After a season in which Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) made Academy Awards history and became the first woman of color to win the Best Director Oscar and where we also saw two women nominated in the same year for the first time ever (Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman), what does this year hold? Will we see a new path forged or will voters fall back on reliable, traditional and familiar names to pack this category?
Looking at the lineup set for 2021, it would appear to be the latter. When you combine the number of high-profile films pulled from 2020 due to the pandemic and debuting this year instead with a huge slate of equally high-profile titles that were already slated for this season you’ll find a singular thread: they’re all white, male and previously nominated for Best Director. That of course isn’t say there’s anything wrong or bad about them or their films, only that a list that contains the likes of Wes Anderson, Adam McKay, David O. Russell, Denis Villeneuve and Paul Thomas Anderson you start to see how difficult it’s going to be to break in. That’s on top of Oscar-winning directors like Steven Spielberg and Joel Coen.
We do have a strong selection of women directors in the running again this year (but really, we always do), including Halle Berry’s directorial debut (Bruised), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Rebecca Hall (Passing), Eva Husson (Mothering Sunday), Sundance winner Siân Heder (CODA), Liesl Tommy (Respect), Nora Fingscheidt (Untitled Nora Fingscheidt aka Unforgiven), Olivia Wilde (Don’t Worry Darling), Mélanie Laurent (The Mad Woman’s Ball, distribution dependent), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter, distribution dependent), Anne Fontaine (Presidents, distribution dependent) and Jane Campion, one of only seven women ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar, with The Power of the Dog. Also can’t knock out Zhao, who swings for the fences with her big budget Marvel film Eternals this fall.
One thing that seems to be almost easy to predict now is the ‘non-English language film that gets a Best Director nomination.’ While the director’s branch has for decades been very willing to pick at least one nominee from outside the box (the ‘lone director’ nominee, as we used to call them in the days of five Best Picture nominees), in recent years we’ve had very high profile European directors find a spot in the final five even as their film doesn’t make the Best Picture cut. Paweł Pawlikowski for 2018’s Cold War and most recently, Thomas Vinterberg for 2020’s Another Round (still my greatest prediction that I’ll probably never top). These nominations didn’t come out of nowhere though; Pawlikowski was the Cannes winner for Best Director and had Cannes gone on as normal last year, Another Round would have easily been a big winner there, too. It swept the European Film Awards and that was more than enough to give Vinterberg the cache for a nomination by the directing branch.
So who is a contender this year for that spot? To me, at the top of that list would be Asghar Farhadi with A Hero from Amazon Studios. The Iranian director has already helmed two International Feature Film winners (2011’s A Separation and 2016′ The Salesman, when the category was called Best Foreign Language Film) and an Oscar nominee himself for A Separation‘s screenplay. But I’m also going to keep an eye out for Leos Carax (Annette) Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness, dependent on being picked up this season, which it surely will), Paolo Sorrentino (The Hand of God), Park Chan-wook (Decision to Leave, distribution dependent), Ari Folman (Where is Anne Frank?, distribution dependent), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria) and Jonas Poher Rasmussen for Flee, the animated documentary film that was set to debut at Cannes 2020 but instead premiered at Sundance 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Here is my first take on Best Director for the 2022 Oscars, with an alphabetized list of likely contenders then a ranked list.
Here are my ranked Best Director Oscar predictions for May 2021.
1. Guillermo Del Toro – Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures)
2. Steven Spielberg – West Side Story (20th Century Studios)
3. Ridley Scott – House of Gucci (MGM/UA)
4. Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
5. Asghar Farhadi – A Hero (Amazon Studios)
6. Joel Coen – The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple/A24)
7. Denis Villeneuve – Dune (Warner Bros)
8. Paul Thomas Anderson – Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson aka Soggy Bottom (MGM/UA)
9. David O. Russell – Untitled David O. Russell aka Canterbury Glass (20th Century Studios)
10. Wes Anderson – The French Dispatch (Searchlight Pictures)
Other contenders: Leos Carax – Annette (Amazon Studios), Siân Heder – CODA (Apple), Joe Wright – Cyrano (MGM/UA), Adam McKay – Don’t Look Up (Netflix), Jonas Poher Rasmussen – Flee (Neon), Paolo Sorrentino – The Hand of God (Netflix), Denzel Washington – A Journal for Jordan (Sony Pictures), Ridley Scott – The Last Duel (20th Century Studios), Rebecca Hall – Passing (Netflix)
Films currently without distribution or possibly unfinished in time
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