2026 Best Director Oscar race and female directors

As the awards season unfolds, it's clear that this year could be significant for female directors at the Oscars.

Over a dozen women have directed major films in contention. Spanning from seasoned Oscar winners to emerging talents, this year's roster promises to be one of the most competitive and inclusive in the Academy's history.

Kathryn Bigelow, who made history in 2010 by winning Best Director for The Hurt Locker, returns with House of Dynamite. This intense political thriller, released by Netflix, is written by Noah Oppenheimer and stars Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, and Jason Clarke. The film explores the White House's reaction to a nuclear missile threat against Chicago through three interconnected stories.

House of Dynamite premiered at the Venice Film Festival to rave reviews. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film, saying: "People often use the same adjectives to describe the director’s finest work — raw, gritty, unflinching, intense, and documentary-like in its meticulous attention to detail. Her robust new film for Netflix embodies all these qualities, but it’s also smart, emotional, cleverly structured, and economically told." Time’s Stephanie Zacharek also praised Bigelow, noting she "brings the film together with the precision of a fighter pilot. It’s hard to believe this is only her 11th full-length feature; she is one of those filmmakers who chooses and executes her projects with care, and this one feels particularly urgent.”

If Bigelow wins again, she would become the first woman to win 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 become a leading contender in multiple categories. It has an 89 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 90, and it 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, poised for a potential historic dual win.

In addition to Bigelow and Zhao, several other female directors have films that are likely to be contenders throughout the awards season and could enter the Oscar race.

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

Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, has been praised for its evocative depiction 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 chance at a director nomination this year.

Mary Bronstein (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Kelly Reichardt (The Mastermind), and Celine Song (Materialists) also have critically acclaimed films in the mix. Bronstein’s drama, starring Rose Byrne, premiered at Sundance and competed at Berlin, where Byrne won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. Although most of the awards buzz has focused on Byrne’s performance, Bronstein has also gained recognition for her work. Reichardt’s The Mastermind, featuring 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 with Materialists, a romantic drama starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal.

Other notable female filmmakers emerging from the festival circuit include Alice Winocour with Couture, Rebecca Zlotowski with A Private Life, Nia DaCosta with Hedda, and Hikari with Rental Family. Meanwhile, two award-winning actresses are making strong statements in their directorial debuts: Scarlett Johansson with Eleanor and Kristen Stewart with The Chronology of Water.

This isn't to say there isn't significant 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. However, considering the category is very fluid as many of these films have yet to be released, and with the overall strength of the 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 been nominated for Best Director. The first was Lina Wertmüller in 1976 for Seven Beauties. It took 17 years for another woman to be 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 if this year’s lineup is any indication, that number could increase, marking it as not just a strong year for women behind the camera but also a historic one.