Women have shattered barriers across TV and film, from pioneering directors like Alice Guy-Blaché to historic Oscar wins by Halle Berry and Viola Davis. This list celebrates 55 groundbreaking “firsts” over more than a century in acting, directing, producing and awards.
- Early cinema trailblazers in directing and silent film
- Barrier-breaking TV firsts in representation and storylines
- Historic Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe milestones
- Women redefining power as producers, showrunners and auteurs
- How these 55 “firsts” reshaped TV and film history
1. Asta Nielsen – First woman to play Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet on film in 1921, bringing a radically new gendered perspective to one of theater’s most famous roles.
2. Audrey Munson – In 1915’s The Inspiration, she became the first woman to appear fully nude in an American feature film, challenging early screen taboos.
3. Alice Guy-Blaché – Widely regarded as the first woman to direct a film, beginning in 1896, and later founding her own studio Solax; she directed or supervised hundreds of silent films.
4. Alfre Woodard – On State of Affairs, she became the first Black actress to play the U.S. president on American television.
5. Cicely Tyson – First Black actress to star in a TV drama with East Side/West Side in 1963, playing a social worker in a serious, non-stereotypical role.
6. Diahann Carroll – With Julia (1968), she became TV’s first Black woman lead in a non-stereotypical role, and the first Black actress in a TV series to win a Golden Globe; she was also the first Black woman to win a Tony Award.
7. Donna Reed – The Donna Reed Show (1958) was the first family sitcom centered primarily on the mother instead of the father.
8. Hattie McDaniel – The first Black actress to headline her own comedy TV show with The Beulah Show in 1950.
9. Kerry Washington – In 2012, she became the first Black woman in 40 years to lead a U.S. network drama with Scandal, sparking a new wave of Black female leads.
10. Mary Kay Stearns – First pregnant woman shown on television, starring in Mary Kay and Johnny with her real-life husband.
11. Marlo Thomas – That Girl (1966) gave TV its first single, independent woman lead who wasn’t defined by marriage or living with parents.
12. Nichelle Nichols – On Star Trek in 1967, she shared TV’s first interracial kiss with William Shatner, a landmark moment in broadcast history.
13. Sally Struthers – First woman to deal with a miscarriage on TV in All in the Family (1971), bringing a taboo subject into mainstream storytelling.
14. Bea Arthur – On Maude (1972), she became the first woman on prime-time TV to have a legal abortion, sparking national debate.
15. Cathy Lee Crosby – Starred in the 1974 TV movie Wonder Woman, the first TV movie centered on a female superhero.
16. Courteney Cox – First person to say the word “period” on TV in a 1985 Tampax commercial.
17. Candice Bergen – As Murphy Brown (1988), she played the first TV woman to choose to raise a child alone, igniting political controversy and a “family values” debate.
18. Ellen DeGeneres – On Ellen (1997), she became the first actress to come out as gay on a primetime sitcom, mirrored by her character’s coming-out episode.
19 & 20. Eden Riegel & Olga Sosnovska – Shared the first lesbian kiss on an American soap opera with All My Children in 2003.
21. Oprah Winfrey – With The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986, she became the first woman to own and produce her own TV talk show.
22. Yvette Lee Bowser – In 1993, she became the first Black woman to create a primetime TV series with Living Single, achieving that milestone at just 27 years old.
23. Chloé Zhao – In 2021, she became the first Asian woman to win Best Director at the Golden Globes for Nomadland, and later the first woman of color to win the Best Director Oscar.
24. Jane Campion – First woman ever nominated twice for the directing Oscar: for The Piano and later for The Power of the Dog, which led the 2022 nominations.
25. Kathryn Bigelow – In 2010, she became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director for The Hurt Locker.
26. Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva – First woman to win the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director and the first woman to win a directing prize at a major European film festival for Chronicle of Flaming Years (1961).
27. Lina Wertmüller – First woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, for Seven Beauties, breaking a major Oscars barrier in the 1970s.
28. Barbra Joan Streisand – First woman to win the Oscar for Best Original Song as a composer (for the love theme from A Star Is Born), and the first woman to write, produce, direct and star in a major studio film with Yentl; also the first woman to win the Golden Globe for Best Director.
