Female directors…best of

1. Ida Lupino

Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was ...

2. Lena Dunham

Writer | Tiny Furniture

New Yorker Lena Dunham is the daughter of a painter, Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons, a designer and photographer. Dunham was educated at Oberlin College, Ohio, graduating with a creative writing degree. It was while at Oberlin that she began writing shorts and feature films. In 2009, Dunham ...

3. Dorothy Arzner

Director | Christopher Strong

Dorothy Arzner, the only woman director during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood's studio system--from the 1920s to the early 1940s and the woman director with the largest oeuvre in Hollywood to this day--was born January 3, 1897 (some sources put the year as 1900), in San Francisco, California, to a ...

4. Jane Campion

Writer | Bright Star

Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early...

5. Sofia Coppola

Actress | The Godfather Part III

Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two daughters, Romy and ...

6. Agnès Varda

Director | Cléo de 5 à 7

Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.

7. Alice Guy

Director | The Woman of Mystery

The world's first female filmmaker, French-born Alice Guy entered the film business in 1896 as a secretary at Gaumont, a manufacturer of movie cameras and projectors who had purchased a "cinématographer" from its inventors, the Lumiere brothers. The next year Gaumont became the world's first motion...

8. Patty Jenkins

Director | Wonder Woman

Patty Jenkins is a writer/director best known for directing Wonder Woman, the Warner Bros./DC Comics blockbuster of 2017, and her debut feature Monster. Patty also works in television where she is best known for the pilot and finale episode of AMC's hit show The Killing.

Patty began her career as a ...

9. Chloé Zhao

Director | Nomadland

Chloé Zhao or Zhao Ting (born March 31, 1982) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Her second feature film, The Rider (2017), was critically acclaimed and received several accolades ...

10. Kimberly Peirce

Director | Boys Don't Cry

Kimberly Peirce was born on September 8, 1967 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Boys Don't Cry (1999), Stop-Loss (2008) and Carrie (2013).

11. Gillian Armstrong

Director | My Brilliant Career

Gillian Armstrong was born on December 18, 1950 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is a director and producer, known for My Brilliant Career (1979), Not Fourteen Again (1996) and Little Women (1994). She is married to John Pleffer. They have two children.

12. Kathryn Bigelow

Director | Zero Dark Thirty

A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be ...

13. Mira Nair

Director | Salaam Bombay!

Accomplished Film Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair was born in India and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard. She began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing award-winning documentaries, including So Far From India and India Cabaret. Her debut feature film, Salaam ...

14. Deepa Mehta

Director | Fire

Deepa Mehta is a transnational artist and a screenwriter, director, and producer whose work has been called "courageous", "provocative" and "breathtaking". Her visually lush and emotionally resonating films have played at every major international film festival; receiving numerous awards and ...

15. Chantal Akerman

Director | Les rendez-vous d'Anna

Chantal Akerman was born on June 6, 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on October 5, 2015 in Paris, France.

16. Valerie Faris

Director | Little Miss Sunshine

Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have built an impressive body of work by perpetually seeking innovative projects in a variety of mediums.

After introducing bands such as REM and The Red Hot Chili Peppers on their ground breaking MTV show The Cutting Edge, Jonathan and Valerie continued to work in ...

17. Penny Marshall

Actress | Laverne & Shirley

Penny Marshall was born Carole Penny Marshall on October 15, 1943 in Manhattan. The Libra was 5' 6 1/2", with brown hair and green eyes. She was the daughter of Marjorie (Ward), a tap dance teacher, and Anthony "Tony" Marshall, an industrial film director. She was the younger sister of filmmakers ...

18. Nora Ephron

Writer | Julie & Julia

Nora Ephron was educated at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She was an acclaimed essayist (Crazy Salad 1975), novelist (Heartburn 1983), and had written screenplays for several popular films, all featuring strong female characters, such as anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood (Silkwood (1983), ...

19. Larysa Kondracki

Director | The Whistleblower

Larysa Kondracki was born in Toronto and studied English and theater at McGill University. She received an M.F.A. in film direction from Columbia University and directed the short film VIKO (2008) which played mainly at film festivals to widespread acclaim. The WHISTLEBLOWER is her first feature ...

20. Olivia Wilde

Actress | Tron: Legacy

Actress and activist Olivia Wilde is a modern day renaissance woman, starring in many acclaimed film productions, while simultaneously giving back to the community.

