These 48 Women Made TV & Film History

Ali Wong

At the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, Ali Wong made history as the first Asian-American actress to win Outstanding 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 her role in Beef. 

A week prior, Wong became the first actress of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe in the best actress in a limited series category. 

Quinta Brunson

Also at the 2024 Emmy Awards, Abbott Elementary star and creator Quinta Brunson won the award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. The award made history as it marked the first time a Black woman won in the category in over 40 years, the last time being when Isabel Sanford won in 1981 for The Jeffersons, per The New York Times. 

Lily Gladstone

Lily Gladstone’s Golden Globes win for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon made her the first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress. 

The actress is only the second Native woman the receive any recognition from the award show. Irene Bedard was nominated in 1995. 

Gladstone opened her historic speech in Blackfeet language.

Keke Palmer

The same night Gladstone won big at the Golden Globes, Keke Palmer made Emmys history by winning the Emmy for Outstanding Host for a Game Show for NBC’s Password.

Palmer is the first woman to do so since the category has been part of the Primetime Emmys after moving from the Daytime awards 15 years ago.

Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig made history when the success of Barbie made her the first-ever solo female filmmaker with a billion-dollar film. According to Variety, in just 17 days of release Barbie made $1 billion at the global box office, including $459 million in North America and $572 million internationally.

Zoe Saldaña

Zoe Saldaña made history by becoming the first actor to have four films make over $2 billion at the box office: Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and most recently, Avatar: The Way of Water, per People.

Angela Bassett

Angela Bassett made history when she won Best Supporting Actress during 2023’s Golden Globes. She was the first actor from a Marvel movie to win a Globe — and she couldn’t have deserved it more.  

Quinta Brunson

Quinta Brunson — the writer, lead actress, and creator of Abbott Elementary — made history during the 2022 Emmy nominations, becoming the first Black woman to earn three comedy Emmy nods for the beloved ABC series, per Variety.

Ariana DeBose

Ariana DeBose made history with her 2022 Oscars win for the role of Anita in West Side Story (originally played by Rita Moreno, also on the 2022 Oscars red carpet). DeBose is the first openly queer woman of color to take home an Oscar, a fact she highlighted in her stunning acceptance speech: “You see a queer, openly queer woman of color, an Afro Latina who found her strength in life through art…to anybody who has ever questioned your identity ever, ever, ever, or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this: There is indeed a place for us.”

Judi Dench

In 2022, Judi Dench made film history with her best supporting actress Oscar nomination for Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, making her the oldest nominee yet for the category at age 87. “Retirement is not a word used in my house,” Dench told the Daily Mail in October 2021 — and clearly, the Academy Awards are all for it! 

Jane Campion

In 2022, Jane Campion made history as the first woman to ever be nominated twice for a directing Oscar — first in 1994 for directing The Piano, for which she also won the best original screenplay Oscar, and now in 2022, for directing Netflix’s The Power of the Dog starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Jesse Plemons. Her film was the most-nominated of this year’s Academy Award contenders with 12 total nods including best actor, best actress, best Supporting actor, best supporting actress, and best picture. 

Mj Rodriguez

On July 13, 2021, Mj Rodriguez became the first trans woman to be Emmy-nominated for Lead Actress in a Drama series for her dynamic work on the FX TV series Pose. Prior to Rodriguez’s nomination, only two other trans performers had been nominated for Emmys — Laverne Cox for her work in Orange Is The New Black and Rain Valdez for Razor Tongue.

Chloé Zhao

In Feb. 2021, Chloé Zhao made history as the first Asian woman to win Best Director at the Golden Globes in their 78-year history for her film Nomadland. She’s the second woman to ever win that category after Barbara Streisand for Yentl. And in April 2021, she made even more history by winning a Best Director Academy Award for the same film — the second woman in all of Oscars history to win that award after Kathryn Bigelow in 2009, and the first woman of color. 

Viola Davis

In 2015, How to Get Away With Murder’s Viola Davis became the first Black woman (ever) to win an Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series. And if you haven’t watched her powerful acceptance speech yet, what even is your life?

In 2021, Viola Davis made more history by becoming the most Oscar-nominated Black woman in the academy’s history with her 4th nomination for Best Actress for her role as Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. 

Youn Yuh-Jung

South Korean actress Youn Yuh-Jung’s performance as grandmother Soonja in Lee Isaac Chung’s hit 2020 film Minari has earned her a staggering 54 nominations for best supporting actress, including a BAFTA nomination, an Academy Award nomination, and a SAG Awards win — making her the first Asian woman to win a SAG Award in a motion picture category (Sandra Oh is the only Asian woman to have won a SAG Award in the TV category). 

Awkwafina

In Jan. 2020, Awkwafina became the first Asian-American woman to win a Golden Globe for best actress. She snagged the historic honor for her role in The Farewell.

Janet Mock

In 2019, Janet Mock signed a three-year, multi-million-dollar production deal with Netflix. And while that in and of itself is a huge deal, it’s made even more impactful by the fact Mock is the first Black transgender woman to land a production deal at a major studio.

Sandra Oh

How do we love Sandra Oh, let us count the ways! Oh, who are we kidding? There are far too many to list here. But the fact that she became the first Asian woman to receive an Emmy nomination for lead drama actress (for Killing Eve) in 2018 certainly makes the list. As does the fact she won a Golden Globe for the role in 2019.

