Greta Gerwig stands alone as a female Academy Award nominee for Best Director this year. Her counterparts are all male. The only thing unusual about the situation is that there is a woman in the running at all. Gerwig’s nomination — for the highly-praised Lady Bird — marks just the fifth time in history that a woman director will enter Oscar night with a chance to take home the prize. Lady Bird will probably win an Oscar for something — Saoirse Ronan‘s performance in the film won her a best actress nomination, the astonishing Laurie Metcalf got a best supporting actress nod, and Gerwig’s directing nomination was twinned by another for best screenplay.
Gerwig’s best director Oscar competitors — or her “fellow nominees” in more collegial phrasing — are Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), and Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk). Yet even more illustrious company, perhaps, in this game-changing moment of #MeToo and TimesUp is the regrettably slim 4-woman group of female best director Oscar nominees that preceded Gerwig, and who helped pave the way. Those four glass-ceiling-smashing directors are Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, and Kathryn Bigelow (see below).
Lina Wertmüller (1977) — nominated for Seven Beauties
Jane Campion (1994), nominated for The Piano
Sofia Coppola (2004), nominated for Lost in Translation
Kathryn Bigelow (2010): Bigelow won the Oscar for The Hurt Locker
