As per usual there was deviation from the five names selected by the Academy's Directors Branch and the DGA.
Scorsese,
Nolan, and
Lanthimos made both nomination lists, but
Triet and
Glazer took the spots that
Alexander Payne and
Greta Gerwig filled on the DGA Award ballot.
Anatomy of a Fall is
Justine Triet's fourth feature, and while her previous efforts had garnered good attention this is her big breakthrough, winning the Palm d'Or last year in Cannes. She is only the eighth woman ever nominated for Best Director, and the first Frenchwoman, but she won't join Jane Campion, Chloé Zhao, and Kathryn Bigelow as winners. Not this time.
Jonathan Glazer first grabbed attention as a director of music videos and television commercials, his most lastingly famous being the simple yet indelible "Virtual Insanity" for Jamiroquai. He transitioned to features with
Sexy Beast, which nabbed Ben Kingsley a well-earned Oscar nomination then divided critics and audiences with
Birth starring Nicole Kidman and
Under the Skin starring Scarlett Johansson.
The Zone of Interest adapts Martin Amis' novel showing more of the Nazi brand of banality of evil. Glazer is a good filmmaker but feels like one whose Oscar fortunes rely completely on the type of genre he is working. Concentration Camps got him nominations, but he won't win, and if he gravitates to material like
Under the Skin it's unlikely he'll be back anytime soon.
Greek filmmaker
Yorgos Lanthimos seems to be exclusively attracted to challenging material, starting with
Dogtooth, which instantly made him an international star and competed for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It didn't win but it announced his presence on the scene. His English-language debut
The Lobster was even more surreal and got him an Original Screenplay nomination.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer was apparently too dark for the Academy, but
The Favourite was lavished with nine nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture! And now
Poor Things has managed eleven nominations, including Yorgos' second as Best Director. It is a gloriously bonkers, dark, satirical, and wonderful flick, but it would be pretty shocking to hear his name read from that envelope come Oscar night. Unlike Glazer it feels like Lanthimos can and will come back into the Oscar fold with just about any crazy idea he has.
Martin Scorsese moved from greatest filmmaker around to elder statesman to living legend a couple decades ago. The eighty-one-year-old is still at it, thank goodness, and
Killers of the Flower Moon brings him up to double-digits for Best Director nominations (
Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, GoodFellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, and
The Irishman). Only William Wyler collected more (twelve) and Marty now sits one ahead of longtime friend Steven Spielberg's nine. Of course, Wyler had three wins (as did Frank Capra), Spielberg has two, and nobody will probably ever catch John Ford's four Best Director wins. Will Marty stay stuck on his one win, for
The Departed of all things? I suspect he will this time, though if he has another two or three movies left in him - and I pray to the cinema gods that he does - he's gotta get that second directorial win somewhere!
Christopher Nolan's huge and vocal fanbase has considered him something of a perpetual Oscar snub. Counting his Best Picture nominations as a producer and his screenwriting nods he is now up to eight Academy Award nominations, though this is only his second as Best Director. He was previously nominated for
Dunkirk, the year del Toro won for
The Shape of Water.
Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, and some comic book super hero trilogy made him one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation, though knowing the type of fare Oscar usually honors it shouldn't be a total shock that it is the wartime historical epics of
Dunkirk and
Oppenheimer that have brought him the most love from the Academy. That
Oppenheimer also added box office juggernaut to the mix should make this Nolan's turn. Deservedly so.