Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu is a back-to-back Oscar winner for best director.
"The Revenant" director won the directing Academy Award Sunday for his revenge tale, which features Leonardo DiCaprio braving icy elements to tell the 19th-century survival tale about a fur trapper left for dead after a bear mauling.
González Iñárritu won three Oscars at last year's ceremony, including for best picture and writing "Birdman." He was nominated in 2007 as best director for "Babel." "The Revenant" was this year's top-nominated film.
The win is the second Oscar awarded to "The Revenant" during Sunday's ceremony.
"The Revenant," which came in with a leading 12 nods and the favorite for best picture, notched an early, unsurprising win for its maverick cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki.
Renowned for his use of natural light in lengthy, balletic shots, Lubezki became the first cinematographer to win three times in a row (following wins for "Gravity" and "Birdman"), and only the seventh to three-peat in Oscar history.