'Watching Chloé Zhao navigate awards season has been a bittersweet experience.'

Watching Chloé Zhao navigate the 2026 awards season has been a bittersweet experience, a whirlwind of historic triumphs shadowed by the industry's lingering blind spots.

As her latest masterpiece, Hamnet, continues to sweep the circuit, watching her move through these spaces is a complex exercise in pride and reflection. For an Asian writer, seeing Zhao recognised at this level is more than just a win for a talented filmmaker.

It is a reclamation of space in an industry that has long kept our stories on the periphery. To see a Chinese-born woman command the conversation around a quintessentially Western historical tragedy like Hamnet is a powerful subversion of who gets to tell universal stories, reminding us that our lens is as valid and expansive as any other.

Watch: The Hamnet trailer. Article continues after video.

Zhao has officially secured her place in Academy Award history with her Best Director nomination for Hamnet. At 43, she is now only the second woman ever to be nominated more than once in this category, joining Jane Campion in a vanishingly small club.

The momentum began at the Golden Globes, where the film — an intimate, sombre reimagining of the life of Anne (Agnes) Shakespeare — won Best Motion Picture (Drama).

Critical acclaim has been near-universal, praising the film's tender touch and its ability to find the supernatural in the mundane. Yet, for all the accolades Hamnet receives, the experience of watching Zhao win is tempered by the reality of how fragile this progress feels.

Every time we see an Asian creator on that stage, it feels like a hard-won exception rather than a new rule. We have had these explosive milestones before — Parasite sweeping the Oscars in 2020 felt like the "one-inch barrier" of subtitles finally crumbling, followed by the quiet, soul-aching beauty of Minari being recognised in 2021.

Image: Focus Features

More recently, seeing shows like Beef and Shogun dominate the Emmys and Golden Globes felt like a definitive statement that our messy, expansive, and complicated humanity was finally being seen.

But despite these high-profile surges, the presence of Asian people in these rooms remains scarce. We are still often treated as the first, the only, or the surprise, forced to carry the weight of an entire community on a single red carpet.

This is why the most emotional moment of this entire awards season for me occurred during Zhao's Golden Globes acceptance speech. Rather than basking solely in her own glory, she used her platform to spotlight Ryan Coogler and his film Sinners.

It was a gesture that felt radical. Sinners was easily one of my favourite movies of the year — a bold, blues-steeped vampire epic that recently made history as the most-nominated movie in Oscar history with 16 nods.

Yet, despite its undeniable impact and record-breaking status, it has often felt like the industry is hesitant to give it the top-tier wins it has earned.

"I look around this room, there are so many of you that I have known for many, many years— my incredible fellow nominees. I'm looking at you, Ryan Coogler," she said.

"I see so many of you have become so strong and tender at the same time and shared so much of yourselves to the world," Zhao added.

Image: Getty

"So I salute your bravery and your dedication — let's keep seeing each other and let each other be seen."

That moment matters because it challenges the scarcity mindset that often pits creators of colour against one another for a single seat at the table.

Zhao's insistence on "seeing" Coogler — even as her own work was being crowned — highlights a vital sense of community. It is a reminder that while Sinners deserves every win it can get for its historic 16 nominations, the true victory lies in the bravery of the work and the solidarity of those doing it.

Seeing these creators uplift one another gives me hope that as the industry evolves, we won't just be guests at these ceremonies, but a permanent, undeniable part of the fabric.

Feature Image: Getty.