After back-to-back Oscar wins for female directors, this year’s Academy Award nominees for best director returned to an all-male quintet, a move that was criticized by Hollywood’s advocacy organization. Women in the Cinema.
“Once again, Academy voters have shown they don’t value women’s voices, leaving us out of the Best Director nominations. An Academy Award is more than a gold statue, it is a career accelerator that can lead to continued work and higher compensation,” the organization said in a statement Tuesday morning.
“That’s why WIF will continue to advocate for the work of talented female directors like Sarah Polley’s ‘Women Talking’, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s ‘The Woman King’, Maria Schrader’s ‘She Said’, Chinonye Chukwu’s ‘Till’ and ‘ Till’ by Charlotte Wells. ‘Aftersun’, to include.”
Founded in 1973, Women in Film aims to promote and advocate for women in the entertainment industry, lobbying for studios and productions to hire more women as directors and department heads. WIF also offers women in the industry career advancement programs, such as scholarships and networking workshops, and has partnered with the Sundance Institute to create ReFrame, a program designed to help entertainment companies mitigate bias during the creative process.
Of the five films by female directors listed by WIF in its statement, only two — “Talking Women” and “After the Sun” — received Oscar nominations on Tuesday. “Talking Women” received nominations for best picture and best adapted screenplay (director Sarah Polley wrote the screenplay), while “Aftersun” was only nominated in the best actor category for Paul Mescal’s lead performance. Danielle Deadwyler, who was expected to be nominated for best actress for her performance in “Till,” was turned down.
With the exception of best picture, the nominees for all categories are chosen by their respective wings within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which means that best director nominees are selected by other directors.
Nominees this year were Steven Spielberg for “The Fabelmans,” Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Todd Field for “Tár,” Martin McDonagh for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and Ruben Östlund for “Triangle of Sadness.”
In most years, the list of best director nominees mirrors the list of feature film nominees for the Directors Guild Awards given the similar voting base. With no female DGA nominees in that category, the chances of an all-male Oscar shortlist were very high. Östlund is the only Oscar nominee this year who was not also nominated for a DGA Award, beating out Guild nominee Joseph Kosinski for “Top Gun: Maverick.”
In the entire history of the Oscars, women have only been nominated eight times in the best director category and won only three times. The three women receiving the award are Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 for “The Hurt Locker,” Chloé Zhao in 2021 for “Nomadland,” and Jane Campion in 2022 for “The Power of the Dog.” Campion is also the only woman to be nominated twice, as she received her first nomination in 1993 for “The Piano.”