Oscar history in the making: 3 female Best Director nominees in 2024?

Female directors have had a hard time at the Academy Awards. Over the first 95 years of the Oscars, only seven women have ever been nominated for Best Director: Lina Wertmüller in 1977 for “Seven Beauties,” Jane Campion in 1994 for “The Piano” and in 2022 for “The Power of the Dog,” Sofia Coppola in 2004 for “Lost in Translation,” Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 for “The Hurt Locker,” Greta Gerwig in 2018 for “Lady Bird,” Emerald Fennell in 2021 for “Promising Young Woman,” and Chloé Zhao in the same year for “Nomadland.”

That Fennell and Zhao were nominated in that same year is history in and of itself. That is the one and only time that more than one woman has been nominated for Best Director in the same year. But could that be about to change this year? There are a number of strong contenders who could be looking to join that short list of female directors to earn Best Director bids.

More from GoldDerby

• Grammys flashback: In 1990 Bonnie Raitt won Album of the Year just in the 'Nick of Time'

• 2023 box office hits: Every movie that made more than $100 million, including 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer'

• 2023 Emmys: A closer look at 'Barry's' 11 nominations for Season 4

First, there is Celine Song, who directed “Past Lives.” She is the only female director we are currently predicting will earn a nomination. At this time of writing, we are predicting that Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Christopher Nolan (“Oppenheimer”), Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”), and Denis Villeneuve (“Dune: Part Two”) will be nominated alongside Song.

Song’s movie stars Greta Lee and Teo Yoo as Nora and Hae Sung, two childhood friends who are torn apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea to the USA.Two decades later, however, they are reunited for one week and their past connection comes soaring back in a moving exploration of love and destiny. Best Director has previously gone to more technical movies (think Ang Lee with “Life of Pi” or Alfonso Cuarón with “Gravity”). However, recent years have seen a slight shift in that pattern. Zhao’s “Nomadland” was a more poetic work than a technical one while Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” was a thoughtful character study. Perhaps voters are going back to the days when dramas and quieter, more emotional films won Best Director — like Robert Benton‘s “Kramer vs. Kramer” or Robert Redford‘s “Ordinary People.” That would bode well for Song and “Past Lives,” which is all about emotion and character.

That would also bode well for Justine Triet, who directs “Anatomy of a Fall.” That movie follows Sandra Hüller (who also stars in Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest”) as a woman who is suspected of murdering her husband. The sole witness of the event is the couple’s blind son. Triet sits outside of our predicted nominees but could go the way of Bennett Miller and “Foxcatcher” by bringing to life an intense drama involving murder.

Fennell is also outside of our top five predicted nominees but could return to contention with “Saltburn,” which stars Barry Keoghan as a college student who becomes infatuated with his classmate (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to meet his rich, aristocratic family over the summer. This feels like it could ring the same bells as “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” which landed five Oscar nominations in 2000. Plus, we know that the academy likes Fennell. They nominated her in 2021 for her first film as a director (“Promising Young Woman”), for which she won Best Original Screenplay. They may like ner new film, which likely will have more striking social satire sewn into it, just as much.

And lastly, there is Gerwig. She is outside of our predicted five nominees but surely — SURELY — she will secure a place in that predicted lineup and earn her second Best Director nomination for “Barbie,” which is the film of 2023: It’s earned rave reviews, has grossed over $1 billion dollars, and has gone down as a cultural icon. The film follows Margot Robbie as a Barbie who begins to have an existential crisis and must travel to the real world to find out what’s gone wrong with the help of Ryan Gosling‘s Ken. “Barbie” is at once a feminist triumph, a biting social satire, and a hilarious comedy. I mentioned earlier about voters admiring technical achievements. Well, this is that. “Barbie” has emotion, heart, and laughter to boot but it is also a brilliantly made film. It has tons of practical effects, its costumes and sets are off the scales good, and Gerwig toed the tonal line spectacularly. It’s truly an impressive achievement and Gerwig should find herself in our predicted five nominees for Best Director. She is on the precipice at the moment, just behind Villeneuve and “Dune: Part Two.”

But how about winners? Out of those eight aforementioned nominations for female directors, three were turned into wins. Bigelow became the first-ever woman to win the award with “The Hurt Locker” while Zhao won with “Nomadland” and Campion won on her second nomination with “The Power of the Dog.” Currently, we are predicting that Scorsese will take home his second Best Director Oscar (he won his first and only Oscar in 2007 for “The Departed”), with Nolan close behind him. Song is in third place. However, it feels like a tall order for any of these brilliant filmmakers to overcome the titanic duo of Scorsese and Nolan. Let’s see how things play out.

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions

Best of GoldDerby

• 2024 Oscars mystery: Which movie will earn the most acting nominations?

• 2023 box office hits: Every movie that made more than $100 million, including 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer'

• Steve Martin movies: 15 greatest films ranked from worst to best

Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.