List
Women in the Director's Chair: 21st Century
If you think this is a long list, consider how many films have been directed by men.
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Love & Basketball
2000Get this itemGina Prince-Bythewood's 2000 film has become a classic. The fact that it was her first feature film as a director makes its success all the more poignant. She has gone on to direct The Secret Life of Bees (2008), Beyond the Lights (2014), and the popular Netflix action movie The Old Guard (2020).
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American Psycho
2005Get this itemThis 2000 film was a breakout movie for actor Christian Bale, though it should have been for its director, Mary Harron. Ultra-violent and sardonic, Harron's use of film to depict this serial killer-for-sport is brutal, wickedly dark, and proves to be a biting satire on greed and narcissism. She also co-wrote the script (with Guinevere Turner), adapted from a novel by Bret Easton Ellis.
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Monsoon Wedding
2002Get this itemIndian-American filmmaker Mira Nair broke out with her now classic Salaam Bombay! in 1988. That film brought her to Hollywood, where in 1991, she directed Denzel Washington in Mississippi Masala. This 2001 film, however, is often called her masterpiece.
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Bridget Jones's Diary
2004Get this itemWhen deciding who should direct this 2001 film, based on the wildly popular book (that started a publishing revolution featuring strong female main characters), who else but a woman could direct it? The pick was Sharon Maguire, who made a name for herself directing music videos and television. This was her first feature film, and recently, she returned to the Bridget Jones's helm for Bridget Jones's Baby (2016).
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Bend It Like Beckham
2003Get this itemLike Mira Nair, Gurinder Chadha is of Indian origin. Chadha broke onto the scene with this 2002 film, which secured her place in the British film world. She then followed this movie up with the equally well-received Bride and Prejudice (2004).
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Real Women Have Curves
2003Get this itemColombian director Patricia Cardoso's 2002 film was her first Hollywood film. Even with this well-received breakout movie, Cardoso has yet to follow up with another studio feature, proving that female directors have it tough, but not as tough as female directors of color.
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Whale Rider
2003Get this itemNiki Caro, a filmmaker out of New Zealand, scored big with this 2002 hit, which led to the Oscar-nominated 2005 film North Country, as well as a couple of Disney-produced films: McFarland, USA (2015) and Mulan (2020).
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Thirteen
2004Get this itemCatherine Hardwicke received so much acclaim for this 2003 film that when it came time to helm the first film in the massively popular Twilight franchise, Hardwicke scored the job. 2008's Twilight was not only a swooner for tweens and teens around the world, it also secured this director's place in Hollywood.
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Monster
2004Get this itemBefore she directed the massive 2017 hit Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins debuted her directorial skills with this 2003 gem that won Charlize Theron an Oscar for Best Actress and plenty of praise for Jenkins as well. Enough praise to lead her to helm one of the top box-office films of 2017 as well as Wonder Woman 1984 in 2020.
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Something's Gotta Give
2004Get this itemNancy Meyers made a great team with husband Charles Shyer. Together they wrote and he directed great films such as Baby Boom with Diane Keaton (1987) and the reboot of Father of the Bride with Steve Martin (1991). When they split, Meyers broke out as a director (while still writing too), leading to this 2003 rom-com gem, starring Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Since then, she's directed Meryl Streep in It's Complicated (2009) and Robert DeNiro in The Intern (2015).
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Savages
2008Get this itemIn 1998, the low-budget film Slums of Beverly Hills became a cult hit. It took nine years for director Tamara Jenkins to direct her follow-up, this 2007 film about a struggling relationship between brother and sister.
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Things We Lost in the Fire
2008Get this itemSuzanne Bier, a Danish film director, might have had her start making movies in Sweden and Denmark, but since Hollywood discovered her many talents, she's only increased her creative output. Switching back and forth between movies and television (she directed all six episodes of the acclaimed 2016 mini-series The Night Manager), she has proven she can excel in either medium. This 2007 film is one of the best examples of her Hollywood feature films.
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The Kids Are All Right
2010Get this itemBefore this film, director Lisa Cholodenko was an indie-film goddess. Her movies High Art (1998) and Laurel Canyon (2002) were very well received. In 2010, she made this film, which took her into the mainstream, as she was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
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Winter's Bone
2010Get this itemWriter-director Debra Granik scores with this 2010 film (only her second feature film), featuring a breakout role for Jennifer Lawrence. As a result, she and co-writer Anne Rosellini were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars.
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Zero Dark Thirty
2013Get this itemIn 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held in Hollywood and Lewis Milestone was named Best Director for Two Arabian Knights. A ridiculous 80 years later, Kathryn Bigelow won the same award for her 2008 film, The Hurt Locker, being the first woman ever to do so. Only five women, including Bigelow, have even been nominated. She followed up that monumental win with this 2012 movie, proving she was definitely not going to rest on her "Oscar" laurels.
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Selma
2015Get this itemIn 2014, Ava DuVernay took the reigns of one of the top films of the year. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, after all. You wouldn't know that this was just DuVernay's third directorial feature. Since then, she's directed the documentary 13th (which was nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar) and A Wrinkle in Time (2018).
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The Rider
2018Get this itemChloé Zhao had a heck of a 2020. In a year that proved discombobulating for most of us, Zhao gave us Nomadland, which is giving her the most acclaim of her career. Before that, she earned her stripes directing (and writing) such films as Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) and this 2017 film.
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Lady Bird
2018Get this itemGreta Gerwig is an actress whom you might have seen in quirky, indie films of note. Her breakout film was 2011's Damsels in Distress, which was followed by the equally popular Frances Ha in 2012, which she also co-wrote. After co-writing Mistress America (2015) with her partner Noah Baumbach, she decided to shift her focus to directing. This feature, from 2017, propelled her to achieve something very few women have (five to be exact): get nominated for a Best Director Oscar.
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2020Get this itemCéline Sciamma, a French writer/director, made her directorial debut with the 2007 film Water Lilies. She has since directed the notable French films Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014). This 2019 movie's beautifully lush and vivid look complement its story of art and passion.
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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
2020Get this itemMarielle Heller is a triple threat: writer, actor, and director. Starting with 2015's The Diary of a Teenage Girl (for which she also wrote the screenplay), she followed with Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018), and the next year teamed with Tom Hanks for this feature.
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The Farewell
2019Get this itemThis 2019 film, directed by Chinese-American Lulu Wang, was the breakout hit of the year. Considering this is only Wang's second feature (after 2014's Posthumous), I hope there is much more to come from this filmmaker.
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