For which film did Billy Wilder receive his first Best Director Academy Award?

Billy Wilder (1906 – 2002) was an Austrian-born American film director and screenwriter whose career spanned more than 5 decades. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of the Hollywood Golden Age of cinema.

He received his first Best Director Academy Award for the 1945 film "The Lost Weekend". Later with the 1960 film "The Apartment" Wilder became the first person to win Academy Awards as a producer, director, and screenwriter for the same film.

"The Lost Weekend" starred Ray Milland and Jane Wyman. The film was based on Charles R. Jackson's 1944 novel of the same name about an alcoholic writer.

The unsuccessful writer Don Birnham (Milland) is an alcoholic. Only his brother Wick (Philip Terry) and girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman) manage to keep him sober for 10 days. They plan a little vacation on the countryside for the weekend. But Don manages to send them both away the evening before. Alone at home, without any money, he's desperate for something to drink. He finally commits to writing his novel "The Bottle", dedicated to Helen, which will recount the events of the weekend. He drops a cigarette into a glass of whisky to make it undrinkable, as evidence of his resolve.

He was first nominated for Best Director for the 1945 film "Double Indemnity" and was further nomimated for "Sunset Boulevard" (1951), Stalag 17 (1954), Sabrina (1955), "Witness for the Prosecution" (1958), and "Some Like It Hot" (1960).