Directors

1. Isabel Coixet

Isabel Coixet was born on April 9, 1960 in Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. She is a director and writer, known for My Life Without Me (2003), The Secret Life of Words (2005) and The Bookshop (2017).

2. Claire Denis

Director | High Life

The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the...

3. Elaine May

Actress | Small Time Crooks

Elaine May (born under the name Elaine Iva Berlin) is an American actress, comedian, film director, playwright, and screenwriter from Philadelphia. Her professional career started in the 1950s and is still ongoing. She has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She ...

4. Barbara Loden

Actress | Wanda

A one-time pin-up beauty and magazine story model, Barbara Loden studied acting in New York in the early 50s and was on the Broadway boards within the decade. She was discovered for films by legendary producer/director Elia Kazan who was impressed with what she did in a small role as Montgomery ...

5. Alice Rohrwacher

Director | Lazzaro felice

Alice Rohrwacher was born on December 29, 1981 in Fiesole, Tuscany, Italy. She is a director and writer, known for Happy as Lazzaro (2018), La Chimera (2023) and The Wonders (2014).

6. Nadine Labaki

Actress | Et maintenant on va où?

Nadine Labaki was born on February 18, 1974 in Beirut, Lebanon. She is an actress and director, known for Where Do We Go Now? (2011), Capernaum (2018) and Caramel (2007). She has been married to Khaled Mouzanar since October 2007.

7. Diane Kurys

Director | Pour une femme

Diane Kurys was born on December 3, 1948 in Lyon, Rhône, France. She is an actress and director, known for For a Woman (2013), Entre Nous (1983) and Peppermint Soda (1977).

8. Chantal Akerman

Director | Les rendez-vous d'Anna

Chantal Akerman was born on June 6, 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on October 5, 2015 in Paris, France.

9. Camille Billops

Director | Finding Christa

Camille Billops started as a sculptor and painter, became a filmmaker, and amassed a treasure trove of books, documents, and photographs related to black culture.She was born in Los Angeles in 1933 and studied art at the University of Southern California there and later switched to childhood ...

10. Chick Strand

Director | Angel Blue Sweet Wings

Chick Strand was born on December 3, 1931 in Berkeley, California, USA. She was a director and editor, known for Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966), Kristallnacht (1979) and Cartoon le Mousse (1979). She was married to Paul Anderson Strand and Neon Park. She died on July 11, 2009 in Los Angeles, ...

11. Joyce Chopra

Director | The Lemon Sisters

Joyce Chopra was born on October 27, 1936. She is a director and producer, known for The Lemon Sisters (1989), Smooth Talk (1985) and Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front (2006). She was previously married to Tom Cole.

12. Eliza Hittman

Director | Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Eliza Hittman was born on January 1, 1979 in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), Beach Rats (2017) and It Felt Like Love (2013).

13. Margarethe von Trotta

Director | Hannah Arendt

Margarethe von Trotta was born in Berlin in 1942. In the 1960s she moved to Paris where she worked for film collectives, collaborating on scripts and co-directing short films. She also pursued an acclaimed acting career, starring in films by well known German directors such as Rainer Werner ...

14. Maren Ade

Producer | Toni Erdmann

Maren Ade was born in Karlsruhe on 12 December 1976 to a couple of teachers.She studied cinema at Munich's Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film. As of 2001 she co-founded, together with Janine Jackowski, a fellow graduate from HFF, the "Komplizen" film company. It is through Komplizen that Maren would...

15. Lina Wertmüller

Writer | Pasqualino Settebellezze

During the 1970s, Lina Wertmüller emblazoned her name into the pantheon of Italian cinema with a series of intensely polemical, deeply controversial and wonderfully entertaining films. Among the most politically outspoken and iconoclastic members of the second generation of postwar directors - the ...

16. Larisa Shepitko

Director | Voskhozhdenie

Larisa Shepitko was born on January 6, 1938 in Bakhmut, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine]. She was a director and writer, known for The Ascent (1977), Heat (1963) and You and Me (1971). She was married to Elem Klimov. She died on July 2, 1979 in near Redkino, Kalinin Oblast...

17. Agnès Varda

Director | Cléo de 5 à 7

Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.

18. Mira Nair

Director | Salaam Bombay!

Accomplished Film Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair was born in India and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard. She began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing award-winning documentaries, including So Far From India and India Cabaret. Her debut feature film, Salaam ...

