Most Best Director nominations at the Laurence Olivier Awards

On 12 March 2024, Sir Sam Mendes (UK) broke a three-way tie with Richard Eyre and Trevor Nunn with his record 11th Best Director nomination, for Jack Thorne’s The Motive and the Cue, ahead of the Society of London Theatre’s (UK) Laurence Olivier Awards on 14 April 2024. Mendes is a three-time category winner, for Company and The Glass Menagerie in 1996, Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya in 2003, and The Ferryman in 2018. He has also been nominated for Othello (1998), The Blue Room (1999) and The Lehman Trilogy (2019), and four times in total in the short-lived categories Best Director of a Play (The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, 1993) and Best Director of a Musical (Assassins, 1993; Cabaret, 1994; and Oliver!, 1995).

Three-time Best Director winner (*) Sir Richard Eyre’s 10 nominations were secured in 1982*, 1990–91, 1996–98*, 2003, 2005–06* and 2014. Sir Trevor Nunn picked up his 10 nominations in 1977, 1979-81, 1990, 1994, 1999–2001 and 2020, winning Best Director in 1980 (with John Caird) and 2000.