After failing to nominate any female directors last year — and on the heels of Jane Campion’s record-breaking win for her “The Power of the Dog” in 2022, which marked her as only the third woman to ever win the Oscar for Best Director, following Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) — this year’s Oscar nominations have again returned to the land of just one female nominee.
That might not surprise anyone familiar with the org’s history of nominations in this particular category (read: slim), but this morning’s nomination pool did pack at least one surprise: “Barbie” filmmaker (and previous nominee in the category) Greta Gerwig failed to notch a nom, while “Anatomy of a Fall” filmmaker Justine Triet was nominated for the first time in the category.
While both films have proven to be awards juggernauts over the past few months, recent chatter seemed to favor Triet in the category (again, as always, how sad that even in conversation, the assumption remains that there is only one spot for a woman in this category), who previously won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, making her only the third woman to notch that award (alongside Campion and Julia Ducournau).
Both films were also nominated in the Best Picture category (which is awarded to a film‘s producers, not its director). Alongside Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” which was also nominated for the Oscars‘ top honor, this morning’s nominations broke a record for most films directed by women to be nominated for Best Picture. (Also of note: with this Best Picture nomination, Gerwig has now become the first director ever to have their first three solo directorial films be nominated for Best Picture, including also “Lady Bird” and “Little Women”).
All three filmmakers were also nominated in their respective writing categories (Gerwig alongside Noah Baumbach in Best Adapted Screenplay, with Song and Triet alongside Arthur Harari in Best Original Screenplay).
In the Academy Awards’ 96-year history, only eight women total have ever been nominated for Best Director: Lina Wertmüller (1976′s “Seven Beauties”), Sofia Coppola (2003′s “Lost in Translation”), Greta Gerwig (2017′s “Lady Bird”), Emerald Fennell (2020’s “Promising Young Woman”), Bigelow, Zhao, Campion, and now Triet. “The Power of the Dog” filmmaker is also the only woman nominated twice for the honor.
2020 marked the first time the Academy handed out nominations to two women in the category, with Zhao going on to win both Best Director (making her just the second woman to win the award, after Bigelow) and Best Picture for her “Nomadland,” while Fennell took home the statuette for Best Original Screenplay.
Elsewhere in the 2024 nominations pool, female filmmakers were shut out of both the Best International Feature Film race (where they tend to notch a couple of noms) and Best Animated Feature categories, while female directed-films were the majority in the Best Documentary category (including Maite Alberdi’s “The Eternal Memory,” Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters,” and Nisha Pahuja’s “To Kill a Tiger”).
On the writing side, beyond Gerwig, Triet, and Song’s nominations in their respective categories, Samy Burch was also nominated alongside Alex Mechanik for their “May December” in Best Original Screenplay, the lone other female writer to earn a nod.
Nominations voting for this year’s Oscars took place January 11 – 16, 2024. Final voting will take place from February 22 – 27, 2024. And finally, the 96th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 10, and air live on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel is set to return as the host for the fourth time, having previously helmed the event in 2023, 2018, and 2017.
Check out the full list of this morning’s nominations right here.
