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- Alice Guy. Widely considered the first female film director, Guy is also credited with helming one of the first narrative films, an 1896 short called “The Cabbage Fairy.”
- Lois Weber. A woman of many interests, Weber was a street evangelist and musician before she turned to acting and filmmaking. In 1908, she began her directing career at American Gaumont Chronophone, where fellow filmmaking pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché and her husband were then ensconced.
- Lotte Reiniger. Born and raised in Germany, Reiniger pioneered the use of silhouette animation, directing one of the first feature-length animated films, the 1926 release “The Adventures of Prince Achmed,” with this technique.
- Dorothy Arzner. Arzner grew up in Hollywood and began typing scripts before working her way up to helming “Women’s Fashions” for Paramount in 1927. While directing the studio’s first talkie, “The Wild Party,” she improvised a boom microphone for silent star Clara Bow, who was nervous about speaking on camera.
The Directors Guild of America was established in 1933, and Arzner became the first female member. Indeed, she was the only female member of the D.G.A. for many years. Arzner's films featured well-developed female characters, and she was known at the time of her work, quite naturally, as a director of "women's pictures".
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- San Francisco, California, USA
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- La Quinta, California, USA
- Alice Guy-Blaché
- Dorothy Arzner
- Agnès Varda
- Lina Wertmüller
- Chantal Akerman
- Julie Dash
- Kathryn Bigelow
- Sofia Coppola
- Ava Duvernay
- Celine Sciamma
“There is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man.” An early influence on legends like Alfred Hitchcock and Sergei Eisenstein, Alice Guy-Blaché was a pioneering figure in the history of cinema as she was the first female filmmaker to direct a feature-length film. She is also considered the mo...
“My philosophy is that to be a director you cannot be subject to anyone, even the head of the studio. I threatened to quit each time I didn’t get my way, but no one ever let me walk out. When I went to work in a studio, I took my pride and made a nice little ball of it and threw it right out the window.” A pioneer in the silent era of filmmaking in...
“In my films, I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” Agnès Varda is inarguably considered the pioneering contributor to the French New Wave cinema movement. Referred to as the “God of cinema” by Martin Scorsese, Varda was the first woman to have received an Academy Honorary Awa...
“I am a director. I’m the one who can order men around.” Lina Wertmüller belonged to a deeply religious family but was a devout rule-breaker and anarchist who got expelled from 15 different schools. Her love for comics and the desire to find the elements of the cinematic within the panels reflected her interest in cinema from a very young age. She ...
“When people ask me if I am a feminist filmmaker, I reply that I am a woman and I also make films.” Chantel Akerman was first inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fouwhich, at 15, told her that she had to become a filmmaker. Daughter to Polish Holocaust survivors, her mother’s trauma had somehow been a large part of her sensibility. She was ext...
“I’m hopeful. There are still a lot of people waiting at the gate, but things are moving forward.” Julie Dash was the first African American woman whose full-length feature film obtained a theatrical release in the United States. Conscious of the racism and lack of representation and diversity plaguing Hollywood, Dash never gave up on her dreams wh...
“If there’s specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.” If Barbra Streisand’s “the time has come” response to the name inside the envelope at the 63rd Academy Awards did not send goosebumps on your skin and shivers down your s...
“My movies are not about being, but becoming.” Born to a successful family associated with films for the longest time, great things were expected of Sofia Coppola whose romantic heart pushed her to make films that bore meaning to her. Previously having tried her hand at acting she decided to quit after heavy backlash to her role as Mary Corleone in...
“I’m not going to continue knocking on that old door that does not open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that.” Ava DuVernay has been a raging inspiration for women, especially black women, all over the world for her outstanding contribution to cinema. She was not only the first Black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe...
“I think all movies are political. The ones that are not political intentionally are the worst and have the worst politics, I think.” Blue Is the Warmest Colour is the perfect example for the male gaze as the make director reinforces his point of view while narrating a lesbian relationship, and that is exactly the kind of film a filmmaker as bold a...
- Kathryn Bigelow. Given her insanely varied filmography, Kathryn Bigelow is clearly capable of directing any genre of film. Whether it's a surfing movie starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze (Point Break) or a sci-fi thriller starring Ralph Fiennes (Strange Days), Bigelow has more than proven her prowess as a cinematic visionary.
- Agnès Varda. The name Agnès Varda may not be a familiar one, but she's a filmmaker whose contributions to cinema are fundamental and crucial. Her directorial debut in the drama La Pointe Courte was considered by critics as the film that paved the way for the French New Wave.
- Sofia Coppola. Sofia Coppola is the only daughter of renowned director Francis Ford Coppola. She debuted as the christened infant child to Michael Corleone in The Godfather, but upon reaching adulthood, she learned that her true passion is filmmaking.
- Jane Campion. By the time she won the Academy Award for Best Director in 2022, Jane Campion had already built up an illustrious directorial career that spanned three decades.
- 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.
Jan 20, 2023 · Until 2021, Katherine Bigelow was the only woman to be awarded Best Director at the Oscars, and was additionally the first woman to direct a Best Picture winner.
Jun 13, 2024 · Penny Marshall was a trailblazing director who broke barriers in Hollywood with her remarkable storytelling and unique vision. Known for her work on films like “Big” and “A League of Their Own,” she made history as the first woman to direct a movie that grossed over $100 million.
