30 Current Female Directors You Should Know

Every time I have a discussion with a group about women in film there is invariably the same sentence uttered: “What if male directors just make better movies? Should we hire women just because they’re women?” I usually point out the institutional sexism of the industry, and how there are less options for women because they aren’t given high profile, blockbuster movies like men are. Usually I get a lot of pushback on this. When I then use examples, it generally helps my case, and there are tons of them. Female directors make money at the box office and have been tasked with supposedly male-centric content. Here is a list of female directors who are currently working in Hollywood and are prime examples of true artists in their own right. Note: This list contains women working today, and therefore doesn’t include women like Agnes Varda or Norah Ephron.

Sarah Polley

Polley began her career as an actress on Canadian television before being taken under the wing of director Atom Egoyan. Her feature directorial debut, Away From Her, earned itself an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Honestly it is the saddest film I have ever seen (tied with Random Harvest, another film about forgetting the person you love most). In 2011 she directed the indie drama Take This Waltz, which starred Michelle Williams as an unsure married woman on the cusp of an affair. Her most recent film, Stories We Tell, is a documentary about her own mother’s extramarital affair, which produced Polley, a fact that the director remained unaware of for many years. Recently she has completed a six part miniseries adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “Alias Grace.”

Lone Scherfig

Scherfig is a lesser known member of the Dogme 95 movement, which originated in Denmark. In recent years she has been recognized for her work on the incredibly beautiful, An Education, and the romantic drama One Day. She is only now being recognized as a vital and enervating voice in film, her most recent films being British productions such as The Riot Club and Their Finest.

Miranda July

Whatever your opinion of Miranda July you have to admit that she is a deeply influential experimental filmmaker that has created original narratives unseen before. What turns many people off about July is that she works in many different realms: filmmaking, literature, experimental performance, music, acting. I’m unsure if the woman ever sleeps, quite frankly. My favorite of her films is Me and You and Everyone We Know, which has an iconic line my friends have oft repeated in jest. The film is weird and truthful, and says something larger about loneliness. Her most recent film was The Future, which follows a discontented couple who are trying to live free before they have to pick up their omniscient cat from the vet. It’s very odd but incredibly interesting and powerful.

Jennifer Kent

Kent is another actress turned director, originally from Australia. She has only directed one film but it is one that has become beloved in short order. The Babadook is a psychological horror film that has seriously stood out in recent years, as it fuses the paranoia of mental illness and the realm of dreams, while creating serious supernatural occurrences. It was even praised by William Friedkin, who directed the classic horror film The Exorcist. It’s a must-see film if you love suspense or horror.

Lynn Shelton

Shelton began her career as a film editor before transitioning into directing in the mid-aughts. After hearing a speech by French director Claire Denis, who revealed she started her career late in life, Shelton decided to start making her own films. Shelton has generally worked in indie filmmaking, and some of her films include Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister, and my personal favorite, Laggies. Her films feature female protagonists dealing with a variety of issues, whether it’s the inability to connect, to grow up, or to commit to a relationship, her female characters always have personal problems that aren’t solved easily. She also works in television, having directed episodes of New Girl, Mad Men, Fresh Off the Boat, and Master of None.

Mira Nair

Nair is originally from India, but has been based in New York City since graduating from Harvard. Nair is a highly influential, varied, and technically brilliant director who first gained widespread attention with her 1988 film Salaam Bombay! The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and since then she has been showered with awards for films such as Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Fair. If you think she is a niche filmmaker, you can look no further than her most recent films Amelia, a biopic of Amelia Earhart, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a political thriller drama, and Queen of Katwe, a sports drama. She also teaches at Columbia University.

Jill Soloway

Note: Jill Soloway uses gender neutral pronouns. Soloway may be one of the most famous female directors to be known primarily for television. Soloway has made two films, which are called Una Hora Por Favora and Afternoon Delight. They won Best Director at Sundance for the former. What people know them for is their creation of Transparent and their work on Six Feet Other. Their work in television has been monumental, as it also coincided with their first relationship with a woman. Transparent is an important piece of American media, and is well directed by Soloway. With this exposure they will probably make many more films.

