFarlane
        "Pi's Lullaby" from Life of Pi – Mychael Danna and Bombay Jayashri
        "Suddenly" from Les Misérables – Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer, and Alain Boublil

Best Sound Editing     Best Sound Mixing

    Skyfall – Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers1
    Zero Dark Thirty – Paul N. J. Ottosson1
        Argo – Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn
        Django Unchained – Wylie Stateman
        Life of Pi – Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton

   

    Les Misérables – Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, and Simon Hayes
        Argo – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, and Jose Antonio Garcia
        Life of Pi – Ron Bartlett, D. M. Hemphill, and Drew Kunin
        Lincoln – Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, and Ronald Judkins
        Skyfall – Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell, and Stuart Wilson

Best Production Design     Best Cinematography

    Lincoln – Rick Carter and Jim Erickson
        Anna Karenina – Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
        The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Dan Hennah, Ra Vincent, and Simon Bright
        Les Misérables – Eve Stewart and Anna Lynch-Robinson
        Life of Pi – David Gropman and Anna Pinnock

   

    Life of Pi – Claudio Miranda
        Anna Karenina – Seamus McGarvey
        Django Unchained – Robert Richardson
        Lincoln – Janusz Kamiński
        Skyfall – Roger Deakins

Best Makeup and Hairstyling     Best Costume Design

    Les Misérables – Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell
        Hitchcock – Howard Berger, Peter Montagna, and Martin Samuel
        The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater, and Tami Lane

   

    Anna Karenina – Jacqueline Durran
        Les Misérables – Paco Delgado
        Lincoln – Joanna Johnston
        Mirror Mirror – Eiko Ishioka
        Snow White and the Huntsman – Colleen Atwood

Best Film Editing     Best Visual Effects

    Argo – William Goldenberg
        Life of Pi – Tim Squyres
        Lincoln – Michael Kahn
        Silver Linings Playbook – Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers
        Zero Dark Thirty – Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

   

    Life of Pi – Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan de Boer, and Donald R. Elliott
        The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, and R. Christopher White
        Marvel's The Avengers – Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, and Dan Sudick
        Prometheus – Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley, and Martin Hill
        Snow White and the Huntsman – Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould, and Michael Dawson

Notes

    ^ Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty tied for the Academy Award in Best Sound Editing. In the history of the Academy Awards, this was only the sixth tie vote that resulted in two awards being presented. The Oscars were presented to Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers for Skyfall and to Paul N. J. Ottosson for Zero Dark Thirty.[16] The previous five ties that had occurred in Academy history were the following: the 1932 Best Actor Award shared by Fredric March and Wallace Beery;[17] the 1949 Best Documentary Short Award shared by A Chance to Live and So Much for So Little; the 1968 Best Actress Award shared by Katherine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand;[18] the 1986 Best Documentary Feature Award shared by Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've Got and Down and Out in America; and the 1994 Best Live Action Short Award shared by Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life and Trevor.

Dancing With the Stars 2013

Dancing with the Stars is the name of several international television series based on the format of the British TV series Strictly Come Dancing, which is distributed by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the format has been licensed to over 42 territories.[1] Australia was the first country to adapt the show which turned out to be a huge success with veteran Australian TV host Daryl Somers taking the show Live To Air once a week. Versions have also been produced in Albania, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, the United States, and Vietnam. As a result, the series became the world's most popular television program among all genres in 2006 and 2007, according to the magazine Television Business International,[2] reaching the Top 10 in 17 countries.

The show pairs a number of well known celebrities with professional ballroom dancers, who each week compete by performing one or more choreographed routines that are pertinent and follow the chosen theme for that particular weeks' prearranged theme. The dancers are then scored by a panel of judges. Viewers are given a certain amount of time to place votes for their favorite dancers, either by telephone or (in some countries) online. The couple with the lowest combined score provided by the judges and viewers is eliminated. This process continues until there are only two or three couples left; when they have competed for the last time one couple is declared the champion.
Franchise records
Professionals achieving three wins

Derek Hough, Raimondo Todaro and Kym Johnson are the only professionals in the history of the franchise to have achieved three championship wins.

    Derek Hough won his first championship in series seven of the American version of Dancing With the Stars with model/host Brooke Burke, his second in series ten with singer Nicole Scherzinger, and his third in series eleven with actress Jennifer Grey.
    Raimondo Todaro won his first championship in the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le stelle with the former Miss Italy and television hostess, Cristina Chiabotto, during the second series of the show. He won again with the Olympic long-jump silver medalist, Fiona May, during the third series of the show. Four years later, Todaro won the sixth series of the show with the actress, Veronica Olivier.
    Kym Johnson is the only professional dancer to have won three championships from two different versions of Dancing with the Stars. She won series two of the Australian version with Tom Williams and series nine of the American version with Donny Osmond and series twelve with Hines Ward.

Professionals achieving two back-to-back wins

Cheryl Burke, Julianne Hough, Derek Hough, Alana Patience, Stefano Oliveri, Raimondo Todaro, Kelly Kainz, Marianne Eihilt, Leila Akcelik, Rafał Maserak, Matti Puro and Marcus van Teijlingen have all won two championships back-to-back.

