Emerald Fennell

Hollywood is at a standstill. Actors and screenwriters are months into a dual strike. Film sets are dark. But the movies are still coming or, at least, most of them. Even if that means some potentially solitary red-carpet walks.

"I'm hoping I'm not promoting the movie by myself," says Nia DaCosta, director of the upcoming Marvel movie "The Marvels" [Nov. 10].

Chloe Zhao's "Nomadland" won this year's top Hollywood directing award on April 10 - the final major guild ceremony before the Oscars, and an important late bellwether in Tinseltown's pandemic-delayed and mainly virtual award season.

After a pandemic year that shuttered movie theaters and upended the movie business, Academy Awards nominations on March 15 went to two female filmmakers for the first time, to a historically diverse slate of actors and to David Fincher's lead-nominee "Mank," a traditional kind of Oscar contender, an old Hollywood homage, in very untraditional year.

A year after omitting women entirely, Hollywood's directors on March 9 nominated two female filmmakers for their top prize for the first time in the awards' seven-decade history.

"Nomadland" director Chloe Zhao and "Promising Young Woman" helmer Emerald Fennell become the ninth and tenth women nominated for the Directors Guild of America's outstanding feature film category.