Sam Taylor-Johnson

If you already know about Taylor-Johnson it’s for one of two reasons: 1. She directed Fifty Shades of Grey, or 2. She is in a May-December relationship with her husband, Kickass star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is 24 years younger than her. Before she directed the hugely successful adaptation Fifty Shades of Grey, she directed several short films and the 2009 film Nowhere Boy, which covered the early life of John Lennon and was nominated for three BAFTAs. It also catapulted her future husband to stardom and created buzz around her career. In 2018 her series Gypsy will premiere on Netflix, which stars Naomi Watts.

Elizabeth Banks

Banks has only recently turned to directing, getting her start starring in Wet Hot American Summer and rising as a comedy icon since. She has directed some segments in larger films, before helming Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015. Banks has apparently always wanted to direct, and this film clearly shows that she can helm a larger production. It’s unclear what her next directorial project will be, though she is producing Pitch Perfect 3.

Maren Ade

Maren Ade is a highly influential and talented German filmmaker who has won numerous awards, teaches in Berlin, and runs her own film company. While I have not seen any of her films, I am especially excited to see her newest film Toni Erdmann, which almost won the highly contentious race for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars. Her others films include The Forest for the Trees and Everyone Else. Most of her work involves her as a producer through her production company, and hopefully with this recent recognition she will be able to bankroll another film soon.

Catherine Hardwicke

Hardwicke rose to prominence with her film Thirteen, yet has slowly lost credibility after directing both Twilight, and Red Riding Hood. In recent years she has returned to the gritty realism of indie filmmaking with the erotic thriller Plush, and the female buddy drama Miss You Already. Hardwicke is probably one of the most commercially viable directors on this list, and I don’t wish her ill will for making commercial films, as every serious male director has done in their life. I just wish some studio would give her a lot of money to make more films like Thirteen, a film that was personal, one-of-a-kind, and generally needed. Flawed female characters need movie screen space and Hardwicke is a great crusader in that battle.

Jennifer Yu Nelson

Yu Nelson started her career in production design for the highly influential film Dark City, and has gone on to have a hand in many Dreamworks animated releases in the last ten years. She finally broke through as a director when she helmed Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3. Women basically never direct animated films. Brenda Chapman was the first woman to helm a Disney princess movie in 2012 with Brave, though that brand almost exclusively centers on female characters. Yu Nelson has won two Annie awards and is set to release The Darkest Minds in 2018.

Nicole Holofcener

Holofcener gained attention with her debut feature film Walking and Talking, the first of four collaborations between her and Catherine Keener. Holofcener’s subsequent films have also dealt with women and their relationships, including between friends, mothers and daughters, and romantic partners. Her most recent film was the lovely Enough Said, which starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini in one of his last roles. She has directed a lot of television, including episodes of One Mississippi, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Orange is the New Black. Her most recent film venture was writing the screenplay for Can You Ever Forgive Me? which will be directed by another female director, Marielle Heller.

Michelle MacLaren

MacLaren is a hugely successful television director who is critically lauded, and is a seminal female figure in the world of directorial work. She began her career in made for television movies, but quickly gained prominence for her work on The X-Files in the early aughts. Since turning to TV exclusively MacLaren has won back-to-back Emmys for her work on Breaking Bad, and has recently directed episodes of Better Call Saul, Westworld, and Modern Family. She recently passed on directing Wonder Woman, so a feature film debut may be right around the corner.

Ava DuVernay

I’m not sure if DuVernay would classify her as such, but to me she is a true activist. She gained public attention in 2014 for Selma, though she had previously directed a documentary and two narrative films. DuVernay was famously snubbed from a nomination for Best Director that year, though the film itself was nominated for Best Picture. This past year she was again nominated for an Oscar, this time for her documentary 13th. At this time DuVernay is directing an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time for Walt Disney. This venture is historic as DuVernay is the first black woman to direct a live-action film with a budget of over $100 million.

Patty Jenkins

Jenkins doesn’t have a lot of titles on her filmography (two) but I have a lot of confidence for her future work. Her biggest and most well-known work was writing and directing the film Monster, which won Charlize Theron an Oscar for Best Actress. Since then she has worked more in television and small indie films. Her current project, and the one she is getting the most buzz about, is her direction of the new Wonder Woman film. Hopefully this lends to much bigger budgeted studio films for this indie darling.

