Oscars Nomadland: Ex-Brighton student Chloe Zhao wins

The Chinese filmmaker, who attended Brighton College, won best director – becoming the first woman of colour to do so – and Nomadland won best picture.

Chloe, who was born in China before moving from Beijing to Brighton at the age of 14.

The film, which follows itinerant communities in the post-recession US, also picked up best actress for its star Frances McDormand.

There was no surprise when Nomadland was called for best picture as the road movie had swept all before it in the months before Hollywood’s biggest night.

Chloe Zhao posing backstage with the Oscar for Directing, for the film Nomadland, at the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony held at Union Station in Los Angeles, California

The film, Zhao’s third, took the top prize at ceremonies including the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards, Gotham Independent Film Awards, Baftas, British Independent Film Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, Producers Guild Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.

Last year it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the people’s choice award at the Toronto Film Festival.

Its repeated successes meant it was the odds-on favourite heading into Oscars weekend.

Similarly, Zhao was widely seen as a shoo-in for best director.

Like her film, she had almost completely dominated at preceding ceremonies.

She won the Golden Globe and the Bafta for best director, alongside wins at the Critics’ Choice Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.

Zhao, 39, was only the second woman to win the best director Oscar, following Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 for The Hurt Locker.

Made for a low budget, Nomadland was adapted from Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction bestselling book Nomadland: Surviving America In The Twenty-First Century, about the rootless community in the US, and many of the nomads who appear in the book also feature in the film.

Peter Spears, Frances McDormand, Chloe Zhao, Mollye Asher, and Dan Janvey, holding their Oscar statues after winning best picture for the film Nomadland

McDormand, 63, plays Fern, a widow who loses her job and embarks on a journey across the country, adamant she is “not homeless, just houseless”.

She makes ends meet working in an Amazon warehouse, as well as other zero-hour contract jobs, and learns basic survival and self-sufficiency skills for the road from other nomads.

During her best actress acceptance speech, McDormand, now a three-time winner of the accolade, urged viewers to see the movie in a cinema.

It features stunning shots of the American West from Cornish cinematographer Joshua James Richards.

McDormand said: “Please watch our movie on the largest screen possible and one day very, very soon, take everyone you know into a theatre, shoulder to shoulder in that dark space, and watch every film that’s represented here tonight.”

Milestones reached and records broken at this year’s Oscars

The 2021 Oscars delivered a string of history-making moments, following a slate of nominations that smashed records for diversity and representation.

Here are the milestones reached in this year’s awards:

– Chloe Zhao is only the second woman in the history of the Oscars to be named best director, which she won for her film Nomadland

Her triumph comes 11 years after Kathryn Bigelow became the first ever woman to win best director, for the film The Hurt Locker.

Chloe Zhao is also the first Chinese director to win the award.

– Yuh-Jung Youn is the first person from South Korea to win best supporting actress, for the film Minari

She is also the second Asian actress to win the award.

The first was Miyoshi Umeki, who won in 1958 for the film Sayonara.

– Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson are the first black women to win the Oscar for best make-up and hairstyling

Along with Sergio Lopez-Rivera, they collected the award for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

– Daniel Kaluuya is the first British non-white winner of best supporting actor

He is only the sixth non-white actor to win the award.

Denzel Washington was the first, for the film Glory in 1990.

– Emerald Fennell is the first British woman to win best original screenplay since the category was established in its current form at the 1958 Oscars

She picked up the award for Promising Young Woman, for which she also bagged a nomination for best director.

Before 1958, the Oscars had separate categories for original screenplay and original story and, during this era, British writer Muriel Box became the first ever woman to win original screenplay, for The Seventh Veil in 1947.

– Sir Anthony Hopkins, 83, is now the oldest person to win an acting Oscar, after being named best actor for his performance in The Father

It is Sir Anthony’s second Oscar, coming 29 years after he won best actor in 1992 for The Silence Of The Lambs.

This is the longest gap between wins by any actor in this category in the history of the Academy Awards.