Natalie Portman Calls Out Oscars for Snubbing Female Directors in 2026 Nominations: ‘We Have a Lot of Work to Do Still’

Natalie Portman is calling out the Oscars for snubbing female directors in the 2026 nominations.

While stepping out at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah to promote her new film The Gallerist on Saturday, Jan. 24, the actress shared her frustrations about the lack of female representation in the Best Director category.

“So many of the best films I saw this year were made by women,” Portman, 44, said while speaking with Variety. “You just see the barriers at every level because so many were not recognized at awards time.”

“Between Sorry Baby and Left-Handed Girl and Hedda and The Testament of Ann Lee… Extraordinary films this year that I think a lot of people are enjoying and loving, but are not getting the accolades that they deserve,” she continued.

Chloé Zhao, who directed Hamnet, is the only woman up for Best Director this year. The category also includes Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme, Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value and Ryan Coogler for Sinners.

Among the 10 nominated films in the Best Picture category, Hamnet is the only one directed by a woman.

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Portman went on to speak to Variety about the challenges of getting a movie made today.

“Even when you pass the barriers of getting your financing, which is harder, getting into festivals, which is harder. Every step of the road is harder, and then you’re out and it’s great, and then it also doesn’t get the attention,” she said, noting, “We have a lot of work to do still.”

“But joyfully, with a lot of joy, working with each other,” she added with a laugh, “and it’s a very special process to be in community with women on set.”

For The Gallerist, Portman worked with a female director, Cathy Yan. The dark comedy thriller, which also stars Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sterling K. Brown and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, follows a desperate gallery owner (Portman) who schemes to sell a dead man as art at Art Basel in Miami.

Another project of Portman’s, the futuristic kids’ movie Arco, earned a 2026 Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature after debuting at the Cannes Film Festival last year. The actress voices the mother of a character named Iris, who befriends the titular Arco.

Portman recently told PEOPLE that the movie — about the friendship between Iris and Arco, who meet when a time-travel trip goes awry — sparked “interesting conversations” with her two kids, son Aleph, 14, and daughter Amalia, 8.

“It was incredible to watch it with them,” she said. Portman explained that the movie “raised so many interesting conversations from why the parents are holograms and not at home to, of course, the climate challenges that the kids face in it, to some of the solutions that the kids come up with, like ‘Is that really possible in life, living on platforms above the earth to let the earth rest?’ Things like that are amazing conversations I got to have with the kids because of the movie.”