Mira Nair
Ok so a female filmmaker has never take home the Best Director Oscar but that doesn't mean that there are no talent filmmakers at work in Hollywood at the moment.
On the contrary the women are slowly rising and over the last twelve to eighteen months we have seen the ladies produce movies that have done well at the box office.
And in 2010 it's Kathryn Bigelow that is leading the charge with her movie The Hurt Locker, and while we may be jumping the gun saying she will be nominated for an Oscar only a fool would bet against it.
So with the possibility that a woman may finally get her hands on the Best Director Academy Award FemaleFirst takes a look at some of the women who are making their mark behind the camera.
Kathryn Bigelow - and we might as well start with the woman who is giving all of the male directors a right old run for their money this awards season.
She is the name on everyone's lips as her movie The Hurt Locker has taken home a string of gongs over the last few weeks, shame it missed out on the Golden Globe.
Bigelow kicked off her career in 1978 with short film, The Set-Up her first feature coming in 1982 in the form of The Loveless.
Throughout the nineties she directed Blue Steel, Point Break and Strange Days. The Hurt Locker was a return to the director's chair for the filmmaker after a seven year hiatus.
Jane Campion - she is just one of three women who have been nominated for a Best Director Oscar for her movie The Piano in 1993, she is also the only female director to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Campion also kicked off her career working on shorts with Peel in the early eighties, a movie that won the Short Film Palme d'Or at Cannes.
Her feature debut came in 1989 in Sweetie starring Genevieve Lemon and Karen Colston. An Angel At My Table brought her more recognition before the release of The Piano, which saw her become the second woman to be nominated for Best Director.
Her last movie Bright Star also saw her return from a break from filmmaking, her last movie coming in 2003 with In The Cut.
Mira Nair - the Indian filmmaker caused quite a stir with her debut movie Salaa, Bombay! in 1988 as it went on to win the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival before going onto be nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.
In the following year she went on to produce movies such as Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Wedding that cemented her as one of the most talented female filmmakers currently working in the film industry.
In more recent years she has moved into American cinema with Vanity Fair, which starred Reese Witherspoon, and Amelie, with Hilary Swank, late last year.
Nancy Meyers - has been back in the spotlight in recent weeks with the release of her latest movie It's Complicated. Starring Meryl Streep the movie went on to be nominated for a Best Picture Musical or Comedy Golden Globe.
Throughout her career Meyers has combined directing with screen writing and producing. And what may come as a surprise is she has only directed five movies.
She kicked off the filmmaking side of her career in 1998 with The Parent Trap before going on to helm the likes of What Women Want, Something's Got To Give and The Holiday.
But she had made her name in the eighties penning scripts such as Private Benjamin and Father of the Bride.
Sophia Copolla - became only the third woman to be nominated for Best Director in 2003 for Lost In Translation.
She kicked off her filmmaking career with Lick the Star in 1998 before going on to The Virgin Suicides in 1999. But it was Lost In Translation that really saw her make her mark.
She followed up Lost In Translation with Marie Antoinette and is currently working on the comedy drama Somewhere.
Catharine Hardwicke - kicked off the Twilight series of movies in 2008 when the first book was adapted for the big screen.
The film grossed over $384 million easily making back it's rather modest $37 million budget.And while the movie shot her to global fame she made her feature debut back in 2003.
And that came in the form of Thirteen, which she also wrote, before going onto Dogtown and The Nativity Story.
After deciding not to work on the second film in the Twilight series she has been working on Maximum Ride and Hamlet, both of which are expected to be released this year.
Other female filmmaker who have made a name for themselves of late are Andrea Arnold, Fish Tank, is her most recent movie, Phyllida Lloyd, who brought Mamma Mia to the big screen, and Boys Don't Cry director Kimberly Peirce.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Kathryn Bigelow Jane Campion