Steven Spielberg reacts to Natalie Portman's Golden Globes shade

Steven Spielberg has revealed what he thought of the shade Natalie Portman threw at the nominees for Best Director at the Golden Globes.

As Portman was presenting the award with Ron Howard, the actor highlighted the lack of gender diversity and said: "Here are the all male nominees."

The camera panned to each male nominee [Christopher Nolan, Martin McDonagh, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro] and they couldn't have looked more uncomfortable.

Spielberg was asked how he felt about Portman's sass by Entertainment Tonight, and said: "There's also a watershed happening right now, slowly, maybe not fast enough, for women directors.

"I mean you have [Wonder Woman director] Patty Jenkins. We have some amazing women that have come forward, you know Mudbound and Lady Bird. This is a pretty incredible year, and I think you'll be seeing some nominations, I'm predicting, at the Oscars this year for a woman director, if not several."

Director Patty Jenkins, who many thought was worthy of a Golden Globe nomination for Wonder Woman, was also asked what she thought about Portman's comment.

"What could you say? It made me laugh and it made me smile," she told ET.

"Look, it's been a little glaring that women directors don't get nominated so often and it is odd. Particularly when their films are being celebrated in every other way, so I thought it was interesting to highlight it. And what a difficult category to present without saying something about it, so she did it so perfectly."

The last woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director was Barbra Streisand who mentioned that very fact on stage during the awards.

"You know that was 1984, that was 34 years ago," she said.

"Folks! Time's up. We need more women directors and more women to be nominated for best director. There are so many films out there that are so good directed by women."

Streisand later added on Twitter that she was "very disappointed" that director Dee Rees wasn't nominated for Mudbound and Patty Jenkins wasn't nominated for Wonder Woman.

"The three highest-grossing films last year were all carried by women," Streisand noted on Twitter.

The Oscar nominations will most likely be announced on January 24.