My Top Favorite Female Movie Directors
by tlev-06565 | created - 01 May 2018 | updated - 30 Dec 2018 | Public
1. Crystal Moselle
Director | Skate Kitchen
Sierra Ditson Moselle (born August 1, 1980), better known as Crystal Moselle, is an American filmmaker, best known for her debut film, The Wolfpack a documentary on the Angulo brothers.
Born Sierra Ditson Moselle, in San Francisco, she attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, ...
Skate Kitchen
2. Kay Cannon
Producer | 30 Rock
Kay Cannon is a screenwriter, actress and producer, best known for Pitch Perfect (2012), Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), and Pitch Perfect 3 (2017). She is also known for her work on NBC's 30 Rock (2006) and the Netflix Original Series Girlboss (2017).
Cannon has won three Writers Guild of America Awards ...
Blockers
3. Quinn Shephard
Actress | Blame
Quinn Shephard is a writer, director and actress based out of the New York area, with a career spanning two decades. At age 15, Shephard began writing her debut feature Blame (2017), inspired by playing Abigail Williams in a New Jersey regional production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. She went ...
Blame
4. Polly Draper
Actress | Shiva Baby
Polly Carey Draper is an award-winning actress, writer, producer, and director. She was born on June 15, 1955 in Gary, Indiana, USA, to Phyllis (Culbertson), a Peace Corps administrator, and William Henry Draper III, who was the CEO of the United Nations. She is most known for her work on ...
Stella's Last Weekend
5. Judy Greer
Actress | 13 Going on 30
Judy Greer was born and raised outside of Detroit, Michigan, as Judith Therese Evans. She is the daughter of Mollie Ann (née Greer), a hospital administrator and former nun, and Richard Evans, a mechanical engineer. She has German, Irish, English, Welsh, and Scottish ancestry. After training for ...
a Happening of Monumental Proportions
6. Lea Thompson
Actress | Back to the Future
Lea Katherine Thompson was born May 31, 1961 in Rochester, Minnesota. She is the youngest of five children. Her parents are Barbara and Cliff Thompson. Since all her siblings were much older than her, Lea says it seemed like she had more than two parents. The family lived in the Starlight motel, ...
The Year of Spectacular Man
7. Marina Zenovich
Director | Lance
Marina Zenovich is an American filmmaker known for her biographical documentaries. Her films include Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which won two Emmy awards. Zenovich was born in Fresno, California. She is the daughter of George N. Zenovich, a former ...
Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mine
8. Marielle Heller
Director | The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Marielle Heller is a writer, director and actor. She was selected as a 2012 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow and 2012 Sundance Directing Fellow, and was honored with the Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellowship, and The Maryland Film Festival Fellowship. Her writing credits include pilots for ABC and ...
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
9. Debra Granik
Director | Leave No Trace
Debra Granik (born February 6, 1963) is an American New York City-based independent film and documentary film director and screenwriter. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and ...
Leave No Trace
10. Elizabeth Chomko
Writer | What They Had
Elizabeth Chomko is an American director, writer and actor. She is a 2016 Sundance lab fellow and in 2015 won an Academy Nicholl Fellowship for What They Had (2018), which she directed and premiered at 2018 Sundance Film Festival and TIFF. She is also a playwright and theatre actress, and has ...
What They Had
11. Hannah Fidell
Writer | A Teacher
Hannah Fidell was born on October 7, 1985 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for A Teacher (2013), A Teacher (2020) and 6 Years (2015). She has been married to Jake Longstreth since September 23, 2017.
The Long Dumb Road
12. Olivia Milch
Producer | Ocean's Eight
Olivia Milch is known for Ocean's Eight (2018), Dude (2018) and Hello Tomorrow! (2023).
Dude
13. Abby Kohn
Writer | I Feel Pretty
Abby Kohn was born on April 9, 1971 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for I Feel Pretty (2018), How to Be Single (2016) and He's Just Not That Into You (2009).
I Feel Pretty
14. Lynne Ramsay
Director | You Were Never Really Here
Lynne Ramsay was born on December 5, 1969 in Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland, UK. She is a director and writer, known for You Were Never Really Here (2017), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and Ratcatcher (1999). She was previously married to Rory Stewart Kinnear.
