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May 31, 2020 · Best Female Directors • Anne Fletcher. Fletcher was a renowned choreographer who stepped into the director’s chair for the breakout hit, Step Up, in 2006. Since then she’s worked consistently, often with top stars like Sandra Bullock, Dolly Parton, Ryan Reynolds, and Barbra Streisand.
- Penny Marshall. Big, A League of Their Own, The Preacher's Wife. 639 votes. Penny Marshall blazed a trail for women in Hollywood with her work both in front of and behind the camera.
- Kathryn Bigelow. Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker, Point Break. 812 votes. Kathryn Bigelow is a highly acclaimed filmmaker, known for her intense and visually stunning films.
- Sofia Coppola. Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette. 793 votes. Sofia Coppola's dreamy, introspective films are marked by their lush cinematography and atmospheric storytelling.
- Amy Heckerling. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Clueless, National Lampoon's European Vacation. 472 votes. Having made her mark on the world of film with iconic comedies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, Amy Heckerling has become nothing short of a legend.
Aug 13, 2023 · Greta Gerwig is the first female director to make a billion-dollar blockbuster. This list highlights other prominent women in Hollywood.
- 10 Jane Campion
- 9 Maggie Gyllenhaal
- 8 Kelly Fremon Craig
- 7 Emerald Fennell
- 6 Sofia Coppola
- 5 Kathryn Bigelow
- 4 Chloe Zhao
- 3 Ava Duvernay
- 2 Patty Jenkins
- 1 Greta Gerwig
A trailblazer who is also a pioneer in bringing a feminine gaze to the big screen, Jane Campion has received a number of accolades for her work. Right from The Piano, which won an Oscar for the Best Original Screenplay, the filmmaker has transported the audience to a world seen through a woman’s eyes. She showcases empathy as well as an artistic fl...
Maggie Gyllenhaal first worked her magic in front of the screen with movies like Secretary and Donnie Darko. As a member of the Gyllenhaal family, a pure talent and distinct perspective runs in her blood. With her breakout performance in Crazy heart, where she showed a high caliber of Oscar-worthy skills, Gyllenhaal proved that she could be subtle ...
Kelly Fremon Craig has directed two films, The Edge of Seventeen and Are You There God? It's Me, Margret. Both films are incredible coming-of-age stories that show her strength as a filmmaker. Craig has the ability to tell grounded, relatable human stories centered on women coming of age. She is great at getting naturalistic performances out of her...
Cheeky, clever and totally unpredictable, Emerald Fennell is a familiar face for the British TV fanatics. Her early on-screen appearances on critically acclaimed shows Call the Midwife and Netflix’s The Crown gave her a boost. And with each project, the star has only left us spellbound with her talents. When it comes to small screens, Fennell rose ...
Sofia Coppola has spent her entire life in the film industry. Her father is, of course, legendary director Francis Ford Coppola. In fact, Sofia made her film debut before she was a year old, appearing in her father’s film The Godfather. Sofia made a big splash with her directorial debut, 1999’s The Virgin Suicides. In 2003, she wrote and directed L...
Kathryn Bigelow secured her spot in history when she became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director for 2009’s The Hurt Locker, but she had been directing iconic films since the '80s, including the cult classic Point Break. In 1990, Bigelow talked about women as directors in Hollywood, saying, “If there's specific resistance to w...
Chloe Zhao became the second woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director in 2021 for her film Nomadland. Zhao said that adapting the book into a screenplay and directing Nomadland felt like a natural next step after her first two films. It is similar in its structure and storytelling and the intimate look it takes as a small subset of people. ...
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay has a few “firsts” on her resume. In 2012, she was the first Black woman to win the Sundance Film Festival’s directing award, for her stunning second film Middle of Nowhere. Then, in 2018, her film A Wrinkle in Time became the first live-action film directed by a Black woman to break $100 million at the box office. She receiv...
These days, Patty Jenkins is known as the woman who made a blockbuster female-driven superhero movie that grossed nearly a billion dollars worldwide, with 2017’s Wonder Woman (a title which aptly describes Jenkins herself); she also helmed the sequel Wonder Woman 1984. However, her very first feature film was 2003’s Monster, the film that won Charl...
Greta Gerwig is still relatively early in her filmmaking career, but she has been an incredible actor for some time, helping to kickstart the 'mumblecore' movement. She had a massive hit right out of the gate with her directorial debut Lady Bird in 2017, for which she also wrote the screenplay. Next, she helmed 2019’s Little Women, and both films w...
- Amy Lamare
Carrie Cracknell is a leading British theatre director. She recently finished shooting her debut feature film, an adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion for Netflix / MRC, starring Dakota Johnson, which will be released on Netflix in 2022.
Nov 30, 2022 · Just look at today's award-giving bodies and the depictions of women in film. Despite that, many women filmmakers have made their mark with truly remarkable films that have deeply impacted cinema in many ways.
Mar 7, 2022 · Here's a roundup of some of the best female directors working today, from Oscar winners and nominees to blockbuster directors to those dominating TV.
