At the Golden Globes, five men were nominated for best director. That’s not the case for this year’s Academy Awards, thanks to Greta Gerwig at Lady Bird’s helm. When the nominees were announced on Tuesday, January 23, Gerwig became the first woman nominated for best director in five years. The last was Kathryn Bigelow for directing The Hurt Locker — and she became the only woman to ever win the award in 2010.
Gerwig, 34, previously landed a Directors Guild nomination, as well as a Critics’ Choice nomination for Lady Bird. The National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review also named her best director. At the Oscars, she’s up against four men: Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread), Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk) and Jordan Peele (Get Out).
Lady Bird also earned four other nominations, including best picture, best actress in a leading role (Saiorse Ronan), best actress in a supporting role (Laurie Metcalfe) and best original screenplay. The film was Gerwig’s directorial debut, and she now hopes to continue down that path.
“[Directing] is simultaneously something that’s in your control and utterly not in your control,” she told Variety earlier this month. “And that paradox is very appealing to me. The illogical nature of making movies is appealing to me as well. It’s a reverse magic show. It’s so much time, and weight, and money, and people, and you’re taking all this stuff and you’re reducing it to flickering light, making it disappear into a dream. That feels satisfyingly strange.”
The 90th Academy Awards will air on ABC Sunday, March 4, at 8 p.m. ET.
