Peter Jackson won the Academy Award for Best Director in 2004 for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The award was presented at the 76th Academy Awards ceremony on February 29, 2004, honoring films released during 2003.
Jackson’s win completed a remarkable awards run for the final film in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Return of the King won all 11 of the Oscars for which it was nominated, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Original Score, and Visual Effects. Jackson personally shared the Best Picture prize as a producer and the screenplay award as a co-writer.
The year can cause confusion because the winning film is a 2003 release, while the ceremony took place in 2004. Oscar records generally identify this ceremony as the 2004 Academy Awards, so 2004 is the correct answer to a question asking when Jackson won.
Jackson had previously been nominated for directing The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, but he won for the trilogy’s concluding chapter. The achievement made him the first New Zealand-born director to win the Oscar for Best Director.