From Garrett Levin:
With their nominations for True Grit, the Coen Brothers have now been nominated on two separate occasions for Best Picture, Best Directing, and Best (Adapted) Screenplay for a single film (the other was No Country for Old Men in 2007). Three other people have accomplished that feat twice, and one person has done it three times. Who are they?
Pictured: Sense and Sensibility (1995), which brought Emma Thompson the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, making her the only person to win in that category and an acting category (Best Actress in Howards End (1992)).
These are guesses:
Francis Ford Coppolla
Jonathan Demme
Martin Scorsese
Warren Beatty (Reds & Heaven Can Wait)
Francis Ford Coppolla is one, accomplishing the feat twice with Apocalypse Now and The Godfather: Part II. The Godfather was only nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. And The Conversation was only nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay (in the same year as Godfather: Part II).
Warren Beatty is another one, for Reds and Heaven Can Wait, two films for which he was also nominated for Best Actor.
Jonathan Demme has only been nominated for one Oscar in his career, winning for Best Director in 1992 for The Silence of the Lambs.
And although Martin Scorsese has been nominated for 8 Oscars, winning only once for directing The Departed, he has never received a Best Picture nomination (because he doesn't get producer credits on his films), and only once received multiple nominations for the same film (Director and Adapted Screenplay for Goodfellas).
So, we're still looking for one of the two-timers and the three-timer.
Is Orson Welles on the list?
Although Orson Welles received three nominations for Citizen Kane, they were for Director, Lead Actor and Original Screenplay.
The link below suggests that Orson Welles received four nominations for Citizen Kane: Best Original Screenplay (Mankiewicz and Welles), Best Picture (Orson Welles, producer), Best Actor and Best Director.
http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html
Prior to the 1950 Academy Awards, Best Picture nominations went to the studio that produced the film, not to an individual. You can see Orson Welles's official Oscar nominations here — http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp;jsessionid=D26D792DFB5AFD90ECE6613BCC4897B9?curTime=1297049274015
Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Peter Jackson is the third two-timer. He accomplished the feat for the first and third Lord of the Rings films, but for The Two Towers he only received a Best Director nomination.
I was sure that Jackson was the 3-timer. What about Kubrick?
Ding ding ding. Kubrick is the 3-timer. He hit the trifecta for Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lyndon. He also received three nominations for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but one of the nominations was for Best Special Visual Effects, and the film was not nominated for Best Picture.