A screenwriter from Glasgow has earned an Oscar nomination for her work on First World War epic 1917.

Krysty Wilson-Cairns co-wrote the script, which has been shortlisted for Best Original Screenplay, with the film’s director Sam Mendes. 

1917 has racked up a total of 10 nominations, which include Best Picture and nods for its directing, cinematography, music and set design. 

The film recently scooped two Golden Globe Awards for Best Director and Best Motion Picture – Drama.

It has also been nominated for Original Screenplay at the Writers Guild Awards and 1917 is up for nine Baftas, including Best Film.

Wilson-Cairns, who grew up in the Shawlands area of Glasgow and studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, said she never thought she would get to pen a film like 1917.

“I always dreamed of writing a war movie,” the 32-year-old writer previously told The Herald. “But I never thought as a young female writer I would be given the chance.”

1917, which follows two young soldiers on the Western Front tasked with delivering a message describing what appears to be a retreat by the Germans but is actually an ambush, has been praised for its humanity.

“This is an anti-war movie,” Wilson-Cairns said. “The very notion of war as a last resort – a war should be no resort. It’s nonsense that only involves the death of large numbers of usually poor men. It’s never justified and there’s no such thing as a winner. 

“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. The First World War was more than an earthquake – it was the apocalypse, it was cataclysm.”

The film is in good company with The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which also have 10 nominations each, while Todd Phillips’s dark exploration of comic book character Joker leads with 11.

But the Oscars’ overall shortlist came with a criticism over lack of diversity.
In the entire history of the Oscars there has been only one female winner of best director – and that is not going to change in 2020. No women have been nominated in the category this year.

Instead nominees for best director are Mendes for 1917, Martin Scorsese for The Irishman, Todd Phillips for Joker, Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Bong Joon-Ho for Parasite.

The most high-profile omission is Greta Gerwig, director of Little Women, which has been nominated in six other categories. Also overlooked are Marielle Heller for A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, Lorene Scafaria for Hustlers, Lulu Wang for The Farewell, and Olivia Wilde for Booksmart. The only woman to win the best director Oscar is Kathryn Bigelow, who triumphed in 2010 with The Hurt Locker, one of just five women who has ever been nominated in the category. 

In failing to nominate any women in the category of best director, the Oscars are following the pattern of this year’s Baftas and Golden Globes, both of which had best director lists that were 100 per cent male.

Four years on from the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the acting categories also contained a lack of diversity. In total, 19 of the 20 acting nominees across both the leading and supporting categories were white, with only Harriet star Cynthia Erivo bucking the trend.

Best actor nominees are Antonio Banderas for Pain And Glory, Leonardo DiCaprio for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Adam Driver for Marriage Story, Joaquin Phoenix in Joker and Jonathan Pryce in The Two Popes.

Rocketman’s Taron Egerton missed out on a nod for his work on Rocketman, as did The Irishman’s Robert De Niro and Le Mans ‘66’s Christian Bale. Saoirse Ronan and Cynthia Ervio have been nominated in the best actress category for their respective roles in Little Women and Harriet. 

Alongside them on the list are Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story, Charlize Theron for Bombshell and Renee Zellweger for Judy.

While in the supporting categories Sir Anthony is recognised for his work on The Two Popes alongside Tom Hanks for A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, Al Pacino and his The Irishman co-star Joe Pesci and Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

The actresses nominated alongside Pugh are Johansson for Jojo Rabbit, Kathy Bates for Richard Jewell, Laura Dern for Marriage Story and Margot Robbie for Bombshell.

The 92nd Academy Awards will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 9.