Little Women

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Gerwig's adaptation is nearly universally praised for restructuring Alcott's novel into an elliptical, temporally fractured narrative that feels both period-authentic and startlingly fresh. Critics singled out the ensemble — particularly Ronan and Pugh — as exceptional, with debate centering less on quality than on how much the nonlinear structure serves or complicates the story. The loudest controversy surrounding the film wasn't the film itself but Gerwig's conspicuous absence from the Best Director Oscar nominations, which drew sharp, widely shared criticism.