Best Director Oscar rematch: Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig first faced off 6 years ago

Marcus James Dixon
·4 min read
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Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig are both back in the hunt for the Best Director Oscar, six years after they contended for war epic “Dunkirk” and coming-of-age film “Lady Bird,” respectively. The Hollywood heavyweights originally faced off at the 90th Academy Awards (plus the Critics Choice and DGA Awards), where they lost to Guillermo del Toro, whose romantic fantasy “The Shape of Water” swam away with four total trophies for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. “Dunkirk” claimed three Oscars that year — Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing — while “Lady Bird” was skunked.

Now, Nolan and Gerwig are in the awards conversation once again for directing “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” respectively. The helmers are expected to compete against each other in this year’s epic Best Director Oscar rematch. Will either of them prevail this time around?

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SEE‘Oppenheimer’: Above-the-line Oscars for Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and more?

Nolan (“Oppenheimer”) currently leads Gold Derby’s predictions at 18/5 odds for directing the Universal Pictures biopic starring Cillian Murphy as the creator of the atomic bomb. In second place is Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) at 4/1 odds for Apple Original Films’ Western period piece. Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) recently jumped into third place at 13/2 odds, buoyed by stellar festival reviews for the Searchlight Pictures dark comedy. Gerwig (“Barbie”) comes in fourth place at 8/1 odds for Warner Bros. Pictures’ film featuring Margot Robbie as the iconic blonde doll. Rounding out our Top 5 is Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”) at 21/2 odds for A24’s emotional Holocaust drama.

At five career Oscar nominations and no wins, Nolan is beginning to attain the “overdue” factor that has plagued so many filmmakers through the years. (For what it’s worth, Scorsese didn’t triumph until his eighth total bid, for directing 2006’s “The Departed.”) Nolan’s prior citations came for 2001’s “Memento” (writing), 2010’s “Inception” (writing and producing) and 2017’s “Dunkirk” (directing and producing). With “Oppenheimer,” Nolan could add three more Oscar bids to his name for directing, writing and producing.

SEE‘Barbie’ director Greta Gerwig hoping to become the next Jane Campion at Oscars

To compare, Gerwig is a three-time career nominee for writing and directing “Lady Bird” (2017) and writing “Little Women” (2019). She directed “Barbie” and co-wrote it with her husband Noah Baumbach, but did not produce the comedy blockbuster, so two Oscar nominations is the most she can garner this year.

Gold Derby’s Oscar Experts from major media outlets are strongly in the Nolan camp, with 15 out of 22 predicting he will prevail in the Best Director race. The other seven Experts think Scorsese will pull off a victory. As for Gerwig, she is the second-place choice to win for three of our Experts.

One additional fun factor that bears mentioning: “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” opened on the same date, July 21, 2023, and helped boost each other’s box office receipts as many moviegoers opted to see both films. The “Barbenheimer” phenomenon was one of the biggest things to happen to theaters in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic, and proved that people are still willing to open their wallets for movies that interest them. To date, “Oppenheimer” has raked in $315 million domestically while “Barbie” reigns supreme at $620 million (the biggest for the 2023 calendar year).

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