As the awards season gains momentum, one thing is clear: this could be a landmark year for female directors at the Oscars.

More than a dozen women are behind the camera on major films in contention. From established Oscar winners to emerging voices, this year’s category promises to be one of the most competitive and inclusive lineups in Academy history.

Kathryn Bigelow, who shattered barriers in 2010 by becoming the first woman to win Best Director for The Hurt Locker, has returned to the awards conversation with House of Dynamite. The high-stakes political thriller, released by Netflix, is written by Noah Oppenheimer and features a star-studded ensemble including Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, and Jason Clarke. The film explores the White House’s response to a nuclear missile threat targeting Chicago, unfolding through three interwoven perspectives.

House of Dynamite premiered at the Venice Film Festival to strong critical acclaim. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film, writing: “People tend to dip into the same pool of adjectives to describe the director’s best work — raw, gritty, unflinching, intense and documentary-like in its vigilant attention to even the tiniest nuance. Her muscular new film for Netflix is certainly all those things, but it’s also smart, emotional, ingeniously constructed and rigorously economical in its storytelling.” Time’s Stephanie Zacharek also praised Bigelow writing she, “pulls the film together with the exactitude of a fighter pilot. It sometimes seems incomprehensible that this is only her 11th full-length feature film; she’s one of those filmmakers who chooses and executes her projects with care, and this one feels particularly urgent.”

If Bigelow’s efforts result in another win, she would become the first woman to receive the Best Director Oscar twice.

Five years after winning both Best Director and Best Picture for Nomadland, Chloé Zhao returns with Hamnet, a Shakespeare-inspired drama adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel. Released by Focus Features, the film premiered to critical acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival and has since become a leading contender across multiple categories. It boasts an 89 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic rating of 90, and won the prestigious People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Zhao currently leads Gold Derby’s Best Director prediction rankings, reinforcing her status as a frontrunner and, like Bigelow, set up for a potential historic two-fer.

Best Director

1.

2.

Joachim Trier

Sentimental Value

3.

4.

Paul Thomas Anderson

One Battle After Another

5.

Jafar Panahi

It Was Just an Accident

Beyond Bigelow and Zhao, several other female directors have films that should be players throughout awards season and could move into Oscar contention.

Lynne Ramsay, best known for the 2017 thriller You Were Never Really Here, starring Joaquin Phoenix, returns with Die, My Love, a psychological thriller starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. While Lawrence is attracting lead actress buzz, Ramsay’s bold direction has also drawn attention.

Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, has been praised for its evocative portrayal of the 18th-century religious leader who founded the Shaker movement. The film stars Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, and Christopher Abbott. Fastvold was previously nominated for Best Original Screenplay for The Brutalist but has an outside shot at a director nomination in this year’s race.

Mary Bronstein (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Kelly Reichardt (The Mastermind), and Celine Song (Materialists) also have critically well‑received films in the mix. Bronstein’s drama, starring Rose Byrne, premiered at Sundance and screened in competition at Berlin, where Byrne won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. While most of the awards buzz has focused on Byrne’s performance, Bronstein too has earned recognition for her work. Reichardt’s The Mastermind, with Josh O’Connor, was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Song, whose debut, Past Lives, was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, hopes for repeat success for Materialists, a romantic drama starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal.

Other acclaimed female filmmakers to emerge from the festival circuit include Alice Winocour with Couture, Rebecca Zlotowski with A Private Life, Nia DaCosta with Hedda, and Hikari with Rental Family. Meawhile, two award-worthy actresses are making strong statements in their debuts behind the camera: Scarlett Johansson with Eleanor and Kristen Stewart with The Chronology of Water.

That’s not to say there isn’t some tough competition from male directors this year with Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), Ryan Coogler (Sinners), Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), and Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident) joining Zhao in the top five of Gold Derby’s best director predictions chart. But considering the category is very fluid as many of these films have yet to be released, and with the overall strength of the field of female directors, this year’s Oscars could make history as the first to feature multiple women competing for Best Director.

To date, only nine women have ever been nominated for for Best Director. The first was Lina Wertmüller, in 1976 for Seven Beauties. It was 17 years before another woman was nominated: Jane Campion in 1993, for The Piano. Other female filmmakers nominated over the years include Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation ), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall, 2023) and Coralie Fargeat (The Substance, 2024).

Of these nominees, only three — Bigelow, Zhao, and Campion — have won the Best Director Oscar. But fingers crossed, if this year’s lineup is any indication, that number could grow, making it not just a strong year for women behind the camera, but also a historic one.