in Movies
How Wide Open Is the Best-Picture Oscar Race?
Each of the eight contenders has a path to victory, but it will be harder for some than others. For now, keep your eye on “Nomadland.” More
Nomadland (Movie)
Subterms
More stories
- in Movies
Chloé Zhao Is First Chinese Woman Nominated for Best Director at the Oscars
The “Nomadland” filmmaker scored other Oscar mentions: best adapted screenplay and best editing. Her film is up for best picture and her star, Frances McDormand, is up for best actor.With the announcement of the Oscar nominations on Monday, the filmmaker Chloé Zhao has become the first Chinese woman and the first woman of color to be nominated for best director.Zhao directed “Nomadland,” which she also adapted from the nonfiction book of the same name by Jessica Bruder. Zhao was also nominated for her screenplay and for editing. The drama is up for best picture.In the movie, Frances McDormand, who was nominated Monday for best actress, stars as Fern, a widow with a strong independent streak who takes up van life and itinerant work, meeting similarly uprooted fellow travelers on the road. Praising the director in his review, The Times’s co-chief film critic A.O. Scott wrote, “‘Nomadland’ is patient, compassionate and open, motivated by an impulse to wander and observe rather than to judge or explain.”Zhao is at work on her next movie, the Marvel superhero team-up “The Eternals,” but issued a statement on Monday: “I’m so thrilled for our nominations! Thank you to the academy. I’m grateful to have gone on this journey with our talented team of filmmakers and to have met so many wonderful people who generously shared their stories with us. Thank you so much to my academy peers for recognizing this film that is very close to my heart.”Zhao, 38, grew up in Beijing and, according to a profile in New York magazine, moved to Los Angeles in 2000 to attend high school. After film school at New York University, she made her feature debut with “Songs My Brother Taught Me,” a 2016 drama set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota that she followed up in 2018 with the much praised western “The Rider.”In China, her accomplishments this season were initially celebrated. But then nationalists found an old interview she gave criticizing China, and references to “Nomadland” (including hashtags on social media) were removed. But the film is still scheduled for an April 23 release there.Only five women have ever been up for the best director Oscar: Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation”), Jane Campion (“The Piano”), and Lina Wertmüller (“Seven Beauties”). And only Bigelow went on to win, in 2010.Could Zhao become the second? All along this awards season, she has been a front-runner, picking up the Golden Globe for best director last month and the Critics Choice award in the same category this month, as well as a string of honors from critics groups in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.Zhao is known for casting nonprofessional performers and drawing character details from real life. Adapting Bruder’s book herself, a task that included researching how itinerant Americans live, she hired some of the people depicted in the book to play themselves onscreen. She pushed her star, Frances McDormand, to work the jobs her character, Fern, does, like working in a warehouse.“It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao told The Times’s Kyle Buchanan. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.” More
- in Movies
Oscars Nominations 2021: For the First Time, Two Women Are Up for Best Director
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonOscar Nominations HighlightsNominees ListSnubs and SurprisesBest Director NomineesStream the NomineesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOscars Nominations 2021: For the First Time, Two Women Are Up for Best DirectorChloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell were selected alongside Lee Isaac Chung, Thomas Vinterberg and David Fincher, the first time the academy has honored more than one woman in a year.Chloé Zhao, left, was nominated for “Nomadland,” and Emerald Fennell was nominated for “Promising Young Woman.”Credit…Taylor Jewell/Invision via Associated PressMarch 15, 2021Updated 12:55 p.m. ETFor the first time in the history of the Oscars, more than one female filmmaker has been nominated for an Academy Award for best director in a single year.On Monday, Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) scored nominations alongside Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”), David Fincher (“Mank”) and Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”). The honor is also notable because the category rarely features any women: Before this year, only five female filmmakers had been recognized.Zhao became the first Asian woman to win best director at the Golden Globes in February, when “Nomadland,” the story of a widow who joins the country’s itinerant work force, also picked up best picture in the drama category. The film is a strong contender to win best picture at the 93rd Oscars on April 25.“Promising Young Woman,” about the quest for vengeance after a friend is raped, was nominated for four Golden Globes, including best director and best picture. In the end it was shut out.“Nomadland” was near universally well-reviewed, with The New York Times’s co-chief film critic A.O. Scott praising Zhao’s attention “to the interplay between human emotion and geography, to the way space, light and wind reveal character.”