Shonda Rhimes

We can all agree by now that Shonda Rhimes is a TV genius, right? What you might not have realized, though, is that in 2017 she became the first woman to create three hit TV shows with more than 100 episodes each (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal).

Anna Gunn & Alysia Reiner

Anna Gunn and Alysia Reiner star in Equity, the first movie focused on the women of Wall Street.

Kylie Bunbury

Kylie Bunbury stars in the TV show Pitch, about the first woman to play baseball in the Major Leagues.  

Ava DuVernay

In 2014, Ava DuVernay became the first African-American female director to receive a Golden Globe nod and receive Best Picture Oscar nomination for Selma.

Alfre Woodard

State of Affairs‘ Alfre Woodard was the first black actress to play the U.S. president on TV.

Kerry Washington

Honestly, this one is both disheartening and hope-giving. In 2012, Scandal‘s Kerry Washington became the first Black woman to lead a network drama in 40 years. Hear that, Gladiators? And while that time-gap is woefully long, it’s nice to see that Washington helped kicked off the trend of more female Black leads in contemporary network TV. All hail Olivia Pope!

Kathryn Bigelow

In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow really shook up the industry by becoming the first female winner of the Oscars’ best director category. She took home the trophy for the war drama The Hurt Locker and, to this day, she remains the only female best director winner.

Eden Riegel & Olga Sosnovska

In 2003, Eden Riegel and Olga Sosnovska engaged in the first lesbian kiss on an American soap opera, All My Children.

Halle Berry

Who could ever forget Halle Berry taking home the best actress Oscar in 2002 for Monster’s Ball? She was the first Black woman to win the award, and her speech remains one of the most stirring in Hollywood history.

Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres was the first actress to come out as gay on TV in the show Ellen in 1997.

Yvette Lee Bowser

Prepare to have your mind blown on two levels. Ready? First of all, Yvette Lee Bowser became the first Black woman to create a primetime TV series in 1993 with Living Single (which, hello, obsessed!). Second, she was only 27 at the time of that impressive achievement.

Candice Bergen

With the debut of Murphy Brown in 1988, Candice Bergen kicked up a controversy by being the first woman on television to choose to raise her child alone. This set off a national debate — earning the ire of then-Vice President Dan Quayle — over family values.

Oprah Winfrey

Is there anything Oprah can’t do? In 1986, with The Oprah Winfrey Show, she became the first woman to own and produce her own TV talk show. That show would stretch an astonishing 25 seasons.

Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox was the first person to say the word “period” on TV in a Tampax commercial in 1985.

Helen Slater

Supergirl, played by Helen Slater, was the first superhero feature film to star a female character in 1984.

Betty White

As if we needed yet another reason to adore Betty White, here’s one: In 1983, she became the first woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Game Show Host for Just Men! Meredith Vieira is the only other woman to hold this honor.

Cathy Lee Crosby

In the 1974 Wonder Woman, Cathy Lee Crosby starred in the first TV movie about a female superhero.

Bea Arthur

Bea Arthur became the first woman to have a legal abortion on prime-time TV on the show Maude in 1972.

Sally Struthers

Sally Struthers was the first woman to deal with a miscarriage on TV in the show All in the Family in 1971.

Diahann Carroll

If you weren’t already familiar with Diahann Carroll, let us introduce you to this inspiration! Her 1968 debut in Julia brought TV its first Black woman in a non-stereotypical role — she played a widowed nurse and mother. She won a Golden Globe for the role and made headlines again in 1969 as the first Black actress nominated for an Emmy. Did we mention she was also the first Black woman to win a Tony Award?!

Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols, with William Shatner, shared the first interracial kiss on TV’s Star Trek in 1967. 

Marlo Thomas

As shocking as this sounds, there were no shows that centered on a woman who wasn’t married, living with her parents or both all the way up until 1966. It was then that Marlo Thomas’ That Girl finally gave audiences a single, independent woman via aspiring actress Ann Marie (who, for the record, remained unmarried for the show’s five-year run).

Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson was the first Black actress to star in a TV drama, Eastside, Westside in 1963.

Rita Moreno

Just one of many feathers in the cap of her 70+ year-career, Rita Moreno became the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar in 1962 for her role as Anita in the original West Side Story. She would also go on to become the first minority woman to become an E.G.O.T., having won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.

Donna Reed

When The Donna Reed Show came to the small screen in 1958, Donna Reed became the star of the first family sitcom to focus primarily on the mother as opposed to the father. She also helped develop the series, which explored then-controversial topics like women’s rights.

Ernestine Barrier

Ernestine Barrier was the first woman to play the U.S. president in the 1953 film Project Moonbase.

Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel was the first Black actress to star in her own comedy TV show, The Beulah Show, in 1950.

Mary Kay Stearns

Mary Kay Stearns was the first pregnant woman on television starring in Mary Kay and Johnny with her real-life husband Johnny Stearns.

Asta Nielsen

Asta Nielsen was the first woman to play Shakespeare’s famous Prince Hamlet on film in 1921. 

Audrey Munson

Audrey Munson was the first woman to bare it all in the film The Inspiration way back in 1915.