Cheryl Burke won her first Dancing With The Stars USA Championship with the 98 Degrees boy band member Drew Lachey in the second series, and she won her second championship with American National Football League star Emmitt Smith in the third series. Julianne Hough won her first championship with the Olympic speed skating gold medalist Apolo Anton Ohno in the fourth series, and her second championship with the Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves in the fifth series. Derek Hough achieved back to back championships with singer Nicole Scherzinger in series ten, and then with actress Jennifer Grey in series eleven.

Alana Patience of the Australian version, won series ten with television personality Rob Palmer and then series eleven with celebrity chef Manu Feildel. Stefano Oliveri won his first championship on Dancing with the Stars New Zealand with his dance partner Suzanne Paul, an infomercial hostess in New Zealand during series three, and he won his second title during series four with the netball champion Temepara George.

Raimondo Todaro won his first championship in the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le stelle with the former Miss Italy and television hostess Cristina Chiabotto during the second series of the show. He won again with the Olympic long jump silver medalist Fiona May during the third series of the show. Kelly Kainz won her first championship on the Austrian version of Dancing with the Stars with singer Manuel Ortega in the second series, and she won her second title in series three with singer, comedian and TV host Klaus Eberhartinger. Marianne Eihilt won series four of the Danish version of Dancing with the Stars, called Vild med dans, along with actor Robert Hansen. She won series five with shot put Olympic medalist Joachim B. Olsen. Leila Akcelik won series three of the Belgian version of Dancing with the Stars, called Sterren op de Dansvloer, along with actor Antony Arandia. She won series four with actor Louis Talpe. Rafał Maserak won series ten of the Polish version of Dancing with the Stars, called Taniec z Gwiazdami, along with actress Anna Mucha. He won series eleven with actress Julia Kamińska. Matti Puro won the sixth series of the Finnish version of Dancing with the Stars, called Tanssii tähtien kanssa, with model Viivi Pumpanen and the seventh series with comedian Krisse Salminen. Marcus van Teijlingen won the second and the third season of the Dutch version of Dancing with the Stars with Barbara de Loor and Helga van Leur.
Other professionals with two wins

Mark Ballas, Luda Kroiter, Kym Johnson, Christian Polanc, Kamila Kajak, Stefano Terrazzino and Andy Kainz are the only professional dancers to have won two series that were not back-to-back. Mark Ballas won in series six of the American version with his partner Kristi Yamaguchi, and he won in Season eight with his partner Shawn Johnson. Kym Johnson won in Season nine with Donny Osmond and again in series twelve with Hines Ward. Christian Polanc won the German version of Dancing with the Stars with Soap-Opera actor Susan Sideropoulos in series two and won the fourth Season with Maite Kelly, member of The Kelly Family. Andy Kainz, the husband of Kelly Kainz, won in the first series of the Austrian version of Dancing with the Stars with musical singer Marika Lichter, and he won again in series five with journalist and TV host Claudia Reiterer. Together, Andy and Kelly Kainz won four out of five championships in Austria. Luda won series 8 of DWTS Australia with Luke Jakobs and the 12th series with Johnny Ruffo.
Other records for participating dancers

In New Zealand, Carol-Ann Hickmore is the only female professional dancer to win. She won in season two with the former rugby player Norm Hewitt. Ms. Hickmore later became a dancing judge for series three and four after the series one judge Donna Dawson had to leave the program. In Austria, Andy Kainz is the only male professional dancer to win; his wife Kelly Kainz won in series 2 after he had won in series 1. Julianne Hough became the youngest professional dancer in Dancing with the Stars in the United States when she danced with the speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno during series four at the age of 18. Shawn Johnson became the youngest contestant on Dancing with the Stars in the United States in series eight after participating at the age of 17. She went on to become the youngest-ever winner of the dance contest.
Cheryl Burke and Tony Dovolani are the longest tenured professional dancers in "Dancing With The Stars", appearing in seasons 2 through 15 of the American version, a total of 14 series and counting. In the original British version of the TV program, Strictly Come Dancing, Anton du Beke, Erin Boag, and Brendan Cole have danced in each series. In the New Zealand version, Rebecca Nicholson is the only professional dancer to have appeared in every series. Jill Halfpenny and Darren Bennett were the first couple ever to receive a "perfect forty" score in the contest, this was in Strictly Come Dancing in the series two finale. Malena Belafonte and Silas Holst were the first couple to receive a "perfect forty" in the semi-finals 2009 in the Danish version series 6.

Despite not receiving a "perfect forty", Alesha Dixon is currently the most successful contestant to ever take part in Strictly Come Dancing, with an average point score of 36.5/40, the highest average score from any contestant to ever take part in the show. Alesha joined the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel in September 2009.[3]

Despite not winning the series, Natasza Urbańska is currently the most successful contestant to ever take part in Taniec z gwiazdami (Polish version), with an average point score of 39.2/40, the highest average score from any contestant to ever take part in the show. Her husband joined the Taniec z gwiazdami judging panel in September 2011 and Natasza became presenter in 2011.
Professionals who have participated in two different versions

Charissa van Dipte, Brian Fortuna, Hayley Holt, Kym Johnson, Tobias Karlsson, Jan Kliment, Natalie Lowe, Pascal Maassen, Aerjen Mooijweer, Stefano Olivieri, Milan Placko, Kimberley Smith, Jeroen Struijlaart, Csaba Szirmai, Stefano Terrazzino, Marcus van Teijlingen and Ingrid Thompson have appeared on two different versions of Dancing with the Stars.

