Golden Globes: Natalie Portman takes brilliant jab at all-male director nominees before presenting award

The actor made a subtle dig at the lack of female representation in the category

Natalie Portman is being praised for subtly criticising the lack of female representation in the Best Director category she was presenting at the Golden Globes.

The Oscar-winning star was announcing the winner of Best Director alongside director Ron Howard when she highlighted that fact the five nominees were all male after the surprising snub for Lady Bird filmmaker Greta Gerwig and Wonder Woman's Patty Jenkins.

"Here are all the male nominees," she said as the names of Christopher Nolan, Martin McDonagh, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and eventual winner Guillermo del Toro were reeled off.

Many viewers praised the moment on social media.

The moment arrived after an empowering speech from Oprah Winfrey which had the entire audience on their feet; she was this year's recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille award.

This year's ceremony is hosted by Seth Meyers whose opening monologue directly addressed the sexual harassment scandal to have rocked Hollywood in recent months, dishing out a joke about Harvey Weinstein which drew gasps from the audience.

The evening's biggest winners so far include TV shows Big Little Lies and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as well as film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri which saw Sam Rockwell beat out frontrunner Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project) to win Best Supporting Actor.

Aziz Ansari also won Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for Netflix show Master of None while in the film categories, Best Supporting Actress went to Allison Janney for I, Tonya while Saoirse Ronan won Best Actress for Lady Bird.