Daniel Kwan and Daniel Schienert have just won the Oscar for Best Director at this year's 95th Academy Awards.
The pair - both aged 35 - took home the highly coveted prize for their work on Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Known collectively as the Daniels, Kwan and Schienert have worked with short films, features, and music videos (they even directed Lil Jon's 'Turn Down For What' in 2013).
Now, they can add Oscar-winning directors to their repertoire!
They've spoken multiple times about their collaborative efforts in making Everything Everywhere All At Once, telling Deadline in December, 2022, that they almost have a "communal brain" after working together for so long.
"People talk about marriages, and how you start out with two individuals with very separate minds and the longer they live together they can actually start to … Scientists have done studies where they actually see this communal brain trust thing happening within the marriage, where the people can complete each other's sentences, where they understand the other people's needs before their own," Kwan said.
"So it becomes this very organic thing. And I think because we've been working together for so long, our ideas are very uniquely birthed from the fact that our brains have become a single entity, creatively, which is interesting and very scary at the same time," he added.
This year's Best Director nominations caused a ruckus among netizens who were unhappy at the lack of female directors on the list. In fact, in the 95 years of the Academy Awards, there have been only eight instances in which female directors were nominated - the first time being in 1997, 48 years after the Oscars were first awarded, Collider detailed. So far, a Black woman is yet to be nominated in the category.
Despite the rumblings of dissatisfaction, many people would still agree that the nominated directors were more than deserving of the prestigious accolade.
Martin McDonaugh, 52, directed his first flick In Bruges in 2008, a movie centered on two hitmen stuck in Belgium after their job goes awry. It was the first time McDonaugh had worked with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson - who also coincidentally both starred in Banshees of Inisherin.
In 2017 McDonaugh directed Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - a gothic revenge movie that won Oscars for both Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell. His latest flick is less thrilling and more, well, about a sad friendship breakup between two men - something the British-Irish director told The Guardian he was aiming for.
McDonaugh told the outlet he wanted to make the platonic breakup feel as depressing as the end of an intimate relationship, "with all of the sadness of the breakup of a love relationship… because I think we've all been both parties in that equation. And there’s something horrible about both sides. Like knowing you have to break up with someone is a horrible, horrible thing as well. I'm not sure which is the best place to be in."
Steven Spielberg - the most decorated director out of the bunch - wowed viewers with The Fabelmans, a movie that is loosely based on his life and upbringing. Having been responsible for iconic flicks like Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan - Forbes has estimated that his total net worth was $4 billion in 2022.
The 76-year-old revealed that his mother had been pestering him for years, asking when he would be telling their story to the world. "I wouldn't have done anything to hurt or disappoint my parents," he said of his latest movie, via CBS. "To me it was more of a gift to them than any kind of a criticism about how my life and my sisters' lives wasn't as hunky-dory as people assume."
He also spoke about his experience of seeing his first movie art the age of six, stating: "I didn't know what a movie was. And my dad and my mom took me to the movie in a theater. It was a movie about a circus. After a while I got very involved in the story. There's a train crash in the middle of the movie. And all I remember is, it was the scariest thing I'd ever experienced in my entire life."
Todd Field's most recent Oscars nod marks the 14th time his films have received any sort of nomination. Including his most recent nomination for Best Director, the 59-year-old has also previously been in the running to win two Oscars for Best Picture, two for Best Adapted Screenplay, and one for Best Original Screenplay.
His third movie, Tár, has received wide praise from fellow filmmakers - even Martin Scorsese said that the drama ended cinema's "dark days", stating (via Variety): "For so long now, so many of us see films that pretty much let us know where they're going... I mean, they take us by the hand and, even if it's disturbing at times, sort of comfort us along the way that it will be all okay by the end."
He continued: "Now this is insidious, as one can get lulled into this and ultimately get used to it, leading those of us who've experienced cinema in the past – as much more than that – to become despairing of the future of the art form, especially for younger generations. But that's on dark days. The clouds lifted when I experienced Todd's film, Tár."
Swedish filmmaker Östlund has made an appearance in the nominations list for his first English-language feature film, and is best known for his exploration of the black comedy and satire genres. Viewers flocked to see Triangle of Sadness - which stars Woody Harrelson and focuses on the modern man and the ultra rich - and critics have raved about it since its 2022 release.
During an early screening of the movie in Paris, one wealthy guest reportedly stood up in the theater in the post-show Q&A and shouted that the whole flick had been "too simple." Östlund, 48, recounted this scenario to The Independent, subsequently telling the outlet: "No, it’s not very complicated. It's not OK to exploit another human being and pay them a s*** salary. And it's not OK to make a huge profit, using other people. It is that simple."
He has, however, recognized that the content of his film could be divisive. "There is a conventional way of looking at class: the poor people are nice and rich people are mean," he admitted, adding that he was fully aware of how flipping this stereotype might be perceived. "If I say 'No, they are human beings', and they are going to maybe be mean or good… I don't know, then I can be criticized for being cold-hearted."
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