For far too long, the history of film has been written as if it were somehow exclusively a story about beret-wearing men chain-smoking their way through film studios. But the reality is richer—and more inclusive. Throughout the earliest days of moving images to today’s billion-dollar franchises, women have been breaking rules, challenging conventions, and advancing the medium. So, with insights from Columbia College Chicago’s Karla Rae Fuller, PhD, here’s a countdown of ten trailblazers who prove film history would be incomplete without them.
10. Jane Campion – Master of the Human Psyche
Jane Campion does not merely make movies; she examines the human condition. With The Piano or Top of the Lake, whatever she does, her films strip away the surface levels of women’s lives in all their messy, complicated, and lovely incarnations. Campion never avoids the painful truths about women’s lives, Fuller writes, and her characters do not fall into easy classification. Need a cinema that sees into the soul? Campion provides.
9. Chloé Zhao – Redefining the Modern Western
Chloé Zhao has a talent for genre-bending and placing marginalized communities at the forefront. With Nomadland, she became the first female director of Asian descent to win the Best Director Oscar, blending documentary realism with narrative fiction. Her films are both intimate and expansive, earthy yet otherworldly. As Fuller describes, Zhao places marginalized voices on screen while redefining time-tested genres. If you believe the Western is passé, Zhao will show otherwise.
8. Greta Gerwig – Indie Darling Turned Worldwide Phenomenon
Greta Gerwig has accomplished what everyone believed was impossible: transitioning from indie respectability to blockbuster achievement without sacrificing her personal voice. Lady Bird and Little Women reinterpreted the coming-of-age genre, and Barbie proved to the world that a female-led blockbuster could be a billion-dollar behemoth as well. Fuller deems her work an effortless marriage of the intensely personal and the universally human—and who else can make a doll become a cultural phenomenon?
7. Ava DuVernay – The Advocate of Justice On Film
Ava DuVernay’s movies don’t merely tell stories—she sets fires with them. Through Selma and 13th, she placed systemic racism and inequality on the screen where they couldn’t be avoided. She has also been a tireless campaigner for diversity off the screen, transforming the Hollywood landscape. Fuller highlights that DuVernay demonstrates that cinema has the power to be a tool for change. Her work shows us that art isn’t merely entertainment—it can be activism.
6. Kathryn Bigelow – Breaking the Action Barrier
Kathryn Bigelow broke glass ceilings with The Hurt Locker, becoming the first female to win an Oscar for Best Director. But her life is not about trophies; it’s about demonstrating that action films and war films can be more than formulaic. Fuller points out her gritty realism and complex characters, which add depth to genres traditionally thought of as male domains. If you believe action films are just explosions and bullets, Bigelow’s movies will make you think differently.
5. Susan Seidelman – The Feminist Voice of the 1980s
With Desperately Seeking Susan, Susan Seidelman didn’t merely introduce Madonna to cinema—she placed unapologetically raw women front and center in her narratives. A graduate of the “film school generation,” Seidelman captured the 880srebellious attitude and demonstrated female characters could be complicated, imperfect, and compelling anti-heroes. Fuller atiser with redefining the way women’s narratives were presented in cinema throughout the decade.
4. Lina Wertmüller – Italy’s Bold Provocateur
Lina Wertmüller was not afraid to combine politics, tragedy, and comedy in movies such as Seven Beauties and Love and Anarchy. She became the first woman to ever be nominated for the Best Director Oscar, and she brought depth to female characters during a period when Italian cinema only reduced them to stereotypes. Fuller refers to her as brazen—and anyone who has watched her movies will agree that’s an understatement.
3. Ida Lupino – Hollywood’s Indie Pioneer
Ida Lupino began on camera, but her most innovative work was done behind it. During the 1940s and ’50s, she directed independent films that dealt with taboo subjects such as assault, bigamy, and women’s independence. The Hitch-Hiker made her the first female to direct a film noir, and her perseverance opened doors for women in a field that only marginally allowed them in. Fuller refers to her as a pioneer who produced indie films long before the term was coined.
2. Dorothy Arzner – Defying Hollywood’s Golden Age
At a time when female directors barely existed, Dorothy Arzner fought a career in the studio system with movies such as Dance, Girl, Dance and The Wild Party. Arzner was also one of the earliest Hollywood film directors to be openly gay, contributing fresh ideas to the work. Fuller writes that Arzner didn’t merely exist in the system—she manipulated it to suit her needs, opening the doors for future generations.
1. Alice Guy-Blaché – Cinema’s Forgotten Mother
Long before there was Hollywood, Alice Guy-Blaché was developing the vocabulary of cinema. In 1896, she made her first film, played with sound synchronization and color, and went on to own the Solax Company—the largest studio in pre-Hollywood America. With over 300 films to her credit, she effectively redefined what it meant to be a director. Fuller emphasizes that her own work has been unfairly neglected, but aside from Guy-Blaché, present-day filmmaking may not have been possible. She is not only a pioneer—she’s the ground-zero pioneer.
From silent era pioneers to contemporary visionaries, these women remind us that film has always been directed by more than its “usual suspects.” Theirs was work that smashed barriers, defied conventions, and opened doors for voices that might otherwise have remained unspoken. They didn’t merely tell stories—they rewrote the story of film itself.