Golden Globes noms: How women dominate the 2021 award show

Awards season always kicks off with the Golden Globes, and the 2021 nominations delivered a clear signal that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was finally paying attention to women behind the camera. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the ceremony that February, and the list of contenders offered a preview of the Oscars conversation to come while also drawing its usual share of scrutiny over how the votes were tallied.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association counted roughly ninety members from fifty-five countries at the time. Those journalists and photographers held sole responsibility for every film and television nomination, which gave the group outsized influence on early awards momentum. Critics had long accused the body of favoring star power over craft, a charge that surfaced again whenever nominees failed to reflect the breadth of the year’s work, particularly when it came to directors of color, women, and LGBTQ storytellers.

Best director

The 2021 slate marked the first time more than one woman appeared in the directing category. Emerald Fennell, Chloé Zhao, and Regina King joined David Fincher for Mank and Aaron Sorkin for The Trial of the Chicago 7. Barbara Streisand remained the sole woman to have won the prize up to that point, so the presence of three female nominees immediately shifted the historical ledger.

Chloé Zhao ultimately took the award for Nomadland, which also collected Best Picture that night. She later became the first woman of color to win the directing Oscar for the same film. The Globes nod itself made her the first woman of Asian descent nominated in the category, and the win established a new benchmark that Jane Campion would meet the following year with The Power of the Dog.

Emerald Fennell

Emerald Fennell arrived with Promising Young Woman, a dark comedy that used glossy surfaces and pop needle drops to expose the everyday mechanics of sexual violence. The film’s reception centered on how Fennell cast familiar faces against type and let the score underscore the gap between appearance and reality. At the time she was also playing Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown, another Globe-nominated series, and she earned a writing nomination alongside her directing nod.

Her subsequent feature Saltburn expanded the same interest in class friction and social performance, while an adaptation of Wuthering Heights slated for 2026 continues that thread. The 2021 nomination therefore sits as the first major awards recognition for a filmmaker whose later projects kept testing the same thematic territory.

Regina King

Regina King had already collected a Globe for acting in If Beale Street Could Talk. One Night in Miami marked her feature directing debut and positioned her as only the second Black woman nominated in the directing category after Ava DuVernay for Selma. The film imagines a single night in 1964 when Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gather in a Miami hotel, and King’s restrained approach lets the performances carry the political weight.

Before stepping behind the camera she had directed episodes of Scandal and Insecure and received acclaim for Watchmen and American Crime. After One Night in Miami she continued selective television work rather than rushing into another feature, a measured pace that reflected the limited pipeline for directors of color even after the nomination spotlight.

Chloé Zhao

Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland followed Frances McDormand through seasonal work and makeshift communities across the American West. Zhao cast actual nomads alongside professionals and shot largely on location, choices that shaped both the film’s texture and its critical reception. The project led the awards conversation from its earliest screenings and delivered Zhao the Globe for directing along with the Oscar that followed.

Her later credits include the Marvel installment Eternals and the upcoming Hamnet, which earned additional Oscar attention. The 2021 nomination therefore served as an entry point to a career that moved between studio scale and intimate literary adaptations while retaining the same interest in displacement and makeshift family.

HFPA Reforms and Organizational Changes

After the 2021 nominations and the surrounding criticism, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced concrete steps in May of that year. The group pledged to add at least twenty new Black members and hired a strategic diversity officer. By late 2022 the voting body had reached 52 percent female membership. In 2023 the organization rebranded as the Golden Globe Foundation and adopted a professional governance structure that replaced the earlier member-driven model.

These adjustments directly addressed the earlier pattern of all-male directing slates and narrow voter demographics. The reforms did not erase the association’s history, but they altered the composition of the electorate and the oversight mechanisms that shape future ballots.

Subsequent Women Directors at the Golden Globes

The 2021 nominations did not remain an isolated event. Jane Campion won the directing prize in 2022 for The Power of the Dog, becoming the third woman to claim the award after Streisand and Zhao. Subsequent years have continued to feature female nominees across studio and independent titles, though the totals have fluctuated rather than followed a straight upward line.

The presence of three women in a single year established a visible precedent that later voters and publicists referenced when advocating for additional candidates. The shift also coincided with broader industry conversations about training programs and financing pathways that affect who reaches the point of eligibility.

Impact on the Directors' Careers

Each of the three nominees moved forward with distinct trajectories. Zhao balanced a Marvel production with smaller literary projects and collected further Oscar nominations. Fennell used the platform to greenlight Saltburn and secured financing for the Wuthering Heights adaptation. King maintained a selective schedule that included additional television episodes while weighing feature opportunities that aligned with her interests.

The nominations themselves did not guarantee immediate follow-up financing, yet they expanded the range of conversations agents and studios initiated with each director. That incremental access matters in an industry where the leap from one feature to the next often hinges on demonstrated awards viability.

Diversity in Hollywood Awards Post-2021

The HFPA’s membership expansion occurred alongside similar efforts at other awards organizations. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had already increased its female and minority membership in prior years, and the Directors Guild of America reported modest gains in the number of women and directors of color hired on studio features. These parallel changes created a wider set of gatekeepers who could champion projects before they reached awards season.

Measurable outcomes remain uneven across categories and budgets, but the 2021 Globes slate and the reforms that followed contributed to an environment where voters encountered a broader pool of candidates. The three nominations that year functioned as both a milestone and a prompt for continued adjustment rather than a final destination.