The Hollywood Foreign Press Association failed to nominate any female directors (again) for the 2020 Golden Globes. One of the biggest - if not the biggest - precursors to the annual Academy Awards, the Golden Globes are famous for being the first major awards show out of the gate every year. That will once again be the case in 2020, when Ricky Gervais serves as host (for the fifth and supposedly final time) for the ceremony's 77th iteration near the top of January. With less than four weeks to go until then, the nominees in film, TV, and limited series were announced this morning.
For the large part, there aren't any surprising contenders among the nominees in 2020. Much discussed movies like Martin Scorsese's The Irishman and Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story (both of which are Netflix Originals) racked up several nominations on the movie side, even as Netflix and HBO dominated the television side of things with major nods for shows or limited series like Succession, The Crown, and Chernobyl. However, there were also a lot of snubs that stuck out like a sore thumb - not least of all, when it comes to the nominees for directing in film.
Although Baumbach failed to secure a directing nomination for Marriage Story, Scorsese was recognized for his efforts on The Irishman alongside Bong Joon-ho for Parasite, Sam Mendes for 1917, Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Todd Phillips for Joker. As a result, there wasn't a single female director nominated by the HFPA at the 2020 ceremony. There've only been five women nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes total since they began in 1944 (Natalie Portman famously called out the category for being historically all-male nominees during the 2018 Golden Globes ceremony), but it's still an egregious oversight when - once again - there were plenty of deserving female candidates to choose from.
Like any given year, there've been several critically-acclaimed films directed by women in 2019. Lulu Wang, for example, was heavily praised for adapting her real-life experiences into the tonal balancing act that is The Farewell, and her work was strong enough to land the movie a nomination in the non-English language category at the 2020 Golden Globes, even though she, herself, was not recognized. Meanwhile, Olivia Wilde made a splash with her feature-length helming debut on the raunchy coming of age comedy Booksmart, and even directed the film's star, Beanie Feldstein, to an acting nod at the Golden Globes (as did Wang with Awkwafina on The Farewell), yet ended up being snubbed by the HFPA. Both Lorene Scafaria and Marielle Heller similarly directed actors to Golden Globe nominations with their respective true story based offerings Hustlers and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, but that wasn't enough to land them some recognition, either.
Of course, that list is far from all-encompassing. Greta Gerwig's Little Women is generating serious awards buzz ahead of its December release and secured a Golden Globe nod for Saoirse Ronan's performance, but Gerwig herself was ignored for her direction (much like she was this time two years ago, for Lady Bird). Elsewhere, Alma Har'el and Melina Matsoukas made well-received non-documentary feature debuts on Honey Boy and Queen & Slim in November, yet neither they nor their movies' actors made the cut in any of the categories at the 2020 Golden Globes. And while Kasi Lemmons' biopic Harriet earned a more lukewarm reception, her work behind the camera was good enough to snag star Cynthia Erivo an acting nod, but nothing for the filmmaker herself.
Obviously, this isn't to take anything away from the male directors who were nominated for Golden Globes (all of whom did fine work of their own), nor to suggest all of these women are equally deserving of a nod. Nevertheless, this is a bad look for the HFPA, especially given how many female directors did a terrific job bringing captivating and compelling stories to the big screen over these last twelve months... and yet, there wasn't a spot in the directing category for even one of them.
The 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards air live on Sunday, January 5, 2020 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.