The Golden GlobesLists that celebrate the film and TV industry’s biggest and brightest. Who will win in 2021, who will lose, and who deserves an honorary award?
Here are the visionary directors being considered for best director at the 2022 Golden Globes. Tasked with controlling both the artistic and visual components of a film, the directors in this year's group of potential nominees stood out from the rest.
From Kenneth Branagh's directorial triumph with the heartfelt storytelling of Belfast, to the directorial debut in the form of Maggie Gyllenhaal's adaptations of The Lost Daughter, women representation in the film industry is strong and well. Other strong contenders for the award include Jane Campion with The Power of the Dog and Denis Villeneuve for Dune.
Make your 2022 Golden Globes predictions by voting up the nominees you think will win, and don't miss the 79th Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, January 9, 2022.
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (born 10 December 1960) is a Northern Irish actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and in 2015 succeeded Richard Attenborough as its president. He has both directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), and As You Like It (2006).
Branagh has starred in numerous other films and television series including Fortunes of War (1987), Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), as the voice of Miguel in The Road to El Dorado (2000), as SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in Conspiracy (2001), Shackleton (2002), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Warm Springs (2005), as Major General Henning von Tresckow in Valkyrie (2008), The Boat That Rocked (2009), Wallander (2008–2016), My Week with Marilyn (2011) as Sir Laurence Olivier (Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor), and as Royal Navy Commander Bolton in the action-thriller Dunkirk (2017). He has directed such films as Dead Again (1991), in which he also starred, Swan Song (1992) (Academy Award nominated for Best Live Action Short Film), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) in which he also starred, The Magic Flute (2006), Sleuth (2007), the Marvel superhero film Thor (2011), the action thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) in which he also co-stars, the live-action adaptation of Disney's Cinderella (2015), and the mystery drama adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (2017), in which he also starred as Hercule Poirot.
He narrated the series Cold War (1998), the BBC documentary miniseries Walking with Dinosaurs (1999) (as well as The Ballad of Big Al), Walking with Beasts (2001) and Walking with Monsters (2005). Branagh has been nominated for five Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and has won three BAFTAs, and two Emmy Awards. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours and was knighted on 9 November 2012. He was made a Freeman of his native city of Belfast in January 2018.
Jane Campion won Best Director Motion Picture, her first Golden Globe out of 6 nominations.
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion (born 30 April 1954) is a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. Campion is the second of five women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and is the first—and thus far, only—female filmmaker in history to receive the Palme d'Or, which she received for directing the acclaimed film The Piano (1993), for which she also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the founding pioneers of the New Hollywood era and one of the most popular directors and producers in film history. Spielberg started in Hollywood directing television and several minor theatrical releases. He became a household name as the director of Jaws (1975), which was critically and commercially successful and is considered the first summer blockbuster. His subsequent releases focused typically on science fiction/adventure films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993), which became archetypes of modern Hollywood escapist filmmaking.Spielberg transitioned into addressing serious issues in his later work with The Color Purple (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), Schindler's List (1993), Amistad (1997), and Saving Private Ryan (1998). He has largely adhered to this practice during the 21st century, with Munich (2005), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), and The Post (2017).
He co-founded Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks Studios, where he has also served as a producer or executive producer for several successful film trilogies, tetralogies and more including the Gremlins, Back to the Future, Men in Black, and the Transformers series. He later transitioned into producing several games within the video game industry.
Spielberg is one of the American film industry's most critically successful filmmakers, with praise for his directing talent and versatility, and he has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice. Some of his movies are also among the highest-grossing movies of all-time, while his total work makes him the highest-grossing film director in history. His net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion.
Margalit Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal (; born November 16, 1977) is an American actress and producer. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Achs, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
She began her career as a teenager with small roles in several of her father's films, and appeared with her brother in the cult favorite Donnie Darko (2001). She received critical acclaim for her starring roles in the independent films Secretary (2002) and Sherrybaby (2006), earning Golden Globe nominations in the Comedy and Drama categories, respectively. In 2008, she received widespread recognition for playing Rachel Dawes in Christopher Nolan's superhero film The Dark Knight. Her other film credits include Adaptation., Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (both 2002), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), Happy Endings (2005), Paris, je t'aime, World Trade Center, Monster House, Stranger Than Fiction (all 2006), and Away We Go (2009). For her performance in Crazy Heart (2009), she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She subsequently starred in the films Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010), Won't Back Down (2012), Hysteria (2011), White House Down (2013), and Frank (2014).
In 2014, Gyllenhaal made her Broadway debut in a revival of The Real Thing, and starred in the BBC television miniseries The Honourable Woman. For her performance in the latter, she received a Golden Globe and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. She currently stars as Candy on the HBO series The Deuce (2017–present), which she produces. Her other producing credits include the 2018 film The Kindergarten Teacher.
Denis Villeneuve (French: [dəni vilnœv]; born October 3, 1967) is a French Canadian film director, writer, and producer. He is a four-time recipient of the Canadian Screen Award (formerly Genie Award) for Best Direction, for Maelström in 2001, Polytechnique in 2009, Incendies in 2011 and Enemy in 2014. The first three of these films also won the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Award for Best Motion Picture, while the latter was awarded the prize for best Canadian film of the year by the Toronto Film Critics Association.
Internationally, he is known for directing several critically acclaimed films, such as the thriller films Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015), as well as the science fiction films Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). For his work on Arrival, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
