---
name: "Chloé Zhao"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/chloe-zhao"
fi1m_id: "chloe-zhao"
imdb_id: "nm2125482"
tmdb_id: 1395183
wikidata_id: "Q21078321"
roles: ["Director","Writer","Producer"]
born: "31 March 1982"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 72
average_as: "director"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-09-20T07:49:27.304445+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Chloé Zhao

## Identity

Chloé Zhao

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/chloe-zhao
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** chloe-zhao
- **IMDb ID:** nm2125482
- **TMDB ID:** 1395183
- **Wikidata ID:** Q21078321
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlo%C3%A9_Zhao, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21078321, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2125482/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1395183

Director and writer. Born 31 March 1982 in Beijing, China.

## Details

- **Work:** Director, Writer, Producer
- **Born:** 31 March 1982, Beijing, China
- **Active:** 2021–present
- **Also known as:** Zhào Ting, Хлої Чжао
- **Academy Awards:** 2 Oscars (2 won · 6 nominated)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 72, as director, over 3 titles
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 72 to 75 across 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 1 under 60
- **Genres:** Drama 2, Action 1, Adventure 1, Romance 1, Science Fiction 1
- **Screen time:** 6 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $549m across 3 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlo%C3%A9_Zhao, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21078321, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2125482/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1395183

## Streaming the US now

- **Netflix:** [*Nomadland*](https://film.one/film/nomadland.md) (83), [*Hamnet*](https://film.one/film/hamnet.md) (76)
- **Disney+:** [*Eternals*](https://film.one/film/eternals.md) (57)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Chloé Zhao

> Chloé Zhao puts actors in real places under a low sun and lets the face do the work. It made her name on three small films. Since then: one handsome, tiring Marvel film, and one good grief film that tells you when to cry.

The sun is going down. Someone stands in long grass, or on a beach, or at the edge of a forest, and the camera stays on them long enough that we stop waiting for anything to happen. That is a Chloé Zhao shot. It is in *Eternals* (2021), where immortals in dark uniforms with gold lines stand in a desert that looks like a desert and not a green screen, and it is in *Hamnet* (2025), where Jessie Buckley's Agnes goes barefoot in the woods and listens to something nobody else in the house can hear. Zhao is a good director with one real gift and one bad habit, and the two films we have reviewed show both.

She made her name on three small films shot in real places, often with people who were not professional actors: *Songs My Brothers Taught Me* (2015), on the Pine Ridge reservation, *The Rider* (2018), about a rodeo rider recovering from injury, and *Nomadland* (2020), with Frances McDormand among modern nomads. Joshua James Richards has shot three of her films. Then Marvel. *Eternals* handed her ten immortals, a god the size of a planet and 156 minutes, and she and Ben Davis shot as much of it as they could outdoors near dusk, so that little else the studio has made looks like it. It also stops every ten minutes to explain itself, and its monsters look like effects rather than animals. She took four years off and came back with *Hamnet*, written with Maggie O'Farrell from O'Farrell's novel.

The gift is patience with a face. The best scenes in *Eternals* are Ma Dong-seok's Gilgamesh in an apron and Angelina Jolie's Thena at a table, eating, while the rest of the film runs down corridors explaining who sent whom. In *Hamnet*, Buckley falls apart without once reaching for the audience, and Zhao keeps Paul Mescal's Will at the edge of the frame, which costs the film a Shakespeare and stops it becoming a film about one.

The habit is not trusting the face once she has it. The middle hour of *Hamnet* holds on weeping well past the point where the weeping has told us everything, and Richter's strings come in under nearly all of it. We cried in the bedroom scenes, and halfway through crying we noticed that the music had told us to, and we resented it. Zhao says "Directing is not intellectual." We believe her. But a string section is not instinct either; it is instruction, and she cut the film herself with Affonso Gonçalves, so the long holds are hers.

The last act of *Hamnet*, in London, earns most of what the rest asks for, and we recommend it on that and on Buckley. *Eternals* is for people who like Marvel and would like it quieter. For the next one we would settle for fewer strings and one more table.

## Biography

Chloé Zhao (also credited as Zhao Ting) is a Chinese-born filmmaker. She was born on 31 March 1982 in Beijing, China.

Her feature directorial debut was *Songs My Brothers Taught Me* (2015). Subsequent films include *The Rider* (2018), *Nomadland* (2020) and the Marvel film *Eternals* (2021). She directed, co-wrote the screenplay and edited *Hamnet* (2025).

