In an unusual year marred by a global pandemic and theater closures nationwide, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has broken tradition by nominating two female filmmakers for a directing Oscar for the first time. This is only the sixth year in academy history that any women have cracked the category.
Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) have been nominated this year alongside David Fincher (“Mank”), Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”).
With their nominations, Zhao and Chung join the ranks of just four directors of East Asian descent to ever be nominated in the category: Hiroshi Teshigahara (1965’s “Woman in the Dunes”), Akira Kurosawa (1985’s “Ran”), Ang Lee (2000’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain,” 2012’s “Life of Pi”) and Bong Joon Ho (2019’s “Parasite”). Bong and Lee (who won twice out of three nods) are the only two of the nominees to take home the award.
Last month, Zhao won a Golden Globe for her work on “Nomadland,” which also won the prize for best picture, drama, making her the first woman of color, the first woman of Asian descent and just the second female director to do so.
Female directors have been shut out of the Oscar nominations since 2018, when Greta Gerwig was nominated for her debut, “Lady Bird.” Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to take home the prize, for 2009’s “The Hurt Locker,” and no woman has ever been nominated twice in the category.
Only five women have been nominated for the Oscars’ director honor throughout over the awards ceremony’s history: Gerwig, Bigelow, Lina Wertmuller (1976’s “Seven Beauties”), Jane Campion (1993’s “The Piano”) and Sofia Coppola (2003’s “Lost in Translation”).
The winners of the 93rd Academy Awards will be revealed on April 25.