19. Jane Campion

Writer | Bright Star

Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early...

20. Agnieszka Holland

Director | Pokot

Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of...

21. Samira Makhmalbaf

Director | Panj é asr

Samira Makhmalbaf Filmmaker

Born on February 15,1980 in Tehran. At the age of eight, she played in "The Cyclist" directed by her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf the celebrated Iranian filmmaker.

At the age of 17, she directed her first feature titled "The Apple" and She went on to become the youngest ...

22. Joan Chen

Actress | Judge Dredd

Born into a family of doctors and educated in China at the Shanghai Film Academy and the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages, Joan Chen was discovered by veteran Chinese director Jin Xie while observing a filming with a school group. Her performance in Xiao hua (1979) (A.K.A. "The Little Flower...

23. 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.

24. Agnès Jaoui

Actress | Le goût des autres

Agnès Jaoui was born on October 19, 1964 in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France. She is an actress and writer, known for The Taste of Others (2000), Look at Me (2004) and Family Resemblances (1996). She was previously married to Jean-Pierre Bacri.

25. Lone Scherfig

Director | An Education

Writer/director Lone Scherfig graduated from The National Film School of Denmark in 1984. Her first feature film, THE BIRTHDAY TRIP (1990), was selected for Panorama in Berlin, the New Directors section at MOMA in New York and won the Grand Jury Prix in Rouen. Her next film, ON OUR OWN (1998), ...

26. Ann Hui

Director | Nu ren si shi

Born in China in 1947, Ann Hui moved to Hong Kong when she was still in her youth. After graduating in English and Comparative Literature from Hong Kong University, she spent two years at the London Film School. Returning to Hong Kong, she worked as an assistant to director King Hu before joining ...

27. Sarah Polley

Actress | My Life Without Me

Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her ...

28. Haifaa Al-Mansour

Director | Wadjda

Haifaa Al Mansour is the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia and is regarded as one of the most significant cinematic figures in the Kingdom. She finished her bachelor's degree in Literature at the American University in Cairo and completed a Master's degree in Directing and Film Studies from ...

29. Jehane Noujaim

Producer | Control Room

Jehane Noujaim was born on May 17, 1974 in Cairo, Egypt. She is a producer and director, known for Control Room (2004), Startup.com (2001) and The Square (2013).

30. Sarah Adina Smith

Director | Buster's Mal Heart

Sarah Adina Smith is known for Buster's Mal Heart (2016), Lessons in Chemistry (2023) and Birds of Paradise (2021).

31. Mona Achache

Director | Le Hérisson

Mona Achache was born on March 18, 1981. She is a director and writer, known for The Hedgehog (2009), Suzanne (2005) and Defendant (2015).

32. So Yong Kim

Director | Na-moo-eobs-neun san

So Yong Kim was born in 1968 in Pusan, South Korea. So Yong is a director and producer, known for Treeless Mountain (2008), In Between Days (2006) and For Ellen (2012).

33. Kasi Lemmons

Director | Harriet

Kasi Lemmons was born on February 24, 1961 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Harriet (2019), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Candyman (1992). She has been married to Vondie Curtis-Hall since August 19, 1995. They have two children.

34. Sophie Fiennes

Director | Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami

Sophie Fiennes was born on February 12, 1967 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, UK. She is a director and producer, known for Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2017), Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010) and The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012).

35. Josephine Decker

Director | Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

Josephine Decker is known for Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (2014), Shirley (2020) and Madeline's Madeline (2018).

36. Frederikke Aspöck

Director | Viften

Frederikke Aspöck was born on August 12, 1974 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a director and writer, known for Empire (2023), Rosita (2015) and Happy Now (2004).

37. Barbara Eder

Director | Inside America

Barbara Eder is known for Inside America (2010), Thank You for Bombing (2015) and Profilers, Gaze Into the Abyss (2013).

38. Ester Gould

Director | Strike a Pose

Ester Gould was born in 1975 in Peterculter, Scotland, UK. She is a director and writer, known for Strike a Pose (2016), A Strange Love Affair with Ego (2015) and Bikkels (2013).

39. Nicolette Krebitz

Actress | Jeans

Nicolette Krebitz was born and brought up in West Berlin. She studied classical dance at Berlin's Ballett Centrum and obtained her acting diploma at the Fritz Kirchhoff Drama School in 1992. She has appeared in front of the camera in cinema and TV productions since 1982. In 1999, she realised her ...

