Nava won critical acclaim for his first two features, both produced on minimal budgets and both co-written by his wife, filmmaker Anna Thomas: "The Confessions of Amans" (1973), a medieval drama, won the Best First Feature Award at the Chicago International Film Festival; and "El Norte" (1983), a gripping, harrowing account of Guatemalan emigres struggling to survive in Southern California, earned an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. He fared less happily with his first attempt at big-budget Hollywood filmmaking, the overblown "A Time of Destiny" (1988). Nava later, though, won some