Only three women have ever won Best Director at the Golden Globes, and in 2023, no one will have the opportunity to become the fourth.
The nominations for the 80th Golden Globe Awards were unveiled Monday, and as has often been the case, all of the directing nominees were men. Several top female contenders were snubbed for Best Director, including Sarah Polley, who was expected to be nominated for Women Talking. She was nominated for Best Screenplay, however.
This year's directing nominees were instead James Cameron for Avatar: The Way of Water, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Baz Luhrmann for Elvis, Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin, and Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans.
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The Golden Globes has for years faced criticism for rarely nominating female directors. When introducing the award in 2018, Natlie Portman famously called this out on stage, saying, "Here are the all-male nominees."
But that seemed to be changing over the past few years. In 2021, Chloé Zhao became just the second woman to win Best Director for Nomadland, and Jane Campion became the third in 2022 for The Power of the Dog. That was the first time the award went to a female director in two consecutive years.
2021 was also the first time that three women were nominated in the same year, with Regina King and Emerald Fennell recognized in addition to Zhao. Prior to this, though, no female directors were nominated for five straight years. Only nine women ever have been nominated.
In addition to Polley, Gina Prince-Bythewood was snubbed this year The Woman King, while Maria Schrader and Chinonye Chukwu were also left out for She Said and Till, respectively. All of the movies nominated for the main two Best Picture awards were directed by men.