“Promising Woman” received a more mixed reception, though USA Today’s Brian Truitt characterized Fennell, who also wrote the script, as a “stunning new filmmaking voice with a cunning heroine who’s impossible not to adore.”If either Zhao or Fennell were to win, they would become just the second woman named best director — and the first in more than a decade. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow won for her Iraq War film “The Hurt Locker.” Next year, Zhao may also have a chance to become the first female director to be nominated twice — she’s helming the Marvel superhero movie “Eternals,” currently set for release in November.The other women who have been nominated are Lina Wertmüller (in 1977 for “Seven Beauties”), Jane Campion (“The Piano,” 1994), Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation,” 2004) and Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird,” 2018).Last year, 16 percent of the top 100 grossing films were directed by women, according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, up from 12 percent in 2019 and 4 percent in 2018.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
- in Movies
Producers Guild Nominations Boost ‘Chicago 7’ and ‘Nomadland’
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonOscar Nomination PredictionsOscars Dos and Don’tsOscars DiversityDirectors Guild NominationsBAFTA NominationsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ProjectionistProducers Guild Nominations Boost ‘Chicago 7’ and ‘Nomadland’But some contenders were snubbed. The road to a best-picture Oscar nomination nearly always goes through this group, which may doom “Da 5 Bloods.”“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” featuring Jeremy Strong, center left, and Sacha Baron Cohen, was among the films included on the producers’ list.Credit…Nico Tavernise/Netflix, via Associated PressPublished More
- in Movies
BAFTA Nominations: ‘Nomadland’ and ‘Rocks’ Lead Diverse List
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Nomadland’ and ‘Rocks’ Lead Diverse BAFTA NominationsBut the nominees include many independent films, after BAFTA overhauled its voting processes to rectify all-white, all-male shortlists.Frances McDormand in “Nomadland,” which won the award for best motion picture, drama, at the Golden Globes in February.Credit…Courtesy Of Searchlight Pictures/Searchlight Pictures, via Associated PressMarch 9, 2021Updated 12:56 p.m. ETLONDON — “Nomadland,” Chloé Zhao’s drama about a middle-aged woman who travels across the United States in a van seeking itinerant work, scored the biggest number of high-profile nominations for this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars.On Tuesday, the film, which stars Frances McDormand and won the Golden Globe for best drama in February, picked up seven nominations for the awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs.It will compete for best film against “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Promising Young Woman,” “The Father” and “The Mauritanian.”The best-film nominees are almost the same as the titles that competed for best drama at this year’s Golden Globes. (Only “Mank,” David Fincher’s revisiting of “Citizen Kane,” is missing, replaced by “The Mauritanian.”) But in the talent categories for this year’s BAFTAs, the nominees are more diverse than the Golden Globe lists. Many come from low-budget, independent films, such as “Rocks,” a British coming-of-age tale about a Black teenager in London, that also received seven nominations. This appears to be the result of a recent overhaul of BAFTA’s voting rules to increase the diversity of the nominees after recent criticism. Last year, no people of color were nominated in the BAFTAs’ main acting categories, and no women were nominated for best director. Those omissions prompted a social media furor and criticism from the stage at the award ceremony. “I think that we sent a very clear message to people of color that you’re not welcome here,” Joaquin Phoenix said when accepting the best-actor award for his performance in “Joker.”BAFTA required all of its 7,000 voting members to undergo unconscious bias training before voting on this year’s nominees, as well as requiring them to watch a selection of 15 films to stretch the range of titles viewed. Among dozens of other changes to the voting procedures to increase the diversity of the nominees, they were selected for the first time from “longlists” prepared by BAFTA, with the input of specialist juries.In contrast to the male-skewed nominee lists of previous years, four of the best-director nominees announced on Tuesday are women; four of the six nominees in both leading actor categories are people of color. In the best-director category, for example, Chloé Zhao has been nominated for “Nomadland” and will compete against Lee Isaac Chung for “Minari”; Sarah Gavron for “Rocks”; Shannon Murphy for “Babyteeth”; Jasmila Zbanic for “Quo Vadis, Aida?” a retelling of a massacre in the Bosnian War of the 1990s; and Thomas Vinterberg for “Another Round,” a dark comedy about Danish attitudes to alcohol.In the best-actress category, Frances McDormand, the star of “Nomadland,” will compete against Radha Blank for her role in “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” Wunmi Mosaku for the horror film “His House,” and Bukky Bakray, the teenage star of “Rocks.” That list includes fewer recognizable star names than previous years: Rosamund Pike and Andra Day, who won the main actress awards at this year’s Golden Globes, are missing.Pippa Harris, BAFTA’s deputy chair, said in a video interview that the most important change that shaped this year’s nominations was the