She was born on March 10, 1984 in New York City. Her parents are Leslie Cockburn (née Leslie Corkill Redlich) and Andrew Cockburn. Her ...

21. Maria Schrader

Director | She Said

Maria Schrader was born in Hanover, Federal Republic of Germany, on September 27th, 1965. She directed and co-wrote the screenplay of the awards-winning film Liebesleben (2007). As well, she directed Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016) and the Emmy-award wining miniseries Unorthodox (2020) (...

22. Olivia Newman

Director | Where the Crawdads Sing

Olivia Newman is an American film director and screenwriter. She is best known for directing First Match (2018) and the 2022 feature adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing. Olivia was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. She holds a B.A. in French and women's studies from Vassar College and an MFA in film ...

23. Mimi Cave

Director | Fresh

Mimi Cave is known for Fresh (2022), Vessel (2015) and Pumping Black.

24. Claire Denis

Director | High Life

The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the...

25. Phyllis Nagy

Director | Call Jane

Phyllis Nagy was born on November 7, 1962 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a writer and director, known for Call Jane (2022), Carol (2015) and Mrs. Harris (2005).

26. Kasi Lemmons

Director | Harriet

Kasi Lemmons was born on February 24, 1961 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Harriet (2019), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Candyman (1992). She has been married to Vondie Curtis-Hall since August 19, 1995. They have two children.

27. Niki Caro

Director | Whale Rider

Niki Caro is a New Zealand film director and screenwriter, born in 1967. Caro was born in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. She was educated first at the Kadimah College in Auckland, and then the Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland. The School is a private girls' school, and ranks ...

28. Andrea Arnold

Director | American Honey

Andrea Arnold was born on April 5, 1961 in Dartford, Kent, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for American Honey (2016), Fish Tank (2009) and Red Road (2006).

29. Lynne Ramsay

Director | You Were Never Really Here

Lynne Ramsay was born on December 5, 1969 in Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland, UK. She is a director and writer, known for You Were Never Really Here (2017), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and Ratcatcher (1999). She was previously married to Rory Stewart Kinnear.

30. Gina Prince-Bythewood

Writer | Love & Basketball

Gina Prince-Bythewood (Writer/Producer/Director) studied at UCLA Film School, where she received the Gene Reynolds Scholarship for Directing and the Ray Stark Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Undergraduate. She was a member of UCLA's track and field team, qualifying for the Pac-10 Championships...

31. Amma Asante

Director | Belle

Amma Asante is a British BAFTA award winning screenwriter and director, known for Belle (2013), and A Way of Life (2004). She is a former child actress, who began her writing career at the age of 23 with a script deals from both Channel 4 in the UK and BBC. Her first movie, A Way of Life, which she...

32. Mia Hansen-Løve

Director | L'avenir

Cinema came into Mia Hansen-Løve's life when she was seventeen, as Olivier Assayas made her start as an actress in Late August, Early September (1998). Two years later, he gave her the part of "Aline" in his Les Destinées (2000). Their artistic collaboration was coupled by a union in real ...

33. Lynn Shelton

Director | Humpday

Two time Emmy-nominated actress and director Lynn Shelton fell ill and was taken to a Los Angeles, California hospital. During her medical examination it was found that she had been suffering, without diagnosis or any apparent symptoms, from acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood. She died ...

34. Kelly Reichardt

Director | Wendy and Lucy

Kelly Reichardt was born and raised in Miami-Dade Country, Florida, to a family of police officers. She had an interest in photography from a very young age. She started by using her father's camera, which he used for photographing crime scenes. She went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in ...

35. Karyn Kusama

Director | The Invitation

Karyn Kusama was born on March 21, 1968 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for The Invitation (2015), Destroyer (2018) and Girlfight (2000). She has been married to Phil Hay since October 2006. They have one child.

36. Ava DuVernay

Writer | Queen Sugar

A director, producer, writer, marketer and film distributor, Ava DuVernay made her feature film debut with the documentary This is the Life (2008), a history on hip hop movement that flourished in Los Angeles in the 1990's. This was followed by series of television music documentaries which ...

37. Sally Potter

Director | The Tango Lesson

Sally Potter made her first 8mm film aged fourteen. She has since written and directed seven feature films, as well as many short films (including THRILLER and PLAY) and a television series, and has directed opera (Carmen for the ENO in 2007) and other live work. Her background is in choreography, ...

