Ever the Oscars bridesmaid but never the bride, legendary US filmmaker Martin Scorsese has proven that his Academy Awards jinx is as powerful as ever.

The 62-year-old cinematic legend, the maker of classics including 1976's "Taxi Driver" and 1990's "Good Fellas," lost out Sunday on the best director and best picture awards to fellow Tinseltown titan Clint Eastwood.

His biopic about billionaire Howard Hughes garnered five Oscars, but lost out in the key categories to Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby." Scorsese has now got a perfect zero-for-seven Oscar nominations score, having gone home empty-handed following five best director nods and two screenplay nods over the past 15 years.

Eastwood, 74, who won a best director statuette and a best picture Oscar as a producer of "Baby," downplayed the struggle between him and Scorsese for the top honours. "I was a bit disappointed when they started creating competition between Marty and myself," he said backstage, holding an Oscar in each hand.

"I have the greatest respect for him and the films he's done over the years, including 'The Aviator'," he said. When asked whether he thought he deserved the Oscars, Eastwood quoted a line from his 1992 film "Unforgiven," for which he won a best director Academy Award.

"'Deserves got nothing to do with it.' You never know. There are a lot of great movies that have won the award, and a lot of them that haven't," he said. While Hollywood stars trip over each other to work with the New York-based Scorsese, the 5,808 Los Angeles-based voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are clearly not as enthusiastic.

Best supporting actress victor Cate Blanchett, who played Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator," praised her director from the Oscars stage Sunday, saying: "I hope my son will marry your daughter."

Scorsese also went home empty-handed when he was nominated for directing "Raging Bull" (1980); "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988); "Good Fellas" (1990); and 2002's "Gangs of New York." Earlier this month, Scorsese said he would be happy to finally win but said that an Oscar victory can complicate a director's work. -AFP