40. Agnieszka Smoczynska

Director | Córki dancingu

Agnieszka Smoczynska was born on May 18, 1978 in Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland. She is a director and writer, known for The Lure (2015), Fugue (2018) and The Silent Twins (2022). She is married to Andrzej Konopka. They have two children.

41. Ines Tanovic

Director | Nasa svakodnevna prica

Ines Tanovic was born on August 4, 1965 in Sarajevo. She is a director and writer, known for Our Everyday Life (2015), Some Other Stories (2010) and The Son (2019).

42. Athina Rachel Tsangari

Producer | Attenberg

Athina Rachel Tsangari was born on April 2, 1966 in Aspra Spitia, Greece. She is a producer and director, known for Attenberg (2010), Chevalier (2015) and The Slow Business of Going (2000).

43. Pippa Bianco

Director | Share

Pippa Bianco is known for Share (2019), Share (2015) and Bleed for This (2016).

44. Chinonye Chukwu

Producer | Till

Chinonye Chukwu was born on May 19, 1985 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She is a director and writer, known for Till (2022), Clemency (2019) and A Long Walk (2013).

45. Andrea Berloff

Writer | Straight Outta Compton

Andrea Berloff was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, USA. She is a writer and actress, known for Straight Outta Compton (2015), World Trade Center (2006) and Blood Father (2016). She has been married to Drew Filus since 2004. They have two children.

46. Emma Tammi

Director | Five Nights at Freddy's

Emma Tammi was born on February 26, 1982 in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), The Wind (2018) and The Left Right Game (2020).

47. Josephine Mackerras

Director | Alice

Josephine Mackerras is known for Alice (2019), L'enfant perdue (2008) and Diva (2007).

48. Minhal Baig

Writer | Hala

Minhal Baig is a filmmaker. Her latest feature, We Grown Now, about two boys growing up in a Cabrini-Green high rise when a tragedy irrevocably changes their lives, premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and awarded the TIFF Changemaker Award. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing....

49. Annie Silverstein

Director | Bull

Annie Silverstein is known for Bull (2019), Skunk (2014) and Spark (2012).

50. Rachel Lears

Cinematographer | Knock Down the House

Rachel Lears is known for Knock Down the House (2019), The Hand That Feeds (2014) and To the End (2022).

51. Semi Chellas

Producer | The Eleventh Hour

Semi Chellas is known for Bury the Lead (2002), Mad Men (2007) and The Life Before This (1999).

52. Hannah Pearl Utt

Director | Cora Bora

Hannah Pearl Utt is known for Cora Bora (2023), Before You Know It (2019) and Disengaged (2016).

53. Wendy Toye

Director | The Stranger Left No Card

Wendy Toye was born on May 1, 1917 in London, England, UK. She was a director and actress, known for The Stranger Left No Card (1952), On the Twelfth Day... (1955) and Follow the Star (1979). She was married to Edward Selwyn Sharp. She died on February 27, 2010 in Hillingdon, Middlesex, England, UK.

54. Kira Muratova

Director | Nastroyshchik

Kira Muratova was born on November 5, 1934 in Soroca, Romania [now Moldova]. She was a director and writer, known for Nastroyshchik (2004), Vtorostepennye lyudi (2001) and The Asthenic Syndrome (1989). She was married to Aleksandr Muratov and Yevgeni Golubenko. She died on June 6, 2018 in Odessa, ...

55. Vera Chytilová

Director | O necem jiném

Vera Chytilová was born on February 2, 1929, in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). She studied philosophy and architecture in Brno for two years, then worked as a technical draftsman, a designer, a fashion model, a photo re-toucher, then worked as a clapper girl for Barrandov Film ...

56. Wanda Jakubowska

Director | Ostatni etap

Wanda Jakubowska was born on October 10, 1907 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. She was a director and writer, known for The Last Stage (1948), Król Macius I (1958) and Pozegnanie z diablem (1957). She died on February 24, 1998 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, ...

57. Germaine Dulac

Director | Âme d'artiste

The daughter of a cavalry captain, she was raised by a grandmother in Paris, where she studied various forms of art with an emphasis on music and the opera. In 1905 she married engineer-novelist Marie-Louis Albert-Dulac and under his influence veered toward journalism. As one of the leading radical...

