Every Best Picture Nominee Directed by a Woman in Oscar History

Throughout Oscar history, hundreds of films nominated for the top award have gone on to win Best Picture. Only a small fraction of them were directed by a woman. This inequality is striking, even as women-driven stories continue to grow. Women filmmakers are taking the reins in Hollywood, and many of them have left behind […]

Throughout the history of the Academy Awards, hundreds of films have been nominated for the top prize and won Best Picture. Only a small part of them were directed by a female director. The disparity is staggering, even as women's stories continue to rise.

Women filmmakers are taking over Hollywood, and many are stepping behind the camera to tell stories that reach a global audience. However, recognition of that talent at the Oscars, especially in the Best Director category, was slow. In most years, only a handful of Best Picture nominees, and sometimes none at all, are directed by women, even though the number of female producers behind nominated films has steadily increased.

When breakthroughs do come, they're usually firsts: women breaking through the directing competition, producers making history by nationality or background, and rare repeat winners. Below, we track those milestones and the films that carried them.

Here is the complete and constantly updated list of every film directed by a female director nominated for an Academy Award, Best Picture.

Movie: Children of a Lesser God (1986) Distributed by: Paramount Pictures Writers: Hesper Anderson, Mark Madoff (based on Children of a Lesser God by Mark Madoff) Producers: Brett Sugarman, Patrick J. Palmer Synopsis: A school in a romantic school with a romantic teacher. Deaf woman mute by choice.

Other Oscar nominees: Actor (William Hurt), Actress (Marlee Matlin), Supporting Actress (Piper Laurie) and Adapted Screenplay

Winners: Marlee Matlin for Best Actress – the first deaf person to win an acting Oscar and the youngest woman to win at 21.

A scene that proves this: "Never enter my silence."

The first film directed by a woman to be nominated for Best Picture at the 59th ceremony was directed by Randa Haynes. However, he was not among the five male nominees in their respective lineups, which included winners Oliver Stone ("The Squad"), David Lynch ("Blue Velvet"), James Ivory ("A Room With a View"), Roland Joffe ("The Mission") and Woody Allen ("Hannah and Her Sisters"). The accolade comes three years after Barbra Streisand came up short after winning the Golden Globes for Best Director and Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical) for Yentel (1983).

Children of a Lesser God received numerous awards, including a DGA nomination for Heinz and a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Haynes directed three more feature films after his historic recognition: The Doctor (1991), Wrestling With Ernest Hemingway (1993) and Dance With Me (1998). His last directorial work is the TV movie "The Ron Clark Story" (2006).

Movie: "Awakenings" (1990) Distributor: Columbia Pictures Writer: Steven Zillian (based on "Awakenings" by Oliver Sacks) Producers: Walter F. Parks, Lawrence Lasker Synopsis: Victims of an encephalitis have been offered a new epidemic drug for years, but now a new epidemic drug is being offered. The prospect of their revival.

Other Oscar nominees: Actor (Robert De Niro) and Adapted Screenplay

The scene that proves it: "Drugs don't work."

Penny Marshall's powerful drama based on the 1973 memoir beat incredible odds to make it to the 63rd Academy Awards, which included "Ghost," "The Godfather Part 3," "Goodfellas" and eventual winner "Dances With Wolves." The film itself didn't receive any Best Picture nominations from any major body, and even De Niro's name was a surprise considering Robin Williams' Golden Globe nomination. What's so sad about the "Laverne & Shirley" star is that she left us without any official Oscar recognition during her illustrious career as a filmmaker. "Awakenings" is only one of his seven directorial films to be nominated for an award, including classics such as "The Big One" (1988) and "A League of Their Own" (1992).

Movie: "Prince of Tides" Distributor: Columbia Pictures Writer: Pat Conroy, Becky Johnston (based on the novel "Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy) Producer: Barbra Streisand, Andrew S. Karesh Synopsis: A troubled man talks to his sister about his family's suicide history. process

Other Oscar nominees: Actor (Nick Nolte), Supporting Actress (Kate Nelligan), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography (Steven Goldblatt), Production Design (Paul Silbert, Caryl Heller) and Original Score (James Newton Howard)

The scene that proves it: "I didn't know it could happen to a boy."

Academy Award winner Barbra Streisand has shown she has the best acting chops with her Best Actress win for "Funny Girl" (1968) and a nomination for "The Way We Were" (1973), along with her songwriting abilities with a win for original song for the chart-topping "Evergreen" from "A Star Is Born," which is Paul 9-7 with Williams. After becoming the first woman to win a Golden Globe for directing Yentel (1983), but ultimately falling short at the Oscars, she made a remarkable comeback with Prince of Tides, an adaptation of Pat Conroy's novel, and was the most nominated film by a woman (at the time) at the 64th ceremony. Despite receiving his first DGA nomination for directing, he was dropped from the director category in favor of eventual winners Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs"), Barry Levinson ("Bugsy"), John Singleton ("Boyz n the Hood"), Oliver Stone ("JFK") and Ridley Scott ("The"). She was the first woman to be nominated as a producer for a film she directed.

