Alfonso Cuarón has won the Oscar for Best Director thanks to his acclaimed work on his Netflix-backed Spanish-language drama “Roma.” Cuarón was considered the frontrunner for the Oscar after winning Best Director prizes at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards, and BAFTAs. The Mexican filmmaker won the Oscar over Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”), Adam McKay (“Vice”), Paweł Pawlikowski (“Cold War”), and Spike Lee (“BlacKkKlansman”).
Cuarón’s nomination for “Roma” was one of 10 categories the film received noms in at the Oscars this year. “Roma” tied Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” as the most nominated film at the 2019 Oscars. The film also received nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress for Yalitza Aparicio, Best Supporting Actress for Marina de Tavira, Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing. Cuarón himself received four of the nominations as he also wrote, produced, and served as cinematographer on “Roma.”
Cuarón’s victory is the second time he has won the Best Director Oscar. The filmmaker triumphed at the 86th Academy Awards in 2014 for his direction of “Gravity.” This win in 2019 makes it the fifth time a Mexican filmmaker has won the Best Director Oscar in six years: Cuarón’s two wins, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s back-to-back wins for “Birdman” and “The Revenant” in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and Guillermo del Toro’s victory for “The Shape of Water” in 2018. “Roma” winning Best Director also makes it Netflix’s first win in the category.
“I always wanted to make a film and be comfortable with it when I finished it,” Cuarón told IndieWire last year about the movie. “With ‘Roma,’ I was satisfied with it when we finished. I was very happy with it, and that’s because it’s the first film I was fully able to convey what I wanted to convey as a film. It’s a story in many different shapes and hints of emotions that have been present since the moment I wanted to be a director.”
“Roma” is now available to stream on Netflix.