58. Lucrecia Martel

Director | La mujer sin cabeza

Born in 1966 in Salta in the North of Argentina,Lucrecia Martel settled down in Buenos Aires where she attended the ENERC (National Film School). She started by directing a few shorts among which Historias Breves I: Rey muerto (1995), which garnered several awards in the international film festival...

59. Angela Schanelec

Director | Ich war zuhause, aber

Angela Schanelec was born on February 14, 1962 in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She is a director and actress, known for I Was at Home, But... (2019), The Dreamed Path (2016) and Music (2023). She was previously married to Juergen Gosch.

60. Mai Zetterling

Actress | The Witches

Mai Zetterling was born in Sweden in 1925, and lived briefly in Australia while still a child. She's known as a director and actor and trained on the Stockholm repertory stage, she began appearing in war-era films starting in her teens. Following her debut in Lasse Maja (1941), she made quite an ...

61. Clio Barnard

Director | The Selfish Giant

Clio Barnard was born in Otley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK. She is known for The Selfish Giant (2013), Ali & Ava (2021) and The Arbor (2010).

62. Yuliya Solntseva

Director | Povest plamennykh let

Yuliya Solntseva was born on August 7, 1901 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. She was a director and actress, known for Chronicle of Flaming Years (1961), Aelita, the Queen of Mars (1924) and Poem of the Sea (1958). She was married to Aleksandr Dovzhenko. She died on October 29, 1989 in ...

63. Leni Riefenstahl

Producer | Das blaue Licht - Eine Berglegende aus den Dolomiten

Leni Riefenstahl's show-biz experience began with an experiment: she wanted to know what it felt like to dance on the stage. Success as a dancer gave way to film acting when she attracted the attention of film director Arnold Fanck, subsequently starring in some of his mountaineering pictures. With...

64. Penelope Spheeris

Director | Suburbia

Spheeris is often referred to as a 'rock 'n roll anthropologist'.

In 1974 she formed the first Los Angeles music video production company, ROCK 'N REEL. She concluded her music video work with the Grammy-nominated, "Bohemian Rhapsody" video for "Wayne's World". Spheeris' feature film debut was the ...

65. Susan Seidelman

Director | Desperately Seeking Susan

Susan Seidelman was born on December 11, 1952 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Sex and the City (1998) and Smithereens (1982).

66. Lena Dunham

Writer | Tiny Furniture

New Yorker Lena Dunham is the daughter of a painter, Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons, a designer and photographer. Dunham was educated at Oberlin College, Ohio, graduating with a creative writing degree. It was while at Oberlin that she began writing shorts and feature films. In 2009, Dunham ...

67. Naomi Kawase

Director | An

Naomi Kawase was born on May 30, 1969 in Nara, Japan. She is a director and writer, known for Sweet Bean (2015), Still the Water (2014) and Suzaku (1997). She was previously married to Takenori Sentô.

68. Maïwenn

Actress | Polisse

Maïwenn (sometimes credited as Maïwenn Besco or her birth name Maïwenn Le Besco, born 17 April 1976) is a French actress, film director and screenwriter.

Maïwenn Le Besco was born in Les Lilas, Seine-Saint-Denis, France, a suburban area east of Paris. Maïwenn is of mixed Breton, Vietnamese, French, ...

69. Danielle Arbid

Director | Maarek hob

Born in Lebanon in 1970, Danielle Arbid has been directing films since 1997. Selected for numerous festivals in France and the rest of the world (Cannes, New York, San Francisco, Locarno, Pusan, Tokyo, etc.), Danielle Arbid's first two features, Dans les champs de bataille and Un homme perdu, were ...

70. Tamra Davis

Director | A Conversation with Basquiat

Began her career directing music videos for acts like Tone Loc, Depeche Mode, Indigo Girls, NWA, Hanson and Sonic Youth and made her first feature in 92 with Guncrazy starring Drew Barrymore. Ms Barrymore received a Golden Globe Nomination. She then went on to direct feature films starring Chris ...

71. Lotte Reiniger

Director | Silhouetten

Lotte Reiniger was born on June 2, 1899 in Berlin, Germany. She was a director and writer, known for Silhouetten (1936), Der Graf von Carabas (1935) and Lotte Reiniger - The Fairy Tale Films (1961). She was married to Carl Koch. She died on June 19, 1981 in Dettenhausen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.