‘Best Director’ Oscar 2023 winner: Daniels take home the award
Filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert have claimed the Oscar for ‘Best Director’ at the 95th Academy Awards, beating out the likes of Steven Spielberg, Todd Field and Martin McDonagh.
Helming Everything, Everywhere all at Once, starring Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, the directorial duo, known collectively as Dnaiels, well-wrangled a complex cinematic movie. The film itself is a comedic, philosophical flick that tells the story of the owner of a launderette who is dragged into a multi-dimensional tale where she must overcome the nihilistic beliefs of her daughter.
Speaking about the movie in our full-length review, we stated: “Indeed, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a visuals and special effects marvel, transporting the viewer to bizarre worlds with the mere touch of a button, though once you’ve been thrilled by the film’s surface glitz, it doesn’t have a whole lot else to offer. Underpinning the whole narrative is the thematic throughline of responsibility and regret, with Evelyn looking back critically on her time as a mother and wife”.
“Such moments are touching and wonderfully executed by the two eccentric filmmakers, but the duo lack the emotional conviction to truly pull such scenes off, quickly reverting back to comedy and lavish spectacle at the wrong time, leaving the dramatic heart of the story to languish”.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert join the long list of esteemed recent Oscar winners, including Jane Campion, Chloé Zhao, Bong Joon-ho and Alfonso Cuarón. These contemporary greats join a host of iconic filmmaking masters, including Oliver Stone, Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood, who have each claimed an Oscar statuette in the past.
How Daniels became ‘Best Director’ Oscar winners
Filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert created a cinematic enigma with the release of Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2022. Celebrated by audiences and critics alike, whilst the film’s bombastic multiverse visuals gripped the retinas, its nihilistic themes grabbed the attention of a contemporary audience who have long troubled themselves with the meaning of life in an ever-more complex world.
The filmography of the directors began back in the 2010s when Daniels created music for the likes of Tenacious D and Foster the People. It wouldn’t be until 2016 till they would actually make their first feature film, Swiss Army Man, a bizarre drama that featured the Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse alongside Paul Dano as a hopeless man searching for an escape off a desert island.
As well as being interested with society’s modern obsession with the complexity of the internet, the filmmakers were also keen to make a comment on the nature of such modern multiverse movies with Everything, Everywhere all at Once. As Daniel Kwan told The Ringer, the duo were “frustrated with multiverse narratives”. Kwan explained: “If every single choice branches off into another universe, there should be an infinite number of universes, which means narrative doesn’t matter; choices don’t matter. Why should you care at all?”.
The win for the duo marks one of the most significant moments at the 95th Academy Awards, which have been made memorable after a number of surprises, snubs and more. Take a look at the trailer for Everything, Everywhere all at Once below.
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