38. Cheryl Dunye

Director | The Watermelon Woman

Cheryl Dunye was born on May 13, 1966 in Liberia. She is a director and producer, known for The Watermelon Woman (1996), The Owls (2010) and Mommy Is Coming (2012).

39. Céline Sciamma

Writer | Portrait de la jeune fille en feu

Céline Sciamma was born on November 12, 1978 in Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France. She is a writer and director, known for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Petite Maman (2021) and Tomboy (2011).

40. Josephine Decker

Director | Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

Josephine Decker is known for Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (2014), Shirley (2020) and Madeline's Madeline (2018).

41. Cate Shortland

Director | Lore

Catherine Shortland is an Australian filmmaker from Temora, New South Wales who is known for directing the Marvel film Black Widow. She also directed the feature length films Somersault, Lore and Berlin Syndrome. She directed the short films Pentuphouse, Flowergirl and Joy. She is married to Tony ...

42. Mounia Akl

Director | Costa Brava, Lebanon

Mounia Akl is a director and writer from Lebanon living between Beirut and New York. She holds a bachelor's degree in Architecture from ALBA and an MFA in Directing from Columbia University and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®.

Her first feature film, Costa Brava ...

43. Lana Wachowski

Writer | The Matrix

Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight ...

and her sister Lilly

44. Lulu Wang

Director | The Farewell

Lulu Wang was born on February 25, 1983 in Beijing, China. She is a director and writer, known for The Farewell (2019), Touch (2015) and Family Meal.

45. Nina Menkes

Director | Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

Considered a cinematic feminist pioneer and one of America's foremost independent filmmakers, Menkes has shown widely in major international film festivals including multiple premieres at Sundance, the Berlinale, Cannes, The New York Film Festival, Locarno, Toronto, La Cinematheque Francaise, ...

46. Greta Gerwig

Writer | Barbie

Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America (2015). Gerwig made her solo directorial debut ...

47. Catherine Hardwicke

Director | Twilight

Hardwicke's first film as a director was the Sundance winner THIRTEEN which explored the transition into teenage years with an authenticity that still captures young audiences (1.3 billion Tik Tok engagements.) Hardwicke directed LORDS OF DOGTOWN before she became best known as the director of ...

48. Sarah Polley

Actress | My Life Without Me

Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her ...

49. Susanne Bier

Director | Hævnen

Though Academy Award®, Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award winning writer and director Susanne Bier's work often plays out against a wide-reaching global backdrop, its focus is intimate, carefully exploring the explosive emotions and complexities of familial bonds. This unique combination is part of ...

50. Debra Granik

Director | Leave No Trace

Debra Granik (born February 6, 1963) is an American New York City-based independent film and documentary film director and screenwriter. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and ...

51. Lone Scherfig

Director | An Education

Writer/director Lone Scherfig graduated from The National Film School of Denmark in 1984. Her first feature film, THE BIRTHDAY TRIP (1990), was selected for Panorama in Berlin, the New Directors section at MOMA in New York and won the Grand Jury Prix in Rouen. Her next film, ON OUR OWN (1998), ...

52. Nancy Meyers

Writer | It's Complicated

Nancy Jane Meyers is an American filmmaker. She has written, produced, and directed many critically and commercially successful films including Private Benjamin (1980), Irreconcilable Differences (1984), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), The Parent ...

53. Lisa Cholodenko

Director | The Kids Are All Right

Lisa Cholodenko earned an MFA at Columbia University Film School where she made an award-winning short film Dinner Party (1997) Her feature High Art (1998) won the National Society of Film Critics award for Ally Sheedy's performance and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at Sundance. Both "High Art...

54. Maïwenn

Actress | Polisse

Maïwenn (sometimes credited as Maïwenn Besco or her birth name Maïwenn Le Besco, born 17 April 1976) is a French actress, film director and screenwriter.

Maïwenn Le Besco was born in Les Lilas, Seine-Saint-Denis, France, a suburban area east of Paris. Maïwenn is of mixed Breton, Vietnamese, French, ...

55. Angelina Jolie

Actress | Maleficent

Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become ...

56. Barbra Streisand

Actress | Yentl

Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards,...

57. Julie Taymor

Director | Frida

Julie Taymor is an Academy Award-nominated director, known for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007).

She was born on December 15, 1952, in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Her father, Melvin Lester Taymor, was a gynecologist. Her mother, Elizabeth Bernstein, was a ...

