My favourite film directors are Ang Lee and James Cameron. Both men. That got me thinking the other day.

Who are some of the most successful female film directors?

The only names that quickly came to mind were Penny Marshall, Kathryn Bigelow and Sofia Coppola. Curious, I started to search and found that quite a few films I enjoyed like Deep Impact and Bend it Like Beckham were directed by women. Embarrassed by my lack of industry knowledge regarding women filmmakers, I wrote this article.

Let us take a closer look at five successful women movie directors who have made a significant contribution to film within the last 10 years.

5. Jane Campion

Jane Campion is an Academy Award-winning film maker and screenplay writer. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia where she now lives and the U.S.

Notable film: The Piano (1993)

Oscar History: 2 nominations, 1 win.

4. Gurinder Chadha

Chandha is a British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in the UK. In the 1980s she began making documentaries for the BBC, and in 1989 released “I’m British but…” for Channel 4, which followed the lives of young British Asians. In 1990, Chadha set up a production company, Umbi Films. Her first film was the 11-minute “Nice Arrangement” (1991) about a British Asian wedding.

Notable film: Bend it Like Beckham (2002)

 
3. Sofia Coppola

Sofia Carmina Coppola is an American film director, actress, producer and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. She is the third female director, and only American woman, to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing. The daughter of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola began her show business career making several appearances in her father’s films.

She eventually moved on towards directing making films like Lick the Star (1998), The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in Translation (2003).

Notable film: Lost in Translation (2003)

Oscar History: 3 nominations, 1 win.

2. Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta is a Genie Award winning and Academy Award nominated Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter. Deepa Mehta’s films focus around the Indian community, in India and in the diaspora. Mehta is best known for her Elements Trilogy: Fire (1996), Earth (1998) and Water (2005) all of which were set in India.

Notable Film: Water (2005)

1. Catherine Hardwicke

Catherine Hardwicke is an American production designer and film director. Her works include the independent film Thirteen, which she co-wrote with one of the film’s co-stars, Nikki Reed, the Biblically-themed The Nativity Story, and the vampire film Twilight. The opening weekend of Twilight was the biggest opening ever for a female director.

Notable film: Twilight (2008)

As always, your comments are welcome and encouraged. Let me know what you thought about this article by leaving a comment below!    

Also, I invite you to become a fan of my film “Bend and Break” on Facebook.

Do you have a burning desire to be a film director?

Have you made one or two films but you maybe doubt your ability to make directing a viable career?

Here is an article that details five super successful movie directors who all have one thing in common they didn’t spend a single day in film school. They learned and became a master at their craft from simple trial and error, self-study and unshakable self confidence and belief in themselves.

5. David Fincher
Fincher is an Academy Award-nominated American filmmaker and music video director known for his dark and stylish movies such as Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Fincher eschewed the film school route, getting a job loading cameras and doing other hands-on work for John Korty’s Korty Films. He was later hired by Industrial Light & Magic in 1980, where he worked on productions for Twice Upon a Time, Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Set on a directing career, Fincher joined video-production company Propaganda Films and started off directing music videos and commercials. Like Fincher, other directors such as Meiert Avis, David Kellogg, Michael Bay, Antoine Fuqua, Neil LaBute, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek, Michel Gondry, Paul Rachman, Zack Snyder, Gore Verbinski, and Alex Proyas honed their talents at Propaganda Films before moving on to feature films

Oscar History: 1 Nomination

4. Peter Jackson
Mr. Jackson is a three-time Academy Award-winning New Zealand filmmaker, producer and screenwriter, best known for The Lord of the Rings trilogy adapted from the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. He is also known for his 2005 remake of King Kong.
He won international attention early in his career with his “splatstick” horror comedies, before coming to mainstream prominence with Heavenly Creatures, for which he shared an Academy Award best screenplay nomination with his partner Fran Walsh
Jackson has no formal training in film-making, but learned about editing, special effects and makeup largely through his own trial and error. As a teenager Jackson discovered the work of author J. R. R. Tolkien after watching The Lord of the Rings (1978), an animated film by Ralph Bakshi that was a part-adaptation of Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy. After leaving school Jackson began working as a photoengraver at a newspaper company in Wellington, and shooting a feature-length vampire movie that was later abandoned before completion.

Oscar History: 8 nominations, 3 wins.

3. Sir Ridley Scott
Scott is a British Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe, Emmy Award and BAFTA Award winning film director and producer known for his stylish visuals and an obsession for detail. His films include Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Matchstick Men, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster and Body of Lies. At age 28, Scott made a black and white short film, ‘Boy and Bicycle, starring his younger brother, Tony Scott, and his father. The film’s main visual elements would become features of Scott’s later work. After directing over 2,500 TV commercials, Ridley finally made his feature directorial debut at age 40 making The Duellists. Can you believe that? 40 years old when he made his first feature film. If that is not inspiration for you, I don’t know what is. You’re never too old to become whoever you want to be.

Oscar History: 3 Nominations

2. James Cameron
Mr. I’m the king of the world is an Academy Award-winning Canadian-American director, producer and screenwriter. He has written and directed films as disparate as Aliens and Titanic. To date, his directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$1.1 billion domestically, unadjusted for inflation. Cameron is noted for his films¡Xwhich are often highly innovative, artistic and financially successful¡Xas well as his fierce temper and confrontational personality

Oscar History: 3 wins.

1. Steven Spielberg

Where should I start?
Steven Spielberg is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. Forbes magazine places Spielberg’s net worth at $3.1 billion. In 2006, the magazine Premiere listed him as the most powerful and influential figure in the motion picture industry. Time listed him as one of the 100 Most Important People of the Century. At the end of the twentieth century, Life named him the most influential person of his generation. In a career of over four decades, Spielberg’s films have touched on many themes and genres. Spielberg’s early sci-fi and adventure films, sometimes centering on children, were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years his movies began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for 1993’s Schindler’s List and 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. Three of Spielberg’s films, Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993), broke box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, unadjusted gross of all Spielberg directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide.

Oscar History: 12 nominations, 3 wins.

Everything good that can be said about Spielberg has probably alright been said so the best compliment I can give this Hollywood icon is that I saw “Jaws¨ when I was five years old. Now I’m thirty-four and still get a little freaked out when swimming in the ocean, all because Spielberg made a timeless and classic shark thriller.

I hope this article leaves you with the belief that the most important characteristic needed to become a successful movie director is determination. Not schooling, not money, not being a child prodigy and not your contacts.

I would like to end this article with a quote from James Cameron.

“I think the most important thing if you’re an aspiring film-maker is to get rid of the ‘aspiring’… You shoot it, you put your name on it, you’re a film-maker. Everything after that, you’re just negotiating your budget.”