# Mainichi Film Award for Best Director

The Mainichi Film Award for Best Director is a film award given at the Mainichi Film Awards.

## List of winners

| Year | Film | Director |
| 1946 | Minshū no Teki | Tadashi Imai |
| 1947 | One Wonderful Sunday | Akira Kurosawa |
| 1948 | Woman Shōzō Apostasy | Keisuke Kinoshita |
| 1949 | Late Spring | Yasujirō Ozu |
| 1950 | Itsuwareru Seisō | Kōzaburō Yoshimura |
| 1951 | Repast | Mikio Naruse |
| 1952 | Gendai-jin Honjitsu Kyūshin | Minoru Shibuya |
| 1953 | An Inlet of Muddy Water | Tadashi Imai |
| 1954 | Twenty-Four Eyes The Garden of Women | Keisuke Kinoshita |
| 1955 | Floating Clouds | Mikio Naruse |
| 1956 | Mahiru no ankoku | Tadashi Imai |
| 1957 | The Rice People Jun'ai Monogatari | Tadashi Imai |
| 1958 | The Ballad of Narayama | Keisuke Kinoshita |
| 1959 | Niguruma no Uta Ningen no Kabe | Satsuo Yamamoto |
| 1960 | Her Brother Jokyo | Kon Ichikawa |
| 1961 | The Human Condition | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 1962 | Being Two Isn't Easy The Broken Commandment | Kon Ichikawa |
| 1963 | The Insect Woman | Shohei Imamura |
| 1964 | The Woman in the Dunes | Hiroshi Teshigahara |
| 1965 | A Fugitive from the Past | Tomu Uchida |
| 1966 | Shiroi Kyotō | Satsuo Yamamoto |
| 1967 | A Man Vanishes | Shohei Imamura |
| 1968 | The Human Bullet | Kihachi Okamoto |
| 1969 | Kigeki Ippatsu Daihisshō It's Tough Being a Man Tora-san's Cherished Mother | Yoji Yamada |
| 1970 | Men and War: Part I | Satsuo Yamamoto |
| 1971 | Silence Tora-san's Shattered Romance Tora-san, the Good Samaritan Tora-san's Love Call | Masahiro Shinoda Yoji Yamada |
| 1972 | The Rendezvous Tabi no Omosa | Kōichi Saitō |
| 1973 | Tora-san's Dream-Come-True Tora-san's Forget Me Not | Yoji Yamada |
| 1974 | Castle of Sand | Yoshitarō Nomura |
| 1975 | Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director | Kaneto Shindo |
| 1976 | Fumō Chitai | Satsuo Yamamoto |
| 1977 | The Yellow Handkerchief | Yoji Yamada |
| 1978 | The Incident The Demon | Yoshitarō Nomura |
| 1979 | Taiyō o Nusunda Otoko | Kazuhiko Hasegawa |
| 1980 | Kagemusha | Akira Kurosawa |
| 1981 | Muddy River | Kōhei Oguri |
| 1982 | Fall Guy Dotonbori River | Kinji Fukasaku |
| 1983 | Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence | Nagisa Oshima |
| 1984 | The Funeral | Juzo Itami |
| 1985 | Ran | Akira Kurosawa |
| 1986 | The Sea and Poison | Kei Kumai |
| 1987 | The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On | Kazuo Hara |
| 1988 | The Discarnates | Nobuhiko Obayashi |
| 1989 | Shaso | Toshio Masuda |
| 1990 | Tugumi | Jun Ichikawa |
| 1991 | My Sons | Yoji Yamada |
| 1992 | The River with No Bridge | Yōichi Higashi |
| 1993 | Byōin de Shinu to Iukoto | Jun Ichikawa |
| 1994 | Like a Rolling Stone | Tatsumi Kumashiro |
| 1995 | A Last Note | Kaneto Shindo |
| 1996 | Shall We Dance? | Masayuki Suo |
| 1997 | The Eel | Shohei Imamura |
| 1998 | Begging for Love | Hideyuki Hirayama |
| 1999 | Keiho | Yoshimitsu Morita |
| 2000 | Face | Junji Sakamoto |
| 2001 | Spirited Away | Hayao Miyazaki |
| 2002 | Out The Laughing Frog | Hideyuki Hirayama |
| 2003 | Doing Time | Yoichi Sai |
| 2004 | Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima The Face of Jizo | Kazuo Kuroki |
| 2005 | Itsuka dokusho suruhi | Akira Ogata |
| 2006 | What the Snow Brings | Kichitaro Negishi |
| 2007 | I Just Didn't Do It | Masayuki Suo |
| 2008 | United Red Army | Kōji Wakamatsu |
| 2009 | Love Exposure | Sion Sono |
| 2010 | 13 Assassins | Takashi Miike |
| 2011 | Saudade | Katsuya Tomita |
| 2012 | The Kirishima Thing | Daihachi Yoshida |
| 2013 | The Great Passage | Yuya Ishii |
| 2014 | The Light Shines Only There | Mipo O |
| 2015 | Fires on the Plain | Shinya Tsukamoto |
| 2016 | The Long Excuse | Miwa Nishikawa |
| 2017 | Bangkok Nites | Katsuya Tomita |
| 2018 | One Cut of the Dead | Shinichiro Ueda |
| 2019 | Listen to the Universe | Kei Ishikawa |
| 2020 | True Mothers | Naomi Kawase |
| 2021 | Drive My Car | Ryusuke Hamaguchi |
| 2022 | Small, Slow But Steady | Shō Miyake |
| 2023 | The Moon | Yuya Ishii |
| 2024 | All the Long Nights | Shō Miyake |