The Oscar for Best Director has been awarded to The Daniels for Everything Everywhere All At Once, as just announced at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The award winner was presented with the famous gold statuette at the 95th Academy Awards.
Last year, Jane Campion became only the third woman in history to win a Best Director Oscar. That also marked the first time in history that two women had won the Best Director Oscar in consecutive years. The year prior, Chloé Zhao picked up the award for Nomadland. Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win a directing Oscar, for 2009’s The Hurt Locker.
Daniels made their feature debut with the absurdist Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano film Swiss Army Man, about a man who uses what can best be described as a flatulent corpse as a means to escape from a desert island when he becomes stranded. When back on dry land, he drags the talking corpse on a voyage of bizarre discovery through the wilderness. Their films are unconventional by nature, and provide thought-provoking ideas like purpose, life and death — through a highly absurdist and stylised lens.
The Nominees
Steven Spielberg had grabbed his 9th Oscar nomination for directing - tying Martin Scorsese for second-most Best Director nominations, behind William Wyler (12) - for his semi-autobiographical picture, The Fabelmans. Martin McDonagh had earned his first directing nomination for his film, The Banshees of Inisherin, while Everything Everywhere All at Once earned a Best Director nomination for its duo, Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan. Todd Field grabbed a nomination as well, for his work on TÁR while Ruben Östlund earned recognition for his work on Triangle of Sadness.
Everything Everywhere All at Once came into the evening as the favourite and front-runner. With 11 nominations, the movie shows up in more categories than any other nominee this year, while All Quiet on the Western Front - the German-language film from Netflix - and The Banshees of Inisherin followed with 9 nominations each.
The return of audiences to movie theatres following the pandemic was also acknowledged, with two films - Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick - both being nominated for Best Picture, having earned over $1 billion each at the worldwide box office, marking the first time two films to pass that milestone had earned nominations.