58. Maren Ade

Producer | Toni Erdmann

Maren Ade was born in Karlsruhe on 12 December 1976 to a couple of teachers.She studied cinema at Munich's Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film. As of 2001 she co-founded, together with Janine Jackowski, a fellow graduate from HFF, the "Komplizen" film company. It is through Komplizen that Maren would...

59. Jodie Foster

Actress | The Silence of the Lambs

Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received ...

60. Nicole Holofcener

Director | Enough Said

Nicole Holofcener was born on March 22, 1960 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Enough Said (2013), Friends with Money (2006) and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018). She was previously married to Benjamin Allanoff.

61. Dee Rees

Director | Mudbound

Writer/Director Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University's graduate film program and a Sundance Screenwriting & Directing Lab Fellow.

In 2018, Dee became the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for her highly-acclaimed film Mudbound (2017). The film, ...

62. Anne Fontaine

Writer | Les innocentes

Anne Fontaine was born on July 15, 1959 in Luxembourg. She is an actress and writer, known for The Innocents (2016), Coco Before Chanel (2009) and Reinventing Marvin (2017). She is married to Philippe Carcassonne. They have one child.

63. Agnieszka Holland

Director | Pokot

Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of...

64. Courtney Hunt

Director | Frozen River

Courtney Hunt was born in 1964 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Frozen River (2008), The Whole Truth (2016) and Utopia (2020).

65. Tamara Jenkins

Director | The Savages

Tamara Jenkins was born on May 2, 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and writer, known for The Savages (2007), Private Life (2018) and Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). She has been married to Jim Taylor since 2002. They have one child.

66. Rebecca Miller

Writer | Maggie's Plan

Rebecca Miller was born on September 15, 1962 in Roxbury, Connecticut, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for Maggie's Plan (2015), Personal Velocity (2002) and Angela (1995). She has been married to Daniel Day-Lewis since November 13, 1996. They have two children.

67. Anna Muylaert

Writer | Que Horas Ela Volta?

Ana Luiza Machado da Silva Muylaert (born 21 April 1964), known professionally as Anna Muylaert, is a Brazilian film and television director, producer and screenwriter. Anna studied filmmaking at the School of Communications and Arts at University of São Paulo (USP) from 1980 to 1984. She became a ...

68. Mimi Leder

Producer | The Morning Show

Mimi Leder was born on January 26, 1952 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a producer and director, known for The Morning Show (2019), On the Basis of Sex (2018) and Deep Impact (1998). She has been married to Gary Werntz since January 26, 1986. They have one child. She was previously married ...

69. Gurinder Chadha

Writer | Bend It Like Beckham

Gurinder Chadha was born in Kenya, and grew up in Southall, London, England. She began her career as a news reporter with BBC Radio, directed several award winning documentaries for the BBC, and began an alliance with the British Film Institute (BFI) and Channel Four. In 2001, Chadha set up her own...

70. Anna Boden

Producer | Half Nelson

Anna Boden is an American film director, cinematographer, editor, and screenwriter best known as the co-writer of the 2006 film Half Nelson. She is known for her collaborations with fellow filmmaker Ryan Fleck. While studying film at NYU, Boden met Ryan Fleck on the set of a student film. Soon they...

71. Sarah Gavron

Director | Suffragette

Girl (little or teenage), woman, family, couple, friendship, emigration, class struggle, serious society subjects are terms that can be associated with the name of Sarah Gavron, one of the (too) few women directors in Great Britain.Via three major films "Brick Lane" (about the uprooting, ...

72. Laís Bodanzky

Director | Chega de Saudade

Laís Bodanzky made her directorial debut with the short film Red Card, about a girl surrounded by boys discovering her sexuality. This award-winning short was selected for the New York Film Festival in 1995.

She was recognized as a filmmaker with the feature film Brainstorm (2001), a joint ...

73. Carlota Pereda

Director | Cerdita

Carlota Pereda is known for Piggy (2022), Cerdita (2018) and Las rubias (2016).

74. Fanny Liatard

Director | Gagarine

Fanny Liatard is known for Gagarine (2020), La République des enchanteurs (2016) and Blue Dog (2018).

75. Lydia Dean Pilcher

Producer | Queen of Katwe

Lydia Dean Pilcher is known for Queen of Katwe (2016), Radium Girls (2018) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007).

76. Giada Colagrande

Director | Padre

Giada Colagrande was born in Italy in 1975. She studied in Italy, Switzerland and Australia. In 1995 she began making video art and documentaries on contemporary art. From 1997 to 2000 she joined the art project VOLUME, making a series of video portraits of 7 contemporary artists: Jannis Kounellis,...

