The Most Important Female Directors in Cinema

The Oscars are near. In this case, with a particularity: the COVID-19 pandemic, in a year that was really atypical for cinema. However, that is not the only important issue, as this could be the year where a female film director is consecrated as the best of all.

According to The New York Times, Chloé Zhao appears as the first Chinese woman nominated for Best Director at the Oscars. In addition to this, the film is nominated for Best Picture and its leading actress, Frances McDormand, is in the running for the Best Actress award.

If we take into account that both the film and the director won the highest awards at the current Golden Globes, everything seems to indicate that Chloé Zhao, along with her work, appears as the great favorites of this new edition of the Oscars. In view of this situation, we decided to review the history of other important female directors in the film world.

Kathryn Bigelow

Since we are talking about important female directors at the Oscars, we cannot fail to mention the most important antecedent of women in film. In other words, the female personality who showed Hollywood that women can also make history.  

We are talking about the first (and, so far, only) woman to win the award for Best Director at the Oscars, in an event that was considered “historic”, as it marked a before and after in the entire trajectory of this celebration. 

She achieved this in 2010, for her film The Hurt Locker, which also won the award for Best Picture that year. Basically, it was about an American bomb squad dedicated to defusing explosives in Iraq in 2004. Two years later, her film Zero Dark Thirty would be nominated for Best Picture, although it failed to win the trophy.

Lana and Lilly Wachowski

In this case, they are two sister directors who immortalized themselves in popular film culture and became one of the most influential of this century. Both transgender women, reached the pinnacle of fame with the Matrix trilogy, especially with its first installment, which became a cult film.

In addition, they were in charge of the script and production of another really important film in the industry: V for Vendetta, the adaptation of the DC comic book, directed by James McTeigue. Although they have directed other films, such as Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, or Jupiter Ascending, they will always be remembered for the Matrix saga.

That is why they revolutionized fans when they announced the return and release of the fourth part, to be released at the end of 2021 (although only Lana will be present since Lilly declared that she is no longer very interested in science fiction).

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Agnès Varda

A film director widely recognized among cinephiles. Basically, she was one of the leading exponents of one of the most important film movements in history: the Nouvelle Vague, which emerged in France in the 19th century to defend the creative freedom of all artists.

She managed to make a name for herself by generating unprecedented visual experimentation. Her most recognized work was her 1985 film Vagabond. There she showed the raw story of a young vagabond, through a technical prowess with the camera and an episodic narrative from a striking poetic perspective.

Sofia Coppola

If we talk about influence in popular culture, we can not fail to mention one of the most important directors of recent years. Sofia Coppola is the famous daughter of the famous director Francis Ford Coppola, responsible for directing perhaps the most important film saga in the history of cinema: The Godfather.

At first, she had to "carry the heavy legacy" of being the daughter of a prestigious Hollywood personality, even having to endure criticism for her performance in that saga.

However, over the years she made a name for herself in the film industry, regardless of her father's results. She achieved this mainly with her masterpiece, Lost in Translation, which The Guardian included in its list of the best romantic films of all time and became an unforgettable classic.

Jane Campion

Once again, we have another prestigious artist for the world of cinema. According to a specialized BBC list, her film, The Piano, appears as the best film of all time directed by a woman. This 1993 work is about a mute pianist and her daughter, set in the 19th century New Zealand, and at the same time, she won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for this work, as well as the Oscar for best original screenplay.

In this way, we can see that the influence of women in the Hollywood industry and the film world, in general, has always been important. Perhaps this ceremony will be the turning point to begin to value much more the work of women, who have the ability to direct masterpieces of cinematography.