Kym Johnson is the only professional dancer to win two different versions of DWTS. She won twice on the American versions with Donny Osmond and Hines Ward and the Australian version with Tom Williams.

Brian Fortuna danced one series in the United States, and he has since competed in Strictly Come Dancing. Hayley Holt appeared in the New Zealand version of Dancing with the Stars and also in Strictly Come Dancing in Great Britain. Ms. Johnson has danced on the American and the Australian versions of the show, while Tobias Karlsson has appeared in both the Danish and the Swedish versions. Natalie Lowe took part in Dancing with the Stars Australia 2004–2008 but has danced with Ricky Whittle and in 2010 with Scott Maslen in Strictly Come Dancing UK. Stefano Olivieri and Csaba Szirmai have appeared in both the Australian and the New Zealand versions. Charissa van Dipte, Pascal Maassen, Aerjen Mooijweer, Kimberley Smith, Jeroen Struijlaart and Marcus van Teijlingen appeared in both the Belgian and one of the two Dutch versions. Ingrid Beate Thompson appeared in the Norwegian and the Swedish versions of the show. Milan Placko dance 3 series in the Slovak version of the show (with Helena Vondráčková) and he dance one series in the Polish version (Taniec z gwiazdami) with Helena Vondráčková. Jan Kliment danced one series in the Czech version of the show and also he danced 4 series in polish version of the show. Stefano Terrazzino danced 6 series in polish version of the show and also he danced in 2 German series of the show.

Brendan Cole is a judge in the New Zealand TV series, and he is a professional dancer in the British version of the show, Strictly Come Dancing. There, he won the first series with the British TV news announcer, Natasha Kaplinsky. Lilia Kopylova appeared as a professional dancer in the British version, Strictly Come Dancing, and is now head judge on the Turkish version, Yok Böyle Dans.

The Bulgarian version of the program shares some dancers with the Vietnamese version. None of the professionals in the latter are Vietnamese.
Stars who have participated in two different versions

Marcin Mroczek (Ukrainian & Polish version), Helena Vondráčková (Polish & Slovak version) have appeared on two different versions of Dancing with the Stars.
Former competitors as hosts

Eight competitors have also hosted the TV show. The winner of series one of Strictly Come Dancing, Natasha Kaplinsky, stood in for the hostess Tess Daly, who was on maternity leave during series two. In the United States, the winner of series two of Dancing with the Stars, Drew Lachey, filled in for the hostess Samantha Harris, who was also on maternity leave for series five; Harris left the show after series nine and was replaced by series seven winner Brooke Burke. In Austria, the winner of series three, Klaus Eberhartinger, replaced the host Alfons Haider during series four. In series five, he was back as host while Klaus Eberhartinger filled in for him as a judge. In Vietnam, the series 1 runner-up Đoan Trang has taken the role of hostess due to Thanh Vân's pregnancy. In Poland, Katarzyna Skrzynecka from series one of Taniec z gwiazdami was host by 11 series (series 2-12). Piotr Gąsowski from series two became host on series 6. The runner-up of series ten, Natasza Urbańska became host in series 13. In The Netherlands, Lieke van Lexmond from the second series was the host of the fourth season of Dancing with the stars. Former host of the Dutch DWTS Sylvana Simons became later a competitor of the Dutch Strictly Come Dancing.
Judges in two different versions

Euvgenia Parakhina judges for the first time in de first season of the Dutch version of Strictly Come Dancing and the same year she became the new judge of the Belgium version Sterren op de Dansvloer. Parakhina was during the first and third season of the Dutch Dancing with the Stars one of the professionals.

Love (What is Love)

Love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment.[1] Love is also said to be a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection —"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another".[2] Love may describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self or animals.[3]

In English, love refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from pleasure ("I loved that meal") to interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" may refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, to the platonic love that defines friendship,[4] or to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love,[5] or to a concept of love that encompasses all of those feelings. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.

Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.[6]

Love may be understood as part of the survival instinct, a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.
The word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Often, other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that English relies mainly on "love" to encapsulate; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love." Cultural differences in conceptualizing love thus make it doubly difficult to establish any universal definition.[8]

Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love. As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is sometimes contrasted with friendship, although the word love is often applied to close friendships.
When discussed in the abstract, love usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience felt by a person for another person. Love often involves caring for or identifying with a person or thing (cf. vulnerability and care theory of love), including oneself (cf. narcissism). In addition to cross-cultural differences in understanding love, ideas about love have also changed greatly over time. Some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, although the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry.[9]

Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love". St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defines love as "to will the good of another."[10] Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value," as opposed to relative value.[citation needed] Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of another."[11] Biologist Jeremy Griffith defines love as "unconditional selflessness".[12]

Love is sometimes referred to as being the "international language", overriding cultural and linguistic divisions.
A person can be said to love an object, principle, or goal if they value it greatly and are deeply committed to it. Similarly, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be born not of interpersonal love, but impersonal love coupled with altruism and strong spiritual or political convictions.[13] People can also "love" material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things. If sexual passion is also involved, this condition is called paraphilia.
 Interpersonal love

Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships.[13] Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania.
Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.
Biological basis
Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst.[15] Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust is the feeling of sexual desire; romantic attraction determines what partners mates find attractive and pursue, conserving time and energy by choosing; and attachment involves sharing a home, parental duties, mutual defense, and in humans involves feelings of safety and security.[16] Three distinct neural circuitries, including neurotransmitters, and three behavioral patterns, are associated with these three romantic styles.[16]

Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act in a manner similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.[17]

Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have.[17] Enzo Emanuele and coworkers reported the protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these return to previous levels after one year

Clothing fashions

Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey, India, or China frequently remark on the absence of changes in fashion there, and observers from these other cultures comment on the unseemly pace of Western fashion, which many felt suggested an instability and lack of order in Western culture. The Japanese Shogun's secretary boasted (not completely accurately) to a Spanish visitor in 1609 that Japanese clothing had not changed in over a thousand years.^[4] However in Ming China, for example, there is considerable evidence for rapidly changing fashions in Chinese clothing.^[5] Changes in costume often took place at times of economic or social change (such as in ancient Rome and the medieval Caliphate), but then a long period without major changes followed. This occurred in Moorish Spain from the 8th century, when the famous musician Ziryab introduced sophisticated clothing-styles based on seasonal and daily fashion from his native Baghdad and his own inspiration to Córdoba in Al-Andalus.^[6][7] Similar changes in fashion occurred in the Middle East from the 11th century, following the arrival of the Turks, who introduced clothing styles from Central Asia and the Far East.^[8]
The beginnings of the habit in Europe of continual and increasingly rapid change in clothing styles can be fairly reliably dated to the middle of the 14th century, to which historians including James Laver and Fernand Braudel date the start of Western fashion in clothing.^[9][10] The most dramatic manifestation was a sudden drastic shortening and tightening of the male over-garment, from calf-length to barely covering the buttocks, sometimes accompanied with stuffing on the chest to look bigger. This created the distinctive Western male outline of a tailored top worn over leggings or trousers.

The pace of change accelerated considerably in the following century, and women and men's fashion, especially in the dressing and adorning of the hair, became equally complex and changing. Art historians are therefore able to use fashion in dating images with increasing confidence and precision, often within five years in the case of 15th century images. Initially changes in fashion led to a fragmentation of what had previously been very similar styles of dressing across the upper classes of Europe, and the development of distinctive national styles. These remained very different until a counter-movement in the 17th to 18th centuries imposed similar styles once again, mostly originating from Ancien Régime France.^[11] Though the rich usually led fashion, the increasing affluence of early modern Europe led to the bourgeoisie and even peasants following trends at a distance sometimes uncomfortably close for the elites—a factor Braudel regards as one of the main motors of changing fashion

Ten 16th century portraits of German or Italian gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats, and at this period national differences were at their most pronounced, as Albrecht Dürer recorded in his actual or composite contrast of Nuremberg and Venetian fashions at the close of the 15th century (illustration, right). The "Spanish style" of the end of the century began the move back to synchronicity among upper-class Europeans, and after a struggle in the mid 17th century, French styles decisively took over leadership, a process completed in the 18th century.^[13]
Though colors and patterns of textiles changed from year to year,^[14] the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the pattern to which a lady's dress was cut changed more slowly. Men's fashions largely derived from military models, and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the "Steinkirk" cravat or neckti The pace of change picked up in the 1780s with the increased publication of French engravings that showed the latest Paris styles; though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France as patterns since the 16th century, and Abraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion from the 1620s. By 1800, all Western Europeans were dressing alike (or thought they were): local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and then a badge of the conservative peasant.^[15]
Although tailors and dressmakers were no doubt responsible for many innovations before, and the textile industry certainly led many trends, the history of fashion design is normally taken to date from 1858, when the English-born Charles Frederick Worth opened the first true haute couture house in Paris. The Haute house was the name established by government for the fashion houses that met the standards of industry. They have to adhere to standards such as: keeping at least 20 employees engaged in making the clothes, showing two collections per year at fashion shows, and presenting a certain number of patterns to costumers.^[16] Since then the professional designer has become a progressively more dominant figure, despite the origins of many fashions in street fashion. For women the flapper styles of the 1920s marked the most major alteration in styles for several centuries, with a drastic shortening of skirt lengths and much looser-fitting clothes; with occasional revivals of long skirts, variations of the shorter length have remained dominant ever since. Flappers also wore cloches, which were snug fitting and covered the forehead. Her shoes had a heel and some sort of buckle. The most important part was the jewelry, such as: earrings and necklaces that had diamonds or gems. The flapper gave a particular image as being seductive due to her short length dress, which was form fitting, and the large amounts of rich jewelery around her neck.
The four major current fashion capitals are acknowledged to be Paris, Milan, New York City, and London, which are all headquarters to the greatest fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion. Fashion weeks are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences. A succession of major designers such as Coco Chanel and Yves Saint-Laurent have kept Paris as the center most watched by the rest of the world, although haute couture is now subsidized by the sale of ready to wear collections and perfume using the same branding.
Modern Westerners have a wide number of choices available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that person's personality or interests. When people who have cultural status start to wear new or different clothes, a fashion trend may start. People who like or respect them become influenced by their personal style, and begin wearing clothes of similar styling. Fashions may vary considerably within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation, and geography as well as over time. If, for example, an older person dresses according to the fashion of young people, he or she may look ridiculous in the eyes of both young and older people. The terms fashionista and fashion victim refer to someone who slavishly follows current fashions.
One can regard the system of sporting various fashions as a fashion language incorporating various fashion statements using a grammar of fashion. (Compare some of the work of Roland Barthes.)
In recent years, Asian fashion has become increasingly significant in local and global markets. Countries such as China, Japan, India, and Pakistan have traditionally had large textile industries, which have often been drawn upon by Western designers, but now Asian clothing styles are also gaining influence based on their own ideas

