Only nine women have been nominated a total of ten times (with three wins so far) in the Academy Awards’ 97-year history….
By Christopher Turner
The Academy Awards have been around since 1929, but to date, only nine different women have been nominated a total of ten times in the Best Director category. Since Lina Wertmüller became the first woman nominated for the prestigious award in 1977, there have only been a handful of subsequent nominations, and a lengthy list of notable snubs. Only three of the women who were nominated for the award have ever won it: Kathryn Bigelow, Chloé Zhao and Jane Campion.
Coralie Fargeat, who was nominated for directing The Substance at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards, is now the ninth woman to be nominated in the Best Director category. We’ll see if she takes home the award when the Oscars are handed out at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 2, 2025 at 7:00pm ET.
In the meantime, here are all of the women who have been nominated for Best Director at the Oscars throughout the years in order of their nomination.
Lina Wertmüller
Seven Beauties (released in 1975)
At the 49th annual Academy Awards, which were presented on March 28, 1977, Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller was the very first woman nominated for Best Director for her World War II film, Seven Beauties. Seven Beauties is an Italian-language movie about an Italian man who deserts the army during World War II, and is captured by Germans and sent to prison camp.
The film received three other Academy Award nominations besides Best Director, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Foreign Language Film. Unfortunately, Wertmüller lost the directing category to John G. Avildsen for Rocky.
In a 2018 interview with Variety, Wertmüller — who died on December 9, 2021 at the age of 93 — reflected on the significance of her nomination, saying: “to this day I get thank-you letters from directors who say they have been inspired by my experience.”
Jane Campion
The Piano (released 1993)
After Wertmüller it would be 17 years until another woman was nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards.
At the 66th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on March 21, 1994, Jane Campion became the second woman to be nominated for directing a film for her classic The Piano. The film focuses on a mute Scottish woman who travels to a remote part of New Zealand with her young daughter after her arranged marriage to a settler.
Though Champion didn’t take home Best Director award that year, she did win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and stars Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin (then just 11 years old) took home the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards, respectively. Steven Spielberg ultimately won the Best Director award that year for Schindler’s List.
Sofia Coppola
Lost in Translation (released in 2003)
Ten years after Champion’s nomination, Sofia Coppola — daughter of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola — joined the exclusive club of women when she was nominated for Lost in Translation, which starred Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. The film is about a fading American movie star who is having a midlife crisis when he travels to Tokyo and befriends another estranged American, a young college graduate.
At the 76th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on February 29, 2004, Coppola lost Best Director to Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. However, like Campion before her, Coppola did win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Kathryn Bigelow, 2009
The Hurt Locker (released 2008)
History was finally made at the 82nd annual Academy Awards, which took place on March 7, 2010, when a woman was finally awarded Best Director. Kathryn Bigelow won for her war drama The Hurt Locker, a drama about members of a Gulf War bomb disposal unit, which is now considered to be one of the most influential war films of the 2000s and the 21st century.
“This really is, um, there’s no other way to describe it, it’s the moment of a lifetime. First of all, this is so extraordinary to be in the company of such powerful, my fellow nominees, such powerful filmmakers who have inspired me and I have admired for, some of whom, for decades,” Bigelow said in her historic acceptance speech.
Greta Gerwig
Lady Bird, (released 2017)
Despite Bigelow’s big moment, it was eight years until another woman was nominated for Best Director at the Oscars. At the 90th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on March 4, 2018, Greta Gerwig was nominated for Best Director for the cult hit Lady Bird.
Though the film had five Oscar nominations — and critical acclaim — it was shut out at the ceremony winning nothing. Saorise Ronan and Laurie Metcalf were both nominated in acting categories, Gerwig was also nominated for best original screenplay, and the film was nominated for best picture. The Best Director award that year went to Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water.
Chloé Zhao
Nomadland (released in 2020)
The second woman to win Best Director — and the first woman of Asian descent to do so — was Chloé Zhao at the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, which was held on April 25, 2021. Zhao won the directing award that year for Nomadland, which stars Francis McDormand as a woman who pursues a nomadic lifestyle in the United States.
Nomadland also won the Best Picture award that year, and McDormand won the award for Best Actress. Zhao was also nominated for, but did not win, the Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
Emerald Fennell
Promising Young Woman (released in 2020)
Not only was 2021 historic because of Zhao’s win, but it also marked the first time two of the five Best Director nominees were female: Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell was also nominated for Best Director at the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, which was held on April 25, 2021. Promising Young Woman was Fennell’s feature directorial debut and starred Carey Mulligan as a troubled young woman haunted by a traumatic past as she navigates forgiveness and vengeance.
Fennell lost the Best Director Oscar to Zhao, but she did take home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Jane Campion
Power of the Dog (released in 2021)
Power of the Dog was widely recognized as one of the best films of 2021, appearing on numerous top-ten lists, and receiving countless accolades, including a leading 12 nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, which were held on March 27, 2022. Jane Campion, who previously nominated for the Best Director award for The Piano, was nominated for Best Director for the Western psychological drama… the only woman in history to be nominated twice in the category.
Ultimately, Campion won Best Director for Power of the Dog and became the third woman in history to win the award.
Campion’s Oscars honour also marked a two-year winning streak for female directors.
Justine Triet
Anatomy of a Fall (released in 2023)
French writer and director Justine Triet was nominated for Best Director for Anatomy of a Fall, which she also co-wrote. The film also received five nominations at the 96th Academy Awards, which took place on March 10, 2024.
Anatomy of a Fall is a French film that stars Sandra Hüller (who was nominated for Best Actress) as a woman attempting to prove that she’s innocent of her husband’s possible murder.
Of her nomination, Triet said: “I was surprised because there are no more women beside me. So of course, I’m so, so lucky and very proud of all these things … It was not a dream because I could not imagine.”
Triet did not win the directing category that year, that went to Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer, but she and writing partner Arthur Harari did, however, win the award for Best Original Screenplay.
Coralie Fargeat
The Substance (released in 2024)
Coralie Fargeat is the ninth woman to be nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards, and the tenth nomination overall. Fargeat is nominated for her buzzy film The Substance, which stars Demi Moore as an actress in her 50s who, after being fired from a longtime gig, takes a drug that creates a younger version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley.
For the directing award, Fargeat is competing against Sean Baker (Anora), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), James Mangold (A Complete Unknown), and Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) at the upcoming 97th annual Academy Awards ceremony, which will take place on March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
“This is such amazing news, I was screaming out of joy,” Fargeat told Good Morning America after her nomination in January. She added of being only the ninth female nominated for the award, “It says a lot about the road we still have to go, and personally I’m extremely proud to be part of these heads and lead. I wanted to be a film maker and director since I was 15. That’s who I am, that’s where I feel free and good and powerful.”
