We've all heard about the #OscarsSoMale and #OscarsSoWhite campaigns, but what about women?
In one category things continue to look bleak. Since the Oscars awarded their first golden statue in 1929, over 400 directors have been nominated. But only eight women have ever been recognised by the Academy with a nomination in all that time.
But it gets even more shocking: of those eight women, only three women have ever been awarded the Oscar for Best Director. And no one can tell us that there were no other good female directors apart from these.
Sorry Bridge, but you belong in a bygone era that should never have existed.
Films by women are not recognised at the Oscars
On 10 March 2024, the Oscars 2024 ceremony will see more gold statues be awarded again, and this year only one is nominated in the Best Director category. The biggest surprise for many was that Greta Gerwig was not nominated for Barbie – even though she is responsible for the most successful film of 2023 with her direction. However, Justine Triet was nominated for Anatomy of a Fall – her first nomination in this category.
Let's revisit the eight exceptional female directors and their eight films that were recognised by the Academy.
It may have taken 47 years, but in 1977 Lina Wertmüller was the first woman to be honoured with a nomination in the Best Director category. Unfortunately, she did not receive the award, but in 2019 she received the Academy Honorary Award for her career – which she continued with until her death in 2021.
The Italian feature film Seven Beauties, originally titled Pasqualino Settebellezze, is a typical work of the 1970s. It is loud, grotesque, hypersexualised and shows Italian fascism in rough comparison to Italian machismo. The petty criminal macho man, played by Giancarlo Giannini, stumbles through fascist Italy to defend his family's pride. He ends up in a concentration camp, where he enters into a kind of BDSM relationship with a German female guard.
It's a movie that nobody would dare to write today. But Lina Wertmüller didn't care, she replies confidently: "If everything is allowed in love and war, then everything is allowed in cinema." Unfortunately, her shrill social comedy is not available on any streaming service at the moment. You can watch it in Italian on YouTube, and if you keep your eyes peeled, it sometimes appears in local arthouse cinemas.
After Lina Wertmüller's groundbreaking nomination, we had to wait a whole 20 years before another woman was recognised by the Academy for her directing. In 1994, Jane Campion was nominated for Best Director for the film The Piano. She also didn't take home the coveted Oscar, but the film was awarded Best Screenplay and the two leading actors each received an Oscar.
The 1993 historical drama is about mute piano player Ada (Holly Hunter), who is sent to New Zealand in the mid 19th century for an arranged marriage. Her beloved piano is sold to an acquaintance of her husband, and she will do anything to spend a few hours at the keys – even if it means using her body.
The Piano was actually restored to 4K resolution in 2022 and returned to cinemas. This new version can actually be watched on Amazon Prime Video.
Sofia Coppola is perhaps our favourite nepo baby. As the daughter of award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola, many doors were naturally opened to her, which she first used as an actress. But with Lost in Translation she proved that she had earned her place.
Unfortunately, she did not win the Oscar for Best Director, but she did take home the Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay.
Sofia Coppola made her breakthrough as a director with her film The Virgin Suicides, which still has cult status today. Four years later came Lost in Translation, her first self-written feature film screenplay.
The film is a romantic-dramatic comedy starring Billy Murray as a middle-aged actor going through a midlife crisis while he is supposed to be shooting an advert in Tokyo. In his hotel, he befriends young American Charlotte, played by Scarlett Johansson, and they soon form a deep bond.
After three nominations, we have not only arrived in the mainstream with Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker, but also with the first woman ever to win an Oscar for Best Director. In addition to directing, the film also won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Screenplay.
The Hurt Locker is a war movie that deals with the psychological effects and trauma of the war in Iraq. The movie follows a group of soldiers on a bomb disposal squad who try to act as carefully as possible in the midst of a cruel war. When their leader dies on a mission, they are forced to take on a new superior – but his ruthless nature endangers his entire team.
Greta Gerwig can do it all. She's played indie roles like in Frances Ha, took on the romcom in Friendship Plus and played with sci-fi in White Noise. She adapts screenplays such as Little Women, and with Lady Bird she wrote her first solo directorial feature, for which she was also immediately nominated for Best Director. In total, Lady Bird scooped five Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.
Lady Bird is Greta Gerwig's semi-autobiographical work about a rebellious teenager (Saoirse Ronan), who has to juggle her life between Catholic school, college applications and first experiences with boys (this is where Timothée Chalamet comes in). She also has a difficult relationship with her mother and wants to leave her old home behind. But at some point, she realises that she doesn't hate her home town as much as she thought she did – a key lesson that many of us went through growing up.
2021 was a good year for women at the Oscars. Not just one, but two women were nominated for Best Director this year. One of them was Emerald Fennell with her directorial debut Promising Young Woman, which brought concentrated star power with it. The Oscar for Best Director went to another woman that evening (more on that later) but Emerald Fennell was able to snatch the Oscar for Best Screenplay. The film received a total of five Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actress.
The film was both written and directed by Emerald Fennell, and is based on the experiences of many women she knows. It's about Cassie (Carey Mulligan), who leads a murderous double life. She pretends to get drunk and then punishes the men who first try to "help" her and then assault and rape her. She does all this to avenge her friend who was raped in the past – with no consequences.
We can't be too sad about the loss of Emerald Fennell, because in 2021 the Oscar for Best Director still went to a woman. And not just to any woman, but to Chloé Zhao, the first woman of Asian descent to be nominated for Best Director and win! The film Nomadland and Chloé were also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.
Nomadland is based on the book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century and follows Fern, played by Frances McDormand, who lives in a trailer. After her husband died and she lost her house, she now travels alone through the USA and earns her money by working part-time. On her journey, she repeatedly meets other nomadic people and gets to know all kinds of different stories. An authentic look at life between poverty and freedom.
In 2022, there was another milestone in women's film history – Jane Campion became the first woman to be nominated for two Oscars for directing. The Power of the Dog impressed the Academy so much in 2022 that the drama received a total of 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Jane Campion was then also awarded the Oscar for her performance, becoming the third woman ever to win an Oscar for Best Director.
The Power of the Dog is both a modern western and a psychological drama based on the 1967 novel of the same name. Two brothers Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons) look after a farm together, but can hardly stand each other due to their differences in character. When George marries widow Rose, she and her son Peter move to the farm and change Phil's life forever. Power relations begin to shift and a curious bond develops between Phil and Peter.
Justine Triet, born in 1978, has already won the Palme d'Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival for Anatomy of a Fall with German actress Sandra Hüller. She was then nominated earlier this year for an Oscar in the Best Director category.
The drama is about a tragedy that takes place in a remote chalet in the French Alps. Sandra, a successful writer, finds her husband and father of her son Samuel, Vincent, dead in the snow outside the house. A court hearing must determine whether the death was an accident, murder or suicide. Sandra has to endure the most intimate questions about herself and her marriage, her family's life and her sexuality. Anatomy of a Fall has been nominated for a total of five Academy Awards.
A version of this article originally appeared on GLAMOUR DE.