History of Italy

Italy, history of since earliest times the history of Italy has been influenced by cultural and political divisions resulting from the peninsula's disparate geography and by circumstances that made Italy the scene of many of Europe's most important struggles for power.

EARLY ITALY Human activity in Italy started during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. By the beginning of the Neolithic period (c.5000 BC), the small communities of hunters of earlier times were disappearing and people started to have agricultural settlements, with some stock breeding and widespread use of stone implements and pottery. Painted vessels that seem to have been influenced by contemporary styles in Greece have been found at Castellaro Vecchio on the island of Lipari. The Bronze Age About 2000 BC, metalworking was introduced into southern Italy and Sicily by new immigrants from the east; the northern Italian Polada culture of the same period left evidence of strong links with cultures from north of the Alps. During the Bronze Age (c.1800-1000 BC), much of central and southern Italy had a unified culture known as the Apennine, characterized by large agricultural and pastoral settlements; on the southeastern coast and in Sicily evidence indicates trading contacts with the Mycenaeans. After c.1500 BC, in the Po Valley to the north, the terramara culture--with its villages constructed on wooden piles, its advanced techniques of bronze working, and its cremation rites--rose to prominence. By the time of the introduction of iron into Italy (c.1000 BC), regional variations were well established. The Etruscans In the late 8th century BC Greek colonizers arrived in the south and in Sicily; while in central Italy and the Po Valley came the ETRUSCANS. The diverse cultural patterns of the early Iron Age were further complicated. Historians generally agree that Etruscan culture was the result of outside (probably eastern) influence on indigenous peoples; the source, degree, and chronology of that outside influence remain uncertain. By the end of the 7th century BC, LATIUM and part of CAMPANIA had joined central Italy under Etruscan rule. As the Etruscans expanded their rule, many city-states were founded by the Italians.

ROMAN ITALY According to later Roman historians, the city of ROME, founded in c.753, probably by local LATINS and SABINES, was ruled by Etruscan kings from 616 BC. But after the expulsion of Lucius TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS in 510 BC, the last of the Etruscan kings, and the foundation of the Roman republic in 509, the power of the Etruscans declined as the Romans began the unification of Italy. This process reached its final stage in 89 BC, when the right of Roman citizenship was extended throughout Italy, with the consequent diffusion of Roman institutions and the Latin language and culture from the Alps to Sicily. The Roman Empire The Roman Empire began effectively in 31 BC with the defeat of Mark ANTONY and CLEOPATRA by GAIUS OCTAVIUS, a grandnephew of Julius Caesar, who later became known as Emperor AUGUSTUS. In 330, Emperor CONSTANTINE I transferred his capital from Rome to Constantinople, built on the site of Byzantium. Italy's administrative autonomy was lost shortly afterwards when two dioceses were joined with that of Africa to form a single prefecture. The loss of temporal power, however, was to some degree compensated for by the growing importance of Italy as a center of Christianity: starting in the 2nd century AD several bishoprics were founded in addition to that of Rome: in Milan, Ravenna, Naples, Benevento, and elsewhere. After 476, when the Germanic chieftain ODOACER deposed the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus (r. 475-76), military control of Italy passed into barbarian hands. Under the Ostrogothic king, THEODORIC (r. 493-526; see GOTHS), in practical terms Italian political and social ties were with the West, in spite of continuing theoretical ties with the BYZANTINE EMPIRE. By 553, however, internal feuds permitted the Byzantine emperor JUSTINIAN I to regain control. Peninsular Italy was administered from its capital at RAVENNA as merely one division of the empire, although the Byzantines gradually and grudgingly admitted the ecclesiastical primacy of Rome in the West.

