Greta Gerwig has become the fifth woman ever to be nominated for the Best Director Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards, following in the footsteps of Lina Wermuller for* Seven Beauties*, Jane Campion for* The Piano*, Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, the latter being the only one to have actually won.
Gerwig’s nomination comes just a few weeks after her close friend Natalie Portman made a pointed comment about the lack of female directors up for the same award at the Golden Globes, by announcing ‘the all-male nominees for best director are…’.
Her debut feature film Lady Bird is a semi-autobiographical tale of a teenage girl coming of age in Sacremento in 2002. It made history by becoming the first movie to ever get a 100% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Its star Saiorse Ronan has also been nominated for Best Actress, while Laura Metcalf, who plays her mother, is also up for Best Supporting Actress. Timothee Chalamet, who is nominated for Best Actor in Call Me By Your Name, has a memorable supporting role in the film too, as well as Lucas Hedges, who appears in Best Picture-frontrunner Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Meanwhile, it was also great news for Octavia Spencer, who has become the first woman of colour to be nominated multiple times following her Oscar win for The Help in 2012.
After the #OscarsSoWhite controversy of 2016, there were more nominees of colour in the acting categories, with Daniel Kaluuya and Denzel Washington nominated for Best Actor, and Mary J. Blige and Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress. Get Out’s director and writer Jordan Peele was also recognised in the Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Shape of Water, the surreal thriller from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, made history by picking up 13 nominations, equally Titanic’s feat in 1997.
The full list of nominees are below:
BEST ACTOR
Timothee Chalamet - Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out
Gary OIdman - Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington - Roman J. Israel, Esq
**BEST ACTRESS **
Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand - Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie - I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird
Meryl Streep - The Post
**BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS **
Mary J Blige - Mudbound
Alison Janney - I, Tonya
Lesley Manville - Phanton Thread
Laurie Metcalf - Ladybird
Octavia Spencer - The Shape Of Water
**BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR **
Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Sam Rockwell - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
A Fantastic Woman
The Insult
Loveless
On Body and Soul
The Square
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Edith + Eddie
Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405
Heroin(e)
Knife Skills
Traffic Stop
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Faces Places
Icarus
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island
**BEST ORIGINAL SONG **
Mighty River - Mudbound
Mystery Of Love - Call Me by Your Name
Remember Me - Coco
Stand Up For Something - Marshall
This Is Me - The Greatest Showman
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent
BEST ADAPTATED SCREENPLAY
Call Me By Your Name - James Ivory
The Disaster Artist - Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber
Logan - Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green
Molly's Game - Aaron Sorkin
Mudbound - Virgil Williams and Dee Rees
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Big Sick - Emily V Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Get Out - Jordan Peele
Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig
The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor (story by Guillermo del Toro)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Dunkirk
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
**BEST DIRECTOR **
Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk
Jordan Peele - Get Out
Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird
Paul Thomas Anderson - Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro - The Shape of Water
**BEST PICTURE **
Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
**BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY **
Bladerunner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Mudbound
Shape of Water
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Beauty and the Beast
Darkest Hour
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water
Victoria and Abdul
BEST SOUND EDITING
Baby Driver
Blade Runner
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Dear Basketball
Garden Party
Lou
Negative Space
Revolting Rhymes
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
DeKalb Elementary
The Eleven O'Clock
My Nephew Emmet
The Silent Child
Watu Wota / All of Us
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Blade Runner 2049
Guardian of the Galaxy vol. 2
Kong: Skull Island
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes
BEST FILM EDITING
Baby Driver
I,Tonya
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST SOUND MIXING
Baby Driver
Blade Runner
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
BEST MAKE UP AND HAIR STYLING
Darkest Hour
Victoria & Abdul
Wonder