For the first time in the Academy Awards’ history, three movies directed by women nabbed Best Picture nominations. Past Lives by Celine Song, Barbie by Greta Gerwig, and Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet were three of the ten films nominated in the Best Picture category at the 2024 Academy Awards.
The previous record for Best Picture nominations from female filmmakers in the same year was two. It happened four times: Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Lone Scherfig’s An Education in 2009, Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right and Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone in 2010, Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland in 2020, and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog and Siân Heder’s CODA in 2021. The Hurt Locker, Nomadland, and CODA went on to win Best Picture.
How Many Academy Award Nominations For Past Lives, Barbie, and Anatomy of a Fall?
Song’s Past Lives is an intimate romantic drama from A24 about two childhood sweethearts — Nora Moon (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) — who reconnect as adults and revisit their relationship over a few days in New York City. Past Lives received two Oscar nominations: Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay for Song.
Gerwig’s Barbie was a breakout hit, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2023. Margot Robbie starred as the titular Barbie, who travels to the real world after an existential crisis disrupts his life in Barbieland. Barbie earned eight Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling, Best Supporting Actress for America Ferrera, Best Adapted Screenplay for Noah Baumbach and Gerwig, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, and two songs in Best Orginal Song. Gerwig was notably left out of the directing category, and Robbie did not crack the Best Actress field.
Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall is a French courtroom drama about a woman (Sandra Hüller) accused of murdering her husband and the ensuing fight to prove her innocence. Anatomy of a Fall received five Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director for Triet, Best Actress for Hüller, Best Orginal Screenplay for Arthur Harari and Justine Triet, and Best Film Editing. Triet becomes the eighth woman to be nominated for Best Director.
Oppenheimer led the 2024 field with 13 Oscar nominations, followed by Poor Things with 11 and Killers of the Flower Moon with 10.
