BY: Amanda Jane Stern

March is Women’s History Month. In honor of that, we wanted to take the time to highlight the best female directors of the century so far.

Kathryn Bigelow

Nationality: American

Known for: Zero Dark Thirty, Detroit and The Hurt Locker, which won Best Picture and Best Director at the 82nd Academy Awards, making her the first (and only) woman to win an Oscar for Best Director.

Sofia Coppola

Nationality: American

Known for: Marie Antoinette, Lost in Translation, which won Best Original Screenplay at the 76th Academy Awards and The Beguiled, which won the Palme d’Or for Best Director at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, making her the second woman to win Best Director at Cannes.

Mati Diop

Nationality: French

Known for: Her debut feature film Atlantics received critical acclaim. It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, making her the first black woman to direct a movie featured in competition at Cannes.

Ava DuVernay

Nationality: American

Known for: A Wrinkle in Time and 13th a Best Documentary Feature nominee at the 89th Academy Awards and Selma nominated for Best Picture at the 87th Oscars, she is the first black female director to have a film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. 

Greta Gerwig

Nationality: American

Known for: Lady Bird, a nominee for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director at the 90th Academy Awards and Little Women, which grabbed a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 92nd Academy Awards.

Patty Jenkins

Nationality: American

Known for: Monster and Wonder Woman, it made her the first woman to direct a major American studio superhero movie. The movie is also the highest-grossing movie ever directed by a woman. She directs the upcoming sequel, Wonder Woman 1984.

Jennifer Kent

Nationality: Australian

Known for: The Babadook premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and received widespread critical acclaim and The Nightingale, which premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival. She works predominantly in horror films, a male-dominated genre.

Melina Matsoukas

Nationality: American

Known for: Her directorial debut Queen & Slim, which premiered at the AFI Fest in 2019. The movie received critical acclaim and established Matsoukas as a new director to watch.

Dee Rees

Nationality: American

Known for: Pariah, Bessie and Mudbound, which was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay at the 90th Academy Awards, making her the first black woman to be nominated for that award.

Céline Sciamma

Nationality: French

Known for: Water Lilies, Tomboy and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which won the Queer Palm at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It is the first female-directed project to win the Queer Palm.

Lulu Wang

Nationality: Chinese-American

Known for: Posthumous and The Farewell,  screened in competition at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It was a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the 77th Golden Globes