THE MIDDLE AGES During the early Middle Ages, Italian ties with the "New Rome" of the East (Constantinople) were first threatened and later severed after a series of invasions from the west and north into Italy. The severing of ties with the East was confirmed by the eventual emergence of the PAPACY and the Italian cities as powers in their own right. The Lombards After the Ostrogoths, another Germanic people, the LOMBARDS, arrived in Italy in 568. Although much of southern and eastern Italy remained in Byzantine hands, the Lombards' control soon spread from the north to Tuscany and Umbria. The Lombards were resisted chiefly by the popes--most notably GREGORY I (r. 590-604)--who acted as de facto political and military as well as ecclesiastical leaders and held a band of land stretching across the peninsula that later became the PAPAL STATES. By the end of the 7th century, papal resistance had induced the Lombards to consolidate their power in northern and central Italy, where they achieved a high degree of political unification. Meanwhile, the unrest in the Byzantine centers in the south reflected the disturbances taking place in Byzantium itself (ICONOCLASM), and popular revolts broke out in Rome, Naples, Venice, and elsewhere. Thus by 728 the Lombards, under Liutprand (r. 712-44), were able to extend their influence in spite of further papal attempts at intervention. During Liutprand's reign, many of the Lombards converted from ARIANISM to Roman Catholicism. By this time they were accepting many other elements of Roman culture, including the Latin language; their law and administration reflected both Roman and Germanic influences. The Franks The success of the Lombards was temporary. Under the pretense of restoring to the papacy its lost territories, Pope Stephen II (r. 752-57) invited the FRANKS, another Germanic tribe, to invade Italy. In 774 the Franks expelled the Lombard rulers; Lombard territory passed into the hands of the Frankish ruler CHARLEMAGNE, who was crowned emperor in Rome on Dec. 25, 800. The following century was characterized by continual feuding between Franks and Byzantines, the chief beneficiaries being the SARACENS, newly arrived from North Africa. These Arabs originally came to assist rebels against the Byzantine Empire. The Saracens remained to conquer (827-78) Sicily, however, and to establish outposts in southern Italy; in 846 they launched an attack on Rome itself. The collapse of the Carolingian empire in the 9th century, at the same time as the resurgence of Byzantium under the Macedonian dynasty, caused a brief return to eastern influence. The Ottonians This constant alternation of power was temporarily ended by the arrival in Italy, once again by papal invitation, of the German king OTTO I, who was crowned Holy Roman emperor in 962. The Ottonian dynasty fell shortly after 1000, leaving in the north a vacuum to be exploited by the local small landowners and town merchants. Meanwhile, local insurrections weakened the Saracens' hold on the southern coastal cities, although the Arabs remained strong in Sicily. The Rise of the Italian City-States In this climate of political and social fragmentation, individual Italian cities began to assert their autonomy. During the 11th century an elaborate pattern of communal government began to evolve under the leadership of a burgher class grown wealthy in trade, banking, and such industries as woolen textiles. Many cities, especially FLORENCE, GENOA, PISA, MILAN, and VENICE, became powerful and independent CITY-STATES. Resisting the efforts of both the old landed nobles and the emperors to control them, these COMMUNES hastened the end of feudalism in northern Italy and spawned deeply rooted identification with the city as opposed to the larger region or country. The cities were often troubled by violent and divisive rivalries among their citizens, the most famous being the papal-imperial struggle between the GUELPHS (supporters of the popes) and the GHIBELLINES (supporters respectively of the emperors. But despite such divisions the cities contributed significantly to the economic, social, and cultural vitality of Italy. The Kingdom of Sicily Unlike the north, with its network of vigorously independent urban centers, southern Italy experienced a significant consolidation after its conquest by the NORMANS. Bands of these invaders arrived in Italy early in the 11th century. Starting c.1046, ROBERT GUISCARD and his successors expelled the Saracens and Byzantines and carved a powerful domain out of APULIA CALABRIA, Campania, and Sicily. Although the Norman territories remained a fief of the papacy, papal overlordship became a mere formality in the 12th century especially after 1127, when ROGER II united the southern part of the peninsula with Sicily; he assumed the title of king of Sicily in 1130. While the Normans were consolidating their rule in southern Italy, the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire continued their struggle for dominance in northern and central Italy. In 1077 Pope GREGORY VII was successfully in making Holy Roman Emperor HENRY IV bow to papal authority at Canossa (INVESTITURE CONTROVERSY). Later, Pope ALEXANDER III successfully supported an alliance of northern cities known as the Lombard League against the efforts of Emperor FREDERICK I of the HOHENSTAUFEN dynasty to impose imperial authority over them. Early in the 13th century the Hohenstaufen FREDERICK II succeeded in uniting the thrones of German and Norman Sicily. Although Pope INNOCENT III (r. 1198-1216) opposed the emperor and advanced far-reaching claims of political and religious supremacy, Frederick established one of the wealthiest and most powerful states in Europe, centering on his brilliant court at PALERMO with its great cultural innovations. The papal-imperial conflict culminated in 1262 with a papal invitation to Charles of Anjou, brother of King Louis IX of France, to conquer Sicily. Charles, the founder of the ANGEVIN dynasty of Naples, ruled from 1266 as CHARLES I, king of Naples and Sicily. French rule, which introduced feudalism to the south at a time when it was weakening elsewhere, was highly unpopular, and in 1282 a successful revolt (the SICILIAN VESPERS) resulted in the separation of Sicily from the mainland. PETER III of Aragon was made king of Sicily while the former Norman domains on the mainland remained under Angevin rule as the Kingdom of Naples. In the 15th century both kingdoms became Spanish possessions; they were then reunited under the title Kingdom of the TWO SICILIES.

THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE AND FOREIGN DOMINATION After 1300 both the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire turned their attention away from Italy. The emperors concentrated on German affairs while the popes met increasing resistance especially from the French as they tried to assert their authority in Europe. For much of the 14th century the papacy was situated at Avignon, in southern France. The weakening of papal and imperial authority accompanied great intellectual changes in Italy. An intellectual revival, stimulated in part by the freer atmosphere of the cities and in part by the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Latin writings, gave rise to the humanist attitudes and ideas that formed the basis of the RENAISSANCE. About the same time, many of the communal governments of the city-states fell under the rule of dictators called signori, who curbed their factionalism and became hereditary rulers. In Milan the VISCONTI family rose to power in the 13th century, to be succeeded by the SFORZA family in the mid-15th century, a few decades after the MEDICI family had seized control of Florence. Meanwhile the ESTE family ruled Ferrara from the 13th through the 16th century. Although they subverted the political institutions of the communes, the signori (who became known as principi, with royal titles) were instrumental in advancing the cultural and civic life of Renaissance Italy. Under the patronage of the Medici, for example, Florence became the most magnificent and prestigious center of the arts in Italy. During the 14th and 15th centuries, Italian thought and style influenced all Europe. As the larger cities expanded into the surrounding countryside, absorbing many of the smaller cities, they involved themselves in the complex international politics of the age. The frequent wars between city-states brought to Italy the mercenary leaders known as the CONDOTTIERI and ultimately resulted in foreign intervention. In 1494, CHARLES VIII of France invaded Italy (ITALIAN WARS), signaling the beginning of a period of foreign occupation that lasted until the 19th century. By 1550 almost all Italy had been subjugated by the Habsburg ruler CHARLES V, who was both Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain; when Charles abdicated in 1555-56, dividing the Habsburg territories between his brother Emperor FERDINAND I and his son PHILIP II of Spain, Italy was part of the latter's inheritance. Spain remained the dominant power in Italy until Austria replaced it after the War of the SPANISH SUCCESSION (1701-14). In the 18th century some areas of Italy achieved independence. SAVOY (the Kingdom of Sardinia after 1720) annexed SARDINIA and portions of LOMBARDY; in 1735 the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies became an independent monarchy under the junior branch of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty. Italy itself, however, no longer played a central role in European politics.

ITALIAN UNIFICATION In the 18th century, as in the Renaissance, intellectual changes began to break down traditional values and institutions. Enlightenment ideas from France and Britain spread rapidly, and from 1789 the French Revolution excited liberal Italians. The Napoleonic Era in Italy Europe was soon involved in a series of wars that eventually involved Italy. Between 1796, when troops under General Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy, and 1814 when they withdrew, the entire peninsula was under French domination. Several short-lived republics were proclaimed early in the period. After two decades of Napoleon's modern but often harsh rule, profound changes took place in Italy; many Italians began to see the possibilities of forging a united country free of foreign control. Following the restoration of European peace in 1815, Italy consisted of the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont, Sardinia, Savoy, and Genoa); the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (including Naples and Sicily); the Papal States; and TUSCANY and a series of smaller duchies in north central Italy. Lombardy and Venetia were now controlled by the Austrians. The Risorgimento The repressive and reactionary policies imposed on Italy by the Austrian leader Klemens, Furst von METTERNICH, and the Congress of Vienna aggravated popular discontent, and the expansion of Austrian control in Italy stimulated intense antiforeign sentiment. These conditions gave rise to the Italian unification movement known as the RISORGIMENTO. Revolutionaries and patriots, especially Giuseppe MAZZINI, began to work actively for unity and independence. A series of unsuccessful revolts led in the 1820s by the CARBONARI, a conspiratorial nationalist organization, and in the 1830s by Mazzini's Young Italy group, provided the background for the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848. These affected al major Italian cities and throughout Europe. Charles Albert, king of Sardinia (1831-49), declared war on Austria and along with some other Italian rulers, gave his people a constitution; but both the war of liberation and the revolutionary republics set up in Rome, Venice, and Tuscany were crushed by Austria in 1849. Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son VICTOR EMMANUEL II, who retained the Sardinian constitution. Unity Under the progressive, liberal leadership of Camillo Benso, conte di CAVOUR, Sardinia led Italy to final unification. In 1859, after gaining the support of France and England, Cavour, in alliance with the French emperor NAPOLEON III, seized Lombardy; in 1860 all of Italy north of the Papal States--except Venetia--was added to Sardinia. Giuseppe GARIBALDI, a popular hero and guerrilla leader, led an expedition of 1,000 "Red Shirts" to Sicily in the same year and subsequently seized the southern part of peninsular Italy, which with Sicily constituted the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Garibaldi turned his conquests over to Victor Emmanuel, and in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed. Only Venetia and Rome were not included in the new state (the former was added in 1866 and the latter in 1870). Italians at last had their own country.