29. Dorothy Arzner – First woman to join the Directors Guild of America and the first to direct a sound film, with a career spanning the late silent era through the 1940s.
30. Ida Lupino – First woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), while also working extensively as an actress, writer and producer.
31. Julie Dash – Her 1991 feature Daughters of the Dust was the first feature film directed by an African-American woman to receive general theatrical release in the United States.
32. Ava DuVernay – In 2014, she became the first African-American woman director to receive a Golden Globe nomination and a Best Picture Oscar nomination for Selma.
33. Awkwafina – In January 2020, she became the first Asian-American woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for The Farewell.
34. Angela Bassett – First actor from a Marvel movie to win a Golden Globe, taking Best Supporting Actress in 2023.
35. Ali Wong – First Asian-American actress to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, and the first woman of Asian descent to win an Emmy for a lead role for Beef; she also became the first actress of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Limited Series.
36. Ariana DeBose – First openly queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar, for her 2022 supporting performance as Anita in West Side Story.
37. Betty White – First woman to win the Emmy for Outstanding Game Show Host in 1983 for Just Men!
38. Halle Berry – First Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, for Monster’s Ball in 2002, in a speech that became one of Oscars’ most famous moments.
39. Judi Dench – In 2022, her Best Supporting Actress nomination for Belfast made her the oldest nominee ever in that category at age 87.
40. Keke Palmer – First woman to win the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Host for a Game Show (for Password) after the category moved from the Daytime Emmys.
41. Lily Gladstone – First Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress for Killers of the Flower Moon, and only the second Native woman ever recognized by the Globes.
42 Mj Rodriguez – First trans woman nominated for Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmys, for her work on Pose.
43. Rita Moreno – First Hispanic woman to win an Academy Award, for her supporting performance in West Side Story.
44. Sandra Oh – First Asian woman nominated for Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmys for Killing Eve; she later won a Golden Globe for the role.
45. Viola Davis – First Black woman to win the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series, for How to Get Away with Murder, and later became the most Oscar-nominated Black woman in history with four nominations.
46. Youn Yuh-Jung – First Asian woman to win a SAG Award in a motion picture category for Minari, adding to BAFTA and Oscar recognition.
47. Anna Gunn & Alysia Reiner – Co-led Equity, the first movie focused specifically on women of Wall Street and female power in high finance.
48. Ernestine Barrier – First woman to play the U.S. president on film, in 1953’s Project Moonbase.
49. Greta Gerwig – With Barbie, she became the first solo female filmmaker to direct a billion-dollar movie, hitting $1 billion worldwide in just 17 days.
50. Helen Slater – Starred in Supergirl (1984), the first superhero feature film with a female lead character.
51. Janet Mock – First Black transgender woman to secure a major production deal at a Hollywood studio, signing a multi-year deal with Netflix in 2019.
52. Kylie Bunbury – Star of Pitch, about the first woman to play Major League Baseball, bringing a gender-barrier-busting sports story to network TV.
53. Quinta Brunson – First Black woman in over 40 years to win the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for Abbott Elementary, and the first Black woman to earn three comedy nominations in the same year for writing, producing and acting on the show.
54. Shonda Rhimes – First woman to create three hit TV dramas with more than 100 episodes each: Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal.
55. Zoe Saldaña – First actor to have four films cross $2 billion at the worldwide box office: Avatar, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Avatar: The Way of Water.
From Alice Guy-Blaché directing early narrative films before most people had ever seen a movie to Greta Gerwig helming a billion-dollar blockbuster, these “firsts” show how women have shaped every stage of screen history.
Each milestone — a first directing Oscar nomination, a first Black Best Actress win, a first trans Emmy lead nominee — widened the industry’s imagination about who belongs in power and on screen. They changed not just the awards landscape but the kinds of stories TV and film are allowed to tell.
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Taken together, these 55 women trace a timeline from silent cinema to streaming, revealing how progress often came one hard-won “first” at a time. Many of these breakthroughs arrived decades apart, but their impact echoes through every new casting choice, greenlight and awards ballot.
As more women of every background write, direct, produce and headline major projects, these accomplishments start to look less like isolated miracles and more like the foundation of a new normal. The story of “firsts” is slowly giving way to a story of many.
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