Trivia

Discovered Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, which resulted in their movie Bottle Rocket (1996).

He is among an elite group of six directors who have won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Original/Adapted) Oscars for the same film. In 1984, he won all three for Terms of Endearment (1983). The other directors are Billy Wilder (for The Apartment (1960)), Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather Part II (1974)), Peter Jackson (for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (the brothers co-produced, co-directed and co-wrote No Country for Old Men (2007) with each other), and Alejandro G. Iñárritu (for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)). Brooks is the only one to do so with his directorial debut and the only one to do so without collaborators in any of the three categories.

Has won 21 Primetime Emmy Awards--more than any person in history. As executive producer, he has won 11 for The Simpsons (1989), three for Taxi (1978), three for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and one for The Tracey Ullman Show (1987); as screenwriter, he won two for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and one for The Tracey Ullman Show (1987).

Father, with Marianne Catherine Morrissey, of Amy Brooks. Father, with Holly Holmberg Brooks, of Chloe Brooks, Cooper Brooks and Joey Brooks.

His laughter is heard in the studio audience of many shows he produced, especially Taxi (1978), in which his laughter is heard through all five seasons. It appears louder than any of the other audience members, sounding like a "Haw", sustaining the "Aw" sound.

Directed nine Oscar-nominated performances: Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Debra Winger, John Lithgow, Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear. Nicholson, MacLaine and Hunt won Oscars for their performances in one of Brooks' movies (Nicholson twice).

He has directed one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": Broadcast News (1987), which ranks #64 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs.

Along with Delbert Mann, Jerome Robbins, Robert Redford, Kevin Costner and Sam Mendes, he is one of only six people to win the Academy Award for Best Director for their directorial debut: Mann for Marty (1955), Robbins for West Side Story (1961) (which he co-directed with Robert Wise, Redford for Ordinary People (1980), Brooks for Terms of Endearment (1983), Costner for Dances with Wolves (1990) and Mendes for American Beauty (1999).

He was commissioned to do a screen adaptation of Terms of Endearment (1983) by wealthy businessman Norton Simon and his wife, the former actress Jennifer Jones, as a comeback vehicle for her. Brooks decided he didn't want to have to adapt the character of Aurora to a particular actress, and persuaded Paramount to buy the rights from the Simons. He cast Shirley MacLaine because she was the only actress who viewed the story as a comedy. When he won the screenplay Oscar, Brooks thanked Jennifer Jones Simon.

He has directed three films that have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Terms of Endearment (1983), Broadcast News (1987) and As Good as It Gets (1997). Terms of Endearment (1983) is a winner in the category. He also produced all three of those, as well as the Best Picture nominee Jerry Maguire (1996).

During the opening credits for some of the seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), there is a scene of Mary by the one of the lakes in Minneapolis. During that scene, two men jog by--one of them is Brooks.

Has been a member of the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) (Writers' Branch) since 2006.

Owns the production company Gracie Films, which produces The Simpsons (1989).

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6910 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December 11, 2025. Walk of Fame inductees Danny DeVito and Jamie Lee Curtis were guest speakers at the ceremony.

He was nominated for the 2025 New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Performing Arts and Entertainment category.

Was best man at Norman Pearlstine's and Nancy Friday's wedding.

He was nominated for the 2026 New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Performing Arts and Entertainment category.