Start with The Rider, which is the purest version of her method: a real rodeo rider playing a version of himself, shot at golden hour with a tiny crew. Then Nomadland for the one that won everything, and Songs My Brothers Taught Me for the debut. Eternals is the outlier.
Zhao's approach in her first three films was consistent and unusual: cast non-professionals playing versions of themselves, shoot on location in natural light with a very small crew, and build the script around what those people actually say. The results sit somewhere between documentary and fiction, and the performances are frequently better than trained ones would be.
Then she directed a Marvel film, which is the most abrupt scale shift in recent cinema and is generally considered a mismatch. The interesting question is not whether Eternals works but what happened to the method at that budget, and the answer is visible on screen: the natural light survived and almost nothing else did.
Where to start
The Rider. Ninety-four minutes, a real rodeo rider recovering from a real head injury, and the clearest demonstration of what she does. Nomadland is the more celebrated film and slightly more conventional. Both are complete introductions; skip Eternals until you are curious rather than starting there.
Top picks
Filmography
- Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)
- The Rider (2018)
- Nomadland (2021)
- Eternals (2021)
- Hamnet (2025)
Sources and further reading
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FAQs about Chloé Zhao
Are the people in her films real?
In the first three, mostly yes. She casts non-professionals playing versions of themselves and builds dialogue around what they actually say, so Brady Jandreau in The Rider is a rodeo rider who suffered the injury the film depicts. Nomadland mixes that approach with Frances McDormand.
Is Eternals worth watching?
As evidence rather than as entertainment. It is the only case of a director with this specific method being handed a nine-figure superhero film, and the collision is legible on screen: natural light and real landscapes inside a structure that cannot use them. Interesting, and not good.
Which of her films is the saddest?
The Rider, by a clear margin, and largely because the loss in it is real. A man whose entire identity is a physical skill is told he cannot do it again, played by a man in that situation. Nomadland is more elegiac; The Rider is specific enough to hurt.