*Sources: nytimes.com, latimes.com, hollywoodreporter.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *Hamnet* (2025), Fi1m 76, Editor, Director, Executive Producer, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/hamnet.md)
- *Eternals* (2021), Fi1m 57, Screenplay, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/eternals.md)
- *Nomadland* (2021), Fi1m 83, Editor, Director, Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/nomadland.md)

## Complete filmography (12)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Mother Mary* (2026), Thanks — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/mother-mary.md)
- *Hamnet* (2025), Director, Executive Producer, Screenplay, Editor — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/hamnet.md)
- *Mickey 17* (2025), Thanks — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/mickey-17.md)
- *The Graduates* (2024), Executive Producer
- *Eternals* (2021), Director, Screenplay — Fi1m 57, [page](https://film.one/film/eternals.md)
- *Nomadland* (2021), Director, Producer, Editor, Writer — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/film/nomadland.md)
- *The Rider* (2018), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Songs My Brothers Taught Me* (2015), Director, Writer, Producer, Editor
- *Benachin* (2011), Director
- *Daughters* (2010), Producer, Director, Writer
- *The Atlas Mountains* (2009), Director, Writer, Editor, Producer
- *Fall* (2008), Assistant Director

## Gallery

- ![Chloé Zhao](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-56f9678ae578.jpg) Chloé Zhao — Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Chlo%C3%A9_Zhao_at_the_2026_Berlin_International_Film_Festival-68507.jpg/1280px-Chlo%C3%A9_Zhao_at_the_2026_Berlin_International_Film_Festival-68507.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Casey Affleck and Chloe Zhao in the background during at Q&A at Telluride Film Festival 2023](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-9e4ac1b11dc1.jpg) Casey Affleck and Chloe Zhao in the background during at Q&A at Telluride Film Festival 2023 — Jennifer 8. Lee, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Casey_Affleck_and_Chloe_Zhao_at_Telluride_Film_Festival_2023.jpg/1280px-Casey_Affleck_and_Chloe_Zhao_at_Telluride_Film_Festival_2023.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Casey Affleck and Chloe Zhao in the background during at Q&A at Telluride Film Festival 2023](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-59582496760e.jpg) Casey Affleck and Chloe Zhao in the background during at Q&A at Telluride Film Festival 2023 — Jennifer 8. Lee, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Casey_Affleck_and_Chloe_Zhao_at_Telluride_Film_Festival_2023_%28cropped%29.jpg/960px-Casey_Affleck_and_Chloe_Zhao_at_Telluride_Film_Festival_2023_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Chloe Zhao in 2025](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-8c1731f61daa.jpg) Chloe Zhao in 2025 — Raph_PH, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Chloe_Zhao.jpg/1280px-Chloe_Zhao.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Chloé Zhao](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-fe987c988ac8.jpg) Chloé Zhao — Image via TMDB
- ![Chloé Zhao](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-3c308413c463.jpg) Chloé Zhao — Image via TMDB
- ![Chloé Zhao](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-ffe9f633d8d3.jpg) Chloé Zhao — Image via TMDB
- ![Chloe Zhao and Richard Madden speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for "The Eternals", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Calif](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-fb06c0f521c0.jpg) Chloe Zhao and Richard Madden speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for "The Eternals", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Calif — Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Chloe_Zhao_%26_Richard_Madden_%2848462837712%29.jpg/1280px-Chloe_Zhao_%26_Richard_Madden_%2848462837712%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Chloe Zhao speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for "The Eternals", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Please attri](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-e574f9666f35.jpg) Chloe Zhao speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International, for "The Eternals", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Please attri — Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Chloe_Zhao_%2848462722666%29.jpg/1280px-Chloe_Zhao_%2848462722666%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Chloé Zhao](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-12ace8f507ac.jpg) Chloé Zhao — Image via TMDB
- ![Chloé Zhao](https://film.one/media/person/7419/gallery-ab7ceea81019.jpg) Chloé Zhao — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 2 won, 6 nominated

- 2027: Best Director (nominated), for *Hamnet*
- 2027: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated), for *Hamnet*
- 2026: Best Director (nominated), for *Hamnet*
- 2026: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated), for *Hamnet*
- 2021: Best Director (won), for *Nomadland*
- 2021: Best Picture (won), for *Nomadland*
- 2021: Best Film Editing (nominated), for *Nomadland*
- 2021: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated), for *Nomadland*

### BAFTA Film Awards — 1 won

- 2021: Best Direction (won), for *Nomadland*

### Golden Globes — 1 won

- 2021: Best Director (won), for *Nomadland*

### Venice Film Festival — 1 won

- 2020: Golden Lion (won), for *Nomadland*

### Other awards — 4 won

- BBC 100 Women 2024: BBC 100 Women (won)
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2023: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (won)
- Time 100 2021: Time 100 (won)
- Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Director 2020: Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Director (won), for *Nomadland*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/chloe-zhao