Sofia Coppola

Coppola is an obvious entry as she is a prominent name when talking about female directors and their work. Coppola is a product of a film family, as she is the daughter of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and the cousin of Nicholas Cage. In lieu of her poor acting Coppola turned her eye to being behind the camera, releasing The Virgin Suicides in 1999. She was propelled into stardom with Lost in Translation, which won her a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2003. Since then she has directed two big studio films, Marie Antoinette and The Bling Ring, and is set to release a great looking Southern Gothic film entitled The Beguiled, out this year.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite

You may not know her name but you probably have heard of her explosively enlightening documentary Blackfish, which concerns the barbaric treatment of killer whales at SeaWorld. She has only made two other films, 2010’s City Lax: An Urban Lacrosse Story, and 2017’s Megan Leavy, which is her first narrative feature. Cowperthwaite likes to tell stories from perspectives that aren’t often given credence, including those of street kids, or whale trainers, or a female US Marine corporal who helped train K9 military police dogs. I look forward to seeing her upward trajectory.

Amma Asante

Amma Asante should be a much bigger deal. She started her career as a child actor in the UK before founding her own production company and becoming a director. Asante won a newcomer BAFTA for her debut film A Way of Life, and significant praise for her biopic Belle, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Her work often focuses on race in her native country, as well as its historic implications in everyday life. Her most recent film, A United Kingdom, details the real-life mixed-race romance of Sir Seretse Kharma and Ruth Williams Kharma in 1940s Botswana. Her next film is called Where Hands Touch, which will be released this year.

Gurinder Chadha

Chadha is a British director of Indian descent who has made several classic films about being Indian and British. Her films Bend it Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice are widely seen as chick flicks that center on the romantic aspirations and personal goals of young women, and deal with cultural identity and heritage. Her most recent film, Viceroy’s House, centers on the Lord and Lady Mountbatten’s household during India’s transition to Independence in 1947. She has recently mentioned hopes for making a sequel to Bend it Like Beckham, and is trying to work with Oscar winner A.R. Rahman for a Dreamworks backed Indian musical.

Dee Rees

This is a name that you should memorize for future reference. Dee Rees is quickly becoming a buzzed about name in the entertainment world. She gained traction with her independently released LGBT drama Pariah in 2011, and directed the HBO biopic Bessie in 2015. The Tennessee born director is set to direct this year’s Mudbound, adapted from the book of the same name, and worked on the recently released docudrama When We Rise, created by Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black. Dee Rees is an innovative director who speaks to the LGBT experience, as well as the black experience, and will be a seminal figure in film fairly soon.

Claire Denis

As I’ve said before in this list, Denis did not make her first film until she was forty years old. Her film Chocolat (1988) was entered at Cannes that same year. From that first film Denis has enjoyed a long and storied career as a director and has been nominated for several prestigious prizes, including the Golden Lion and Palm d’Or. Her films often deal with themes relating to Africa’s colonization by the French, and modern life in said country. Her most recent film is Let the Sunshine In which is set to open a particular section of Cannes.

Andrea Arnold

Arnold is a British director who began her career making short films, eventually winning for Best Short Film for Wasp in 2003. Quickly she made the leap to feature films with Red Road, a film whose narratives were created by a committee, and it was the first in the Advance Party trilogy. The film also won the Jury Prize at Cannes, the first of three Arnold helmed films to do so. Fish Tank and American Honey soon followed and launched Arnold into the public consciousness. Arnold’s films often deal with the social isolation and dissidence of being a teenage girl of British origin. Whatever she releases next should be immediately viewed and lavished with praise.

Karyn Kusama

Kusama hasn’t directed a lot of films, but of the ones she has, hard hitting female characters are a must. Her first feature film was 2000’s Girlfight, which she also wrote. The film starred Michelle Rodriguez as a female boxer in a male dominated sport. The film gained two Independent Spirit Awards and launched Kusama’s career. She went on to direct the high profile films Aeon Flux and Jennifer’s Body, and recently released the horror film The Invitation. She currently directs a lot of high profile television series, and will soon release the horror anthology XX.