THE KINGDOM OF ITALY The new nation faced many serious problems. A large debt, few natural resources, and almost no industry or transportation facilities combined with extreme poverty, a high illiteracy rate, and an uneven tax structure to weigh heavily on the Italian people. Regionalism was still strong, and only a fraction of the citizens had the right to vote. To make matters worse, the pope, angered over the loss of Rome and the papal lands, refused to recognize the Italian state. In the countryside, banditry and peasant anarchism resulted in government repression, which was often brutal. Meanwhile during the 1880s a socialist movement began to develop among workers in the cities. The profound differences between the impoverished south and the wealthier north widened. Parliament did little to resolve these problems: throughout this so-called Liberal Period (1870-1915), the nation was governed by a series of coalitions of liberals to the left and right of center who were unable to form a clear-cut majority. Despite the fact that some economic and social progress took place before World War I, Italy during that time was a dissatisfied and crisis-ridden nation. In an attempt to increase its international influence and prestige, Italy joined Germany and Austria in the TRIPLE ALLIANCE in 1882. In the 1890s Italy unsuccessfully tried to conquer Ethiopia; and in 1911 it declared war on Turkey to obtain the North African territory of Libya. After the outbreak of WORLD WAR I in 1914, Italy remained neutral for almost a year while the government negotiated with both sides. In 1915, Italy finally joined the Allies, after having been promised territories that it regarded as Italia irredenta (unliberated Italy). The country was unprepared for a major war, however; aside from a few victories in 1918, Italy suffered serious losses of men, material, and morale. Moreover, despite the efforts of Vittorio Emmanuele ORLANDO at the PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE, the treaties that followed the war gave Italy only Trentino and Trieste, a small part of the territories it had expected. These disappointments produced a powerful wave of nationalist sentiment against the Allies and the Italian government.

THE FASCIST PERIOD Italy was plunged into deep social and political crisis by the war. Veterans, unemployed workers, desperate peasants, and a frightened middle class demanded changes, and the 1919 elections suddenly made the Socialist and the new Popular (Catholic) parties the largest in parliament. While extreme nationalists agitated for territorial expansion, strikes and threats of revolution unsettled the nation. The Rise of Fascism In 1919, in the midst of these unsettled conditions, Benito MUSSOLINI, a former revolutionary socialist, founded a new movement called FASCISM. Through a combination of shrewd political maneuvering and widespread violence perpetrated by Mussolini's BLACKSHIRT squads, the Fascists gained increasing support. In October 1922, after the Fascists had marched on Rome, King VICTOR EMMANUEL III named Mussolini prime minister. Within four years, Mussolini had become a dictator, destroying civil liberties, outlawing all other political parties, and imposing a totalitarian regime on the country by means of terror and constitutional subversion. Public works projects, propaganda, militarism, and the appearance of order gained Mussolini considerable prestige, and the LATERAN TREATY with the papacy in 1929 gave the duce (as he was called) a wide measure of popularity. Fascist Expansionism Mussolini's foreign policy, based on aggression and expansion, moved Italy closer to war during the 1930s. In 1935-36 the Italian army invaded and conquered ETHIOPIA, and in 1936, Italy sent troops to support Francisco Franco in the SPANISH CIVIL WAR. Later that year Mussolini and Adolf HITLER, the National Socialist dictator of Germany, established the Rome-Berlin AXIS; in 1939, Italy took Albania, and the two dictators then concluded a military alliance known as the Pact of Steel. In June 1940, 9 months after the outbreak of WORLD WAR II in Europe, Italy entered the conflict on Germany's side. World War II Mussolini's war effort met with setbacks and defeats on all fronts; in July 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily. The Fascist leadership turned against Mussolini, and the king forced him to resign. Rescued by German paratroopers, Mussolini escaped to Salo in northern Italy, where he established a puppet government, the Italian Social Republic under German protection. In the south, the king and his new prime minister, Pietro BADOGLIO, surrendered to the Allies in September and then joined in the war against Germany. A fierce and heroic anti-Fascist resistance movement fought in the German-occupied north for two years while underground political leaders organized the anti-Fascists into the Committee of National Liberation (CLN). The Allies pushed the German armies out of Italy with great difficulty, and in April 1945 the partisans captured and executed Mussolini.

POSTWAR ITALY

Between 1945 and 1948 a new Italian nation emerged from the disaster of fascism and war. In June 1946 a popular election abolished the monarchy in favor of a republic; a new constitution was adopted the next year. The Christian Democrats, the Communists, and the Socialists became the strongest political parties in the country. The largest of these parties, the Christian Democrats, first under the leadership of Alcide DE GASPERI, dominated the Italian government after 1948. De Gasperi stressed industrial growth, agricultural reform, and close cooperation with the United States and the Vatican. With massive U.S. aid, Italy underwent a remarkable economic recovery that saw rapid industrial expansion and a sharp increase in the standard of living. Italy joined the NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION in 1949, the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, and the Common Market EUROPEAN COMMUNITY in 1958.

The 1960s were marked by continued prosperity and a lessening of tensions between right and left. In the early 1970s the Italian Communists, led by Enrico BERLINGUER, became prominent advocates of Eurocommunism, a doctrine stressing independence of the USSR.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Italy, along with other Western nations, experienced chronic inflation and unemployment. Labor unrest, frequent government scandals, and the violence of extremist groups, especially the left-wing Red Brigades terrorists, all contributed to a volatile political situation.

In 1981 the Christian Democrats relinquished the premiership for the first time since World War II when a Republican, Giovanni Spadolini, became prime minister. The economy which had suffered during the turbulent 1970s experienced a new resurgence under the leadership (1983-87) of Socialist Bettino CRAXI, a strong premier who remained in office longer than any of his postwar predecessors. The Craxi government was succeeded by two short-lived coalitions and then by the government of Christian Democrat Giulio Andreotti, which took office in July 1989.