Mel Gibson "Hamlet". Gibson was cast alongside experienced Shakespearean actors Ian Holm, Alan Bates, and Paul Scofield. He compared working with Scofield to being "thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson". Scofield said of Gibson "Not the sort of actor you'd think would make an ideal Hamlet, but he had enormous integrity and intelligence." In 1995, Mel Gibson directed, produced, and starred in "Braveheart", a biographical film of Sir William Wallace, a Scottish nationalist who was executed in 1305 for "high treason" against King Edward I of England. Gibson received two Academy Awards, Best Director and Best Picture, for his second directorial
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director The National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director is an annual award given by National Society of Film Critics to honor the best film director of the year. American director Martin Scorsese and Swedish director Ingmar Bergman won this award a record three times. Scorsese won for "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Raging Bull" (1980), and "Goodfellas" (1990); Bergman won for "Persona" (1967), "Shame (Skammen)" + "Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen)" (1968), and "The Passion of Anna (En passion)" (1970). Robert Altman, Luis Buñuel, David Cronenberg, Clint Eastwood, Mike Leigh, Terence