requirement that voters watch more films than usual, rather than letting them simply see those with the most buzz from other awards or marketing campaigns. “Time and again, people have emailed in, written in, phoned in to say that made a massive difference, and they watched films they would never have come to normally, and found work they absolutely loved,” she said. Movie awards are generally dominated by five or six highly touted films, said Marc Samuelson, the chair of BAFTA’s film committee, in the same interview. “If we’re disrupting that a bit, it’s a good thing,” he added.Some 258 films were submitted for consideration for this year’s awards, and they were watched over 150,000 times on a viewing portal created specifically for voters, he said.This year’s winners will be announced on April 11 at a ceremony in London. Samuelson would not explain how the event will be held, but he said it would conform with Britain’s coronavirus rules. Indoor events are not allowed in England until May 17 at the earliest. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is scheduled next Monday to announce nominations for this year’s Oscars.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
- in Movies
Chloé Zhao, ‘Nomadland’ Director, Encounters a Backlash in China
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedBest and Worst MomentsWinners ListStream the WinnersRed Carpet ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyIn China, a Backlash Against the Chinese-Born Director of ‘Nomadland’Days after winning a Golden Globe for the film, Chloé Zhao was pilloried online for past remarks about China.Chloé Zhao, the director of “Nomadland,” at the drive-in premiere of the film last year in Pasadena, Calif., last year.Credit…Amy Sussman/Getty ImagesAmy Qin and March 6, 2021, 9:13 a.m. ETWhen Chloé Zhao won the Golden Globe for best director for her film “Nomadland” last Sunday, becoming the first Asian woman to receive that prize, Chinese state news outlets were jubilant. “The Pride of China!” read one headline, referring to Ms. Zhao, who was born in Beijing.But the mood quickly shifted. Chinese online sleuths dug up a 2013 interview with an American film magazine in which Ms. Zhao criticized her native country, calling it a place “where there are lies everywhere.” And they zeroed in on another, more recent interview with an Australian website in which Ms. Zhao, who received much of her education in the United States and now lives there, was quoted as saying: “The U.S. is now my country, ultimately.”The Australian site later added a note saying that it had misquoted Ms. Zhao, and that she had actually said “not my country.” But the damage was done.Chinese nationalists pounced online. What was her nationality, they wanted to know. Was she Chinese or American? Why should China celebrate her success if she’s American?Even a research center overseen by the government-affiliated Chinese Academy of Social Sciences weighed in. “Don’t be in such a hurry to praise Chloé Zhao,” read a social media post by the academy’s State Cultural Security and Ideology Building Center. “Look at her real attitude toward China.”On Friday, censors barged in. Searches in Chinese for the hashtags “#Nomadland” and “#NomadlandReleaseDate” were suddenly blocked on Weibo, a popular social media platform, and Chinese-language promotional material vanished as well. References to the film’s scheduled April 23 release in China were removed from prominent movie websites.It was not a complete blackout. Numerous stories about the movie were still online as of Saturday. And so far, there have been no reports that the film’s China release was in jeopardy. (China’s National Arthouse Alliance of Cinemas, which will oversee the theatrical release, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Searchlight Pictures, the Hollywood studio behind “Nomadland.”)But the online censorship was the latest reminder of the power of rising nationalist sentiment in China and the increasingly complex political minefield that companies must navigate there.Ms. Zhao, left, and the actress Frances McDormand, center, on the set of “Nomadland.”Credit…Courtesy Of Searchlight Pictures, via Associated PressFor years, the central government was the only major gatekeeper for films in China, determining which foreign movies got the official stamp of approval and, ultimately, access to the country’s booming box office. Now, more and more, China’s online patriots can also influence the fate of a film or a company.In many cases, winning over — or at least not offending — those patriots, sometimes derogatorily referred to as “little pinks,” has become another crucial consideration for companies seeking to enter the Chinese market.“There is much more space to punch figures like Chloé Zhao,” said Aynne Kokas, the author of “Hollywood Made in China.”The backlash against “Nomadland” was somewhat unexpected. Aside from Ms. Zhao, the film, which stars Frances McDormand in a sensitive portrait of the lives of itinerant Americans, has little if any connection to China. Though it is said to be a strong contender for the Academy Awards, it was not expected to bring in big Chinese audiences, given its limited theatrical release and its slow pacing.Awards Season More
- in Television
Golden Globes: The Projectionist’s Takeaways
Golden Globes: The Projectionist’s TakeawaysSacha Baron Cohen with his wife, Isla Fisher.Christopher Polk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWant a catch-up on last night’s Golden Globes? It was a weird one — and considering how weird a typical Globes ceremony is, that’s saying something.Watch the standout moments → More