Movie: "The Piano" Distributor: Miramax Films Writer: Jane Campion Producer: Jan Chapman Synopsis: In the middle of the 19th century, a mute woman is sent to New Zealand with her young daughter and a valuable piano to marry a wealthy owner, after a while being worked by a local landowner.

Other Oscar nominees: Director, Actor (Halishkarci), Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin), Original Screenplay, Cinematography (Stuart Dryburgh), Costume Design (Janet Patterson) and Film Editing (Veronica Jennett)

Winners: Actress, Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay

The scene that proves it: "I trusted you." (trigger warning for movie clip)

Jane Campion was the second woman to be nominated for director after the legendary Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties (1975) and the first to be nominated for picture, director and screenplay in the same year. Arguably the eventual Best Picture winner and director of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, the New Zealand-born auteur helmed four other projects that were notably off the Oscar radar: Portrait of a Lady (1996), Holy Smoke (1999) and Holy Smoke (10999) Bright Star (2009). It would be 12 years before the masterful filmmaker returned with her dark western adaptation of the novel "The Power of the Dog," which earned her 12 Oscar nominations, the most for any film directed by a woman.

Movie: "Lost in Translation" Distributor: Focus Features Writer: Sofia Coppola Producers: Ross Katz, Sofia Coppola Synopsis: A fading movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.

Other Oscar nominees: Director, Actor (Bill Murray) and Original Screenplay

The scene that proves it: Bob whispers into Charlotte's ear after saying goodbye.

Sofia Coppola was the first woman to be nominated for writing, directing and producing in the same year, and the first American woman to be recognized as best director. She's also one of five female scribes to be the sole writer for a winner in original screenplay after Frances Marion ("The Big House" and "The Champ"), Callie Khouri ("Thelma & Louise"), Jane Campion ("The Piano"), Diablo Cody ("Juno") and Emerald Fennell ("Promising Young Woman"). For cinephiles, Lost in Translation wasn't the beginning of our love for Coppola.

Before winning his Oscar, he made his feature directorial debut with the drama The Virgin Suicides (1999). After that, she directed the historical drama Marie Antoinette (2006), the contemporary crime film The Bling Ring (2013) and the remake of The Beguiled (2017), which won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, becoming the second woman in the festival's history to win the award. His last film was On the Rocks (2020), which reunited him with Murray.

Other Oscar nominees: Supporting Actor (Alan Arkin), Supporting Actress (Abigail Breslin) and Original Screenplay

Winners: Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay

The scene that proves it: "Why would you kill yourself?"

This classic drama is the feature directorial debut from husband-and-wife team Jonathan Deaton and Valerie Faris, best known for their creative music videos working with artists such as R.E.M., Oasis and The Pumpkin Smash. After screening at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was a box office success, grossing over $100 million on an $8 million budget, earning critical acclaim but losing the pair a directing nomination. Until then in Oscar history, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, the directors of "West Story" (1961), had won for a co-director. Other nominees include eventual winner Martin Scorsese ("The Departed"), Alejandro J. Iñárritu ("Babylon"), Clint Eastwood (The Iwo Jima Letters), Paul Greengrass (United 93) and Stephen Frears ("Queen").

It's easy to argue that it finished second to The Departed in Best Picture after winning the top Producers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild awards. In addition, Faris is the only woman to lead an ensemble cast at the SAG Awards.

Movie: The Hurt Locker Distributor: Summit Entertainment Writer: Mark Boal Producer: Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro Synopsis: During the Iraq War, a sergeant recently assigned to an Army bomb squad joins his fellow soldiers. to work

Other Oscar nominees: Director, Actor (Jeremy Renner), Original Screenplay, Cinematography (Barry Aykroyd), Film Editing (Bob Morawski, Chris Innis), Sound Mixing (Paul N.J. Ottoson, Ray Beckett), Sound Editing (Paul N.J. Ottoson), Beltrami

Award: picture, director, original script, film editing, sound mixing and sound editing

The scene that proves it: "I got a wire."

Kathryn Bigelow made history as the first woman to win Best Director for her war drama The Hurt Locker, the first time a film directed by a woman was nominated. It's also the most Oscars by a Best Picture winner since the field went from 5 to 10 (other films like "Gravity" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" have won as many or more but not for film). Despite being one of the lowest-grossing films in history, Bigelow is the first woman to win a DGA. The film grossed $49 million on a $15 million budget.

Before her Oscar win, moviegoers were well aware of Bigelow's talents, with films such as Near Dark (1987), Blue Steel (1990), Breaking Point (1991) and Strange Days (1995) among her best efforts. The year he won, he received another top Oscar nomination, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), one of the few films to win Best Picture at the New York, Los Angeles and National Board of Review awards. After that, he directed Detroit (2017), which received mixed praise from critics but still showed an eye for tension. Looking forward to the next adventure

Film: "An Education" Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics Writer: Nick Hornby (based on "An Education" by Lynn Barber) Producers: Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey Synopsis: "A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life is changed by the arrival of a boy nearly twice her age."