Susanne Bier

Susanne Bier is one of the biggest female directors working today. She is the first woman to win a Golden Globe, Academy Award, Emmy Award, and a European Film Award. Bier is of Danish descent and her best known films deal Danish people helping foreign borne immigrants and refuges. Her 2006 film After the Wedding was nominated by the Academy for Best Foreign Language Film, which In a Better World won in 2011. Her more recent films include the buried Serena, a thriller called A Second Chance, and a British serial drama entitled The Night Manager.

Gina Prince-Bythewood

Prince-Blythewood has been working for many years. She is an American director who often directs films that detail the black experience and feature black casts. Her best known film is probably her first, entitled Love & Basketball, which she also wrote. From that stepping stone she went on to direct the adaptation The Secret Lives of Bees, and the British produced Beyond the Lights, which was nominated for Best Original Song at the 2014 Oscars. Recently she has written the screenplay for the Groundhog-esque Before I Fall, and worked on the television shows Shots Fired and Cloak & Dagger.

Dorota Kobiela

Kobiela hasn’t directed much, but what she has is breathtakingly beautiful. Her only finished work so far are two short animated films from 2011. For several years she has been working on a singular project. The documentary Loving Vincent promises to be one of the most breathtaking cinematic experiences in recent years. The film is fully animated, but in actuality every frame of it is in itself an oil painting. She is co-directing this film, and it will soon be released this year. I can’t wait to see what Kobiela’s career will evolve into.

Gillian Robespierre

I fell in love with this director after seeing her indie film Obvious Child, and though that was her first film, and the only one released up until this year, I still love Gillian Robespierre. Her debut feature film was funny, thoughtful, assured, and truthful. Her next film is entitled Landline, and it also stars Jenny Slate. Hopefully she creates more stories about the female experience and its many complications. She has shown interest in developing a show for FX and wants to helm bigger movies, so please Hollywood, do so in short order, thanks.

Haifaa al-Mansour

Al-Mansour is one of the bravest women in the world. Defying possible death and torture, al-Mansour became the first female Saudi film director, becoming one of the most controversial figures in the country. Just to shoot her amazingly beautiful film Wadjda she had to remain out of the sight during the entire shooting, sometimes having to relay directions via walkie talkie from inside a van. That amazing film follows a small Saudi girl who just wants to ride her bike and live her life without persecution. The film was deeply personal, beatific, engaging, and is a one-of-a-kind depiction of life in a very guarded country. Before this immense film she directed the documentary Women Without Shadows, which won several Arab awards. Al-Mansour’s most current project is a biopic of Mary Shelley, which is currently shooting in Luxembourg.

Kathryn Bigelow

And of course, we must end with the face of female directors, (though she should be the face of directors in general, but whatever, that’s a whole other conversation) Kathryn Bigelow. She began her career working in genre films like The Loveless, Born in Flames, and the cult success Near Dark before switching to more action based films, like Blue Steel and Point Break. Bigelow shifted to more serious films in the aughts, eventually winning Best Director for The Hurt Locker in 2009, becoming the first woman to do so. Since that pivotal win she has directed the thriller Zero Dark Thirty, and the soon-to-be released crime biopic Detroit. She is legendary, talented, and above all else a renegade who pushed through many barriers to direct the kind of films that she wanted to. Not many women are tasked with big action films, genre flicks, or period pieces. Bigelow not only showed Hollywood that a woman could take on these sizable projects, but that they demanded it.

These are women who have made more recent films, but that’s not to say there aren’t many, many more. Penelope Spheeris and Tamra Davis taught me that women can helm mostly male comedies. Penny Marshall’s work was hugely influential for many female filmmakers who just wanted a chance in the studio world. I also would love to espouse my love for Norah Ephron, who has created vivid narratives about being a modern woman, or Nancy Meyers, whose films are all favorites of mine. There are so many female directors working today, and in the past, that one list feels arbitrary and useless. Film blogs shouldn’t even have to compile lists of female directors, like they are mythical unicorns that are seen in your periphery and are then gone in a blink. You as the consumer can change this. Find female directed films. Go see them on opening day, which is what the studios are looking for. Make women cool, you guys, because they’re sick of climbing barriers just to entertain you.