A history of women winning at the Oscars

It took the Academy a staggering 82 years to finally award a woman the Best Director prize—33 years after Lina Wertmüller became the first female nominee. Kathryn Bigelow’s historic win in 2010 for The Hurt Locker wasn’t just a milestone; it was a sharp rebuke to Hollywood’s old boys’ club. That she triumphed over her ex-husband, James Cameron (nominated then for Avatar), in the same race was icing on the cake.

As for Wertmüller, she would eventually receive the Academy Honorary Award in 2019—a long-overdue nod to her pioneering legacy.

Julia Phillips broke barriers as the first female producer to win Best Picture for The Sting. In an industry where women were rarely in power positions behind the camera, Phillips proved they could call the shots—and win big.

That’s right—nominee, not winner. It wasn’t until 2018 that a woman was even nominated for Best Cinematography, when Rachel Morrison shattered the boys’ club with Mudbound. She didn’t take home the Oscar, but the nomination alone was groundbreaking, proving that cinematography isn’t just a man’s game.

As it stands, only three women have ever been nominated in this category. None have won. Yet.

As co-director of Brave, Brenda Chapman became the first woman to win Best Animated Feature. Yet, behind the scenes, she had been replaced as the film’s director during production. So while her win was a milestone, it also highlighted a harsh reality—how often women in animation are sidelined.

Chloé Zhao’s 2021 win for Nomadland marked another long-overdue milestone, making her only the second woman—after Kathryn Bigelow—to take home Best Director. In her acceptance speech, she quoted a Chinese poem before holding up her Oscar and saying, “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves, and to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that. And this is for you. You inspire me to keep going.”

Luise Rainer wasn’t just the first woman to win back-to-back acting Oscars—she was the first person ever to do so. She claimed Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth in 1936 and 1937, respectively, a feat the legendary Spencer Tracy would match a year later.

Today, her yellowface performance in The Good Earth is viewed through a more critical lens, but that doesn’t diminish her achievements. Many expected Rainer to dominate Hollywood for years, but disillusioned with the industry, she walked away not long after.

Rainer also holds another distinction—she was the first woman to win two Best Actress Oscars and the first to do so before turning 30. It would take over 50 years for Jodie Foster and Hilary Swank to replicate both milestones.

Katharine Hepburn remains the undisputed Oscar champion, holding a record four Best Actress wins for Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter, and On Golden Pond. True to her independent spirit, she famously never attended the ceremonies—proving she didn’t need the Academy’s validation. She just kept winning.

A handful of actors have come close to matching her feat. Daniel Day-Lewis and Frances McDormand each have three Best Actor and Actress wins, while Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, and Ingrid Bergman have also claimed three Oscars—though across multiple acting categories.

Halle Berry’s Monster’s Ball win was both historic and deeply emotional—yet, more than two decades later, it remains unmatched. She is still the only Black woman to have won Best Actress, making her acceptance speech about breaking barriers feel less like the start of a movement and more like a solitary milestone.

In recent years, the Catwoman star has spoken candidly about her frustration that, after all this time, she remains the category’s only Black winner.

Hattie McDaniel made history as the first Black performer to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. But the moment was marred by segregation—at the ceremony, she was seated at a separate table, away from her co-stars, and like the film’s other Black cast members, she was barred from attending its premiere. Her win was bittersweet for the Black community, with critics arguing that it reinforced Hollywood’s glorification of the slave system.

It would take another 50 years for a second Black actress, Whoopi Goldberg, to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She was later followed by Jennifer Hudson, Mo’Nique (who honoured McDaniel in her speech), Octavia Spencer, Lupita Nyong’o, Viola Davis, and Regina King.

Michelle Yeoh’s groundbreaking win for Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2023 wasn’t just historic for Asians—it proved that action stars can claim Oscar gold, too. In true Asian fashion, she paid tribute to her mother and extended family, crediting them for helping her reach this milestone.

See more: 15 of Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh’s most iconic roles

Miyoshi Umeki made history as the first Asian woman to win an acting Oscar, claiming Best Supporting Actress for Sayonara. But despite her milestone, Hollywood’s limited roles for Asian actors—and her own soft-spoken acceptance—left her as a lone figure rather than the start of a movement.

Also read: 14 homegrown Asian actors who made it big in Hollywood throughout the years

Sophia Loren’s performance in Two Women was so compelling that she became the first to win Best Actress for a completely non-English role—a feat that wouldn’t be repeated until 2007, when Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose (La Môme).

In one of the most legendary Oscar moments, Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) and Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) ended up in a rare tie, sharing the Best Actress win. Streisand’s iconic “Hello, gorgeous” as she took the stage remains one of the most memorable acceptance speeches in Oscar history.

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At just 10 years old, Tatum O’Neal won Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon, starring alongside her real-life father, Ryan O’Neal. This makes her the youngest competitive Oscar winner—a record that still stands—excluding Shirley Temple’s Academy Juvenile Award at the 7th Academy Awards in 1934.

In the early days of the Oscars, screenplays were grouped under a single category: Best Writing. Frances Marion became the first woman to claim this prestigious award, winning for The Big House and cementing her status as one of early Hollywood’s most influential storytellers. A prolific writer with over 300 scripts to her name, Marion played a defining role in both the silent and early sound eras—proving that women weren’t just present in Hollywood’s infancy; they were leading the charge.

After the writing categories were split, Muriel Box became the first woman to take home the Best Original Screenplay award for The Seventh Veil—though she did co-write it with her husband, Sydney Box. While the win was groundbreaking, it would take decades before women became regulars in the writing categories.

While Frances Marion shattered the glass ceiling, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala built a penthouse on top of it. The novelist-turned-screenwriter became the first woman to win two Oscars for screenwriting, claiming Best Adapted Screenplay for A Room with a View (1986) and Howards End (1992). Her collaborations with Merchant-Ivory produced some of cinema’s most refined literary adaptations, proving that book-to-screen storytelling could be just as powerful as original works. Jhabvala’s legacy extends beyond her wins—she redefined period dramas, transforming them into richly layered, deeply human experiences.

It took a staggering 92 years for a woman to win Best Original Score on her own. Hildur Guðnadóttir finally ended that absence with her haunting composition for Joker, making history in a category long dominated by men.

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