Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a wistful portrait of itinerant lives on open roads across the American West, won best picture Sunday at the 93rd Academy Awards.
The “Nomadland” victory capped the extraordinary rise of Zhao, a lyrical filmmaker whose winning film is just her third, and which—with a budget less than $5 million and featuring a cast populated by non-professional actors—ranks as one of the most modest-sized movies to win Hollywood’s top honor. (Zhao’s next film, Marvel’s “Eternals,” has a budget approximately 40 times that of “Nomadland.”)