77. Elizabeth Banks

Actress | The Hunger Games

Elizabeth Banks was born Elizabeth Mitchell in Pittsfield, a small city in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts near the New York border, on February 10, 1974. She is the daughter of Anne Marie (Wallace), who worked in a bank, and Mark Phineas Mitchell, a factory worker. Elizabeth describes ...

78. Miranda July

Writer | Me and You and Everyone We Know

Filmmaker Magazine rated her #1 in their "25 New Faces of Indie Film" in 2004!

She is a performance artist and published short story writer. Since becoming a filmmaker, her debut feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) has won several film awards.

Daughter of Lindy Hough and Richard ...

79. Alice Winocour

Writer | Mustang

Alice Winocour was born on January 13, 1976 in Paris, France. She is a writer and director, known for Mustang (2015), Proxima (2019) and Maryland (2015).

80. Nadine Labaki

Actress | Et maintenant on va où?

Nadine Labaki was born on February 18, 1974 in Beirut, Lebanon. She is an actress and director, known for Where Do We Go Now? (2011), Capernaum (2018) and Caramel (2007). She has been married to Khaled Mouzanar since October 2007.

81. Kaouther Ben Hania

Director | The Man Who Sold His Skin

The accomplished Tunisian director, Kaouther Ben Hania, boasts two Oscar nominations, a testament to her exceptional cinematic prowess. Her groundbreaking work consistently earns international acclaim. In the highly competitive main competition of the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, her poignant film...

82. Paula van der Oest

Director | Zus & zo

Paula van der Oest is an Academy Award nominated director and screenwriter. Her film ZUS & ZO (2001) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2015 her film ACCUSED (2014) made it to the Academy Award's shortlist and her latest film TONIO (2016) is again chosen as the ...

83. Marie Kreutzer

Director | Corsage

Marie Kreutzer was born on December 4, 1977 in Graz, Styria, Austria. She is a director and writer, known for Corsage (2022), The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019) and The Fatherless (2011).

84. Pernille Fischer Christensen

Director | En familie

Pernille Fischer Christensen was born on December 24, 1969 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a director and writer, known for A Family (2010), A Soap (2006) and Someone You Love (2014).

85. Sophie Hyde

Producer | 52 Tuesdays

Sophie Hyde was born in 1977 in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. She is a producer and writer, known for 52 Tuesdays (2013), Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022) and The Hunting (2019).

86. Marielle Heller

Director | The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Marielle Heller is a writer, director and actor. She was selected as a 2012 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow and 2012 Sundance Directing Fellow, and was honored with the Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellowship, and The Maryland Film Festival Fellowship. Her writing credits include pilots for ABC and ...

87. Ana Lily Amirpour

Director | A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Ana Lily Amirpour was born in Margate, Kent, England, UK. She is a director and writer, known for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), The Bad Batch (2016) and Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021).

88. Chinonye Chukwu

Producer | Till

Chinonye Chukwu was born on May 19, 1985 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She is a director and writer, known for Till (2022), Clemency (2019) and A Long Walk (2013).

89. Emerald Fennell

Writer | Saltburn

Emerald Lilly Fennell is an English actress, filmmaker, and writer. She has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. Fennell first ...

90. Liliana Cavani

Director | L'ospite

Liliana Cavani was born on January 12, 1933 in Carpi, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She is a director and writer, known for L'ospite (1971), Dove siete? Io sono qui (1993) and The Night Porter (1974).

91. Justine Triet

Director | Anatomie d'une chute

Justine Triet is a graduate from the Paris National School of Fine Arts. Since then, she has directed a couple of films dealing with the place of the individual within a group: Sur place (2007) was shot right in the middle of the 2006 student protest; Solférino (2009) was filmed during the ...

92. Mélanie Laurent

Actress | Inglourious Basterds

Mélanie Laurent was born in Paris, France. She is the daughter of Annick, a ballet teacher, and Pierre, a voice actor, who is most recognized for the French version of The Simpsons (1989). She has a younger brother, Mathieu, and has both Sephardi Jewish (from Tunisia) and Ashkenazi Jewish (from ...

93. Julia Ducournau

Director | Titane

Julia Ducournau is a French film director and screenwriter. She attended film school at La Fémis in Paris, where she studied screenwriting. In 2011, her short film JUNIOR won the Petit Rail d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Her first feature, the horror movie Raw (2016), won the coveted ...