You Were Never Really Here
15. Jennifer Fox
Producer | The Tale
Jennifer Fox is known for The Tale (2018), My Reincarnation (2011) and Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2006).
The Tale
16. Susanna Fogel
Writer | Booksmart
Susanna Fogel was born on October 8, 1980 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Booksmart (2019), The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) and The Flight Attendant (2020).
The Spy Who Dumped Me
17. Claire Scanlon
Director | Set It Up
Claire Scanlon directs single cam comedies for both network and cable. She started her career editing documentaries for PBS and the Discovery Channel. After supervising post and producing Last Comic Standing, she joined The Office in its fifth season. After directing The Office, Claire transitioned...
Set It Up
18. Elizabeth Rohrbaugh
Producer | Becks
Elizabeth Rohrbaugh is an Emmy Award winning film and TV director. She spent ten years as a director, writer and editor at MTV Networks and is now the creative director of Outer Borough Pictures. Elizabeth is in the process of completing a narrative film "Becks," which she co-directed with Dan ...
Becks
19. Shana Feste
Writer | Dirty Diana
Shana Feste was born on August 28, 1976 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is a writer and director, known for Dirty Diana (2020), Endless Love (2014) and The Greatest (2009).
Boundaries
20. Desiree Akhavan
Director | Appropriate Behavior
Desiree Akhavan was born on December 27, 1984 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and actress, known for Appropriate Behavior (2014), The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) and The Bisexual (2018).
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
21. Mélanie Laurent
Actress | Inglourious Basterds
Mélanie Laurent was born in Paris, France. She is the daughter of Annick, a ballet teacher, and Pierre, a voice actor, who is most recognized for the French version of The Simpsons (1989). She has a younger brother, Mathieu, and has both Sephardi Jewish (from Tunisia) and Ashkenazi Jewish (from ...
Galveston
22. Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Director | Mustang
In 2011 Ergüven was invited to attend the Cannes Film Festivals Atelier to help develop her project, The Kings. While there she met fellow director Alice Winocour who was there to develop her first feature film Augustine. After Ergüven was unable to find financing for her film Winocour suggested ...
Kings
23. Eva Vives
Director | All About Nina
Eva Vives was born in Madrid, Spain. She is a director and writer, known for All About Nina (2018).
All About Nina
24. Josie Rourke
Director | Mary Queen of Scots
Josie is the Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse. Her productions have transferred to Broadway, the West-End and won Olivier Awards. Her shows have been translated into live cinema broadcasts, including Coriolanus with Tom Hiddleston, Les Liaisons Dangereuses with Janet McTeer and Dominic ...
Mary Queen of Scots
25. Bethany Ashton Wolf
Writer | Forever My Girl
Wolf, born and raised in Louisiana, has been a working screenwriter and feature film director in Los Angeles for the past 15 years. She began her career in the indie world, co-writing the controversial short "Don's Plum" starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire.
Wolf then wrote, directed, and ...
Forever My Girl
26. Heather Graham
Actress | Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Heather Joan Graham was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Joan (Bransfield), a schoolteacher and children's book author, and James Graham, an FBI agent. She and her sister, actress Aimee Graham, were raised by their strictly Catholic parents. They relocated often, as a result of their father's ...
Half Magic
27. Sophie Brooks
Writer | The Boy Downstairs
Sophie Brooks' first short film, Malcolm, won second place at NYU's New Visions and Voices Festival. Her subsequent film, Maple Leaves, premiered at The Palm Springs International Short Film Festival in 2014. The Boy Downstairs is her first feature.
The Boy Downstairs will premiere at the 2017 ...
The Boy Downstairs
28. Vanessa Parise
Director | Firefly Lane
Vanessa Parise is a director, actor, and writer. Named one of "Ten Female Directors Breaking Stereotypes" by SheKnows, Vanessa grew up one of five children in a large, extended, Italian-Columbian-Jewish family, which inspired Kiss the Bride (2002).
Parise graduated from Harvard magna cum laude in ...
The Simone Biles Story
29. Jennifer Morrison
Actress | House M.D.
Jennifer Marie Morrison was born in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest child of teachers David and Judy Morrison. She was raised in Arlington Heights, IL, with a younger sister and brother. She attended the same school her parents taught at, Prospect High School. As a child, she did some work as a model...
Sun Dogs
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