- in Television
Golden Globes 2021: Where to Stream the Winners
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonGolden Globes: What HappenedBest and Worst MomentsWinners ListStream the WinnersRed Carpet ReviewAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGolden Globes 2021: Where to Stream the WinnersNearly all of the big winners from the evening are available to stream. Here’s a look at where to find them and what The Times first had to say about them.Sacha Baron Cohen in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” which won the award for best musical or comedy at the Golden Globes.Credit…Amazon StudiosMarch 1, 2021, 11:31 a.m. ETDuring a normal year, when many of the awards-contending movies are released late in the season, home viewers often have to wait for a month or two to catch the winners on various streaming services. But the one benefit to an awards show during a pandemic year is that all the winners are immediately available — or so we might have assumed.To the surprise of many Golden Globes prognosticators — and to the actress herself — Jodie Foster won best supporting actress for “The Mauritanian,” a 9/11-themed legal drama that’s currently in theaters, but will arrive on VOD on Tuesday, March 2nd. (Our critic, Jeannette Catsoulis, would advise you to proceed with caution.) Otherwise, the night’s big winners on the film side are scattered among the streaming giants, with “Nomadland” and “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” on Hulu, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” on Amazon Prime and “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “I Care a Lot” on Netflix.The awards were not distributed quite so democratically for the TV slate, where the fourth season of Netflix’s “The Crown” took best drama as well as prizes for three of the four acting categories. Netflix also has The Queen’s Gambit,” which won for best limited series or TV movie and for Anya Taylor-Joy’s performance as an American chess grandmaster of humble origins. And the service is streaming all six seasons of the best musical or comedy winner “Schitt’s Creek.”Here’s a guide to the major-category winners that are currently a click away, along with excerpts from their New York Times reviews or features.Movies‘Nomadland’Won for: Best picture, drama; best director“In a fine Emersonian spirit, the movie rebels against its own conventional impulses, gravitating toward an idea of experience that is more complicated, more open-ended, more contradictory than what most American movies are willing to permit.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Hulu.‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’Won for: Best musical or comedy; best actor, musical or comedy“Would I call this the best movie of 2020, from the standpoint of cinematic art? Look, I don’t know. It’s been a weird year. But I would insist that this sequel to a cringey, pranky, 14-year-old classic is undeniably the most 2020 movie of all time.” (Read the full Times article on the Best Movies of 2020, in which A.O. Scott put Sacha Baron Cohen’s satire at #1.)Where to watch: Stream it on Amazon Prime.‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’Won for: Best screenplay“‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ is a mixed bag. While [Aaron] Sorkin draws some of his dialogue from court transcripts, he also exercises the historical dramatist’s prerogative to embellish, streamline and invent. Some of the liberties he takes help to produce a leaner, clearer story, while others serve no useful purpose.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Netflix.‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’Won for: Best actor, drama“Of course it’s hard to watch Levee — to marvel at [Chadwick] Boseman’s lean and hungry dynamism — without feeling renewed shock and grief at Boseman’s death earlier this year. And though ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ has been around for a long while and will endure in the archive, the algorithm and the collective memory, there is something especially poignant about encountering it now.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Netflix.‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’Won for: Best actress, drama“Andra Day, who plays Holiday, is a canny and charismatic performer, and the film’s hectic narrative is punctuated with nightclub and concert-hall scenes that capture some of the singer’s magnetism. Rather than lip-sync the numbers, Day sings them in a voice that has some of Holiday’s signature breathy rasp and delicate lilt, and suggests her ability to move from whimsy to anguish and back in the space of a phrase.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Where to watch: Stream it on Hulu.‘I Care a Lot’Won for: Best actress, musical or comedy“An unexpectedly gripping thriller that seesaws between comedy and horror, “I Care a Lot” is cleverly written (by the director, J Blakeson) and wonderfully cast. Marla is an almost cartoonish sociopath, and [Rosamund] Pike leans into her villainy with unwavering bravado.” (Read the full Times review by Jeannette Catsoulis here.)Where to watch: Stream it on Netflix.‘Judas and the Black Messiah’Won for: Best supporting actor“‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ represents a disciplined, impassioned effort to bring clarity to a volatile moment, to dispense with the sentimentality and revisionism that too often cloud movies about the ’60s and about the politics of race.” (Read the full Times review by A.O. Scott.)Awards Season More
