Widescreen: What other films did 'Nomadland' director Chloe Zhao make?

Writer/producer/director Chloe Zhao has the hottest name in Hollywood right now and her awards-season canonization is likely to begin this Sunday at the Golden Globes, where her film "Nomadland" is poised to capture multiple awards.

If you watched it on Hulu this week, you know that "Nomadland" is a beautiful, understated movie featuring real Americans, mostly older, who live out of their vehicles and travel the country looking for work and companionship. Frances McDormand and David Straithairn play two fictional characters surrounded by nonactors in a film that sheds light on an aspect of American life that goes unseen by most of us - and does so without judgment. (Sean Baker's 2017 "The Florida Project" is definitely a kindred cinematic spirit.)

What else did Zhao make?

• "Songs My Brothers Taught Me," about life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Co-produced by Forest Whitaker, the film was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards in 2016 and put Zhao, who also wrote and co-edited the film, on Hollywood's radar. Irene Bedard, most recently seen as Ray Brenter on CBS All Access' adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand," co-stars. It's available on the library apps Kanopy and Hoopla.

• "The Rider," currently available for free from PlutoTV, returns to the Pine Ridge reservation and centers on a rodeo rider struggling with the fallout of a brain injury. The National Society of Film Critics named it the best film of 2018, and it found a big fan in Frances McDormand - she saw it at the Toronto Film Festival and thought Zhao was the perfect person to adapt "Nomadland."

What's next?

Believe it or not, a superhero film. Zhao's take on "Eternals," a cosmic comic book created by Marvel legend Jack Kirby, was supposed to be Disney's big holiday offering before COVID-19 changed our calendars. She's trading desert vistas and regular folks for an army of digital animators and big stars such as Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek and Kit Harington. No footage of the film has been shown to the public yet; let's hope we'll get to discover it together on Nov. 5, whether at a theater or at home on Disney+.

• Sean Stangland is an assistant news editor.