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Over Hollywood’s century-long history, women have played an integral part both as actresses on the screen, as well as creators behind the scenes. Many have fought to establish themselves in a male-dominated world, and have earned their place in history alongside the best, even managing to show out at the most prestigious awards ceremony — the Academy Awards. In celebration of Women’s History Month 2024, and the recent 96th Oscars ceremony, following is a list of 26 women who have earned eight or more Oscar nominations. Scroll through our photo gallery above (or click here for direct access).

One area in which women have dominated Oscar nominations is writing. Going all the way back to the second ceremony, Josephine Lovett earned a bid for “Our Dancing Daughters,” while Bess Meredyth received two noms for “A Woman of Affairs” and “Wonder of Women.” The next year, Frances Marion became the first woman...

Over Hollywood’s century-long history, women have played an integral part both as actresses on the screen, as well as creators behind the scenes. Many have fought to establish themselves in a male-dominated world, and have earned their place in history alongside the best, even managing to show out at the most prestigious awards ceremony — the Academy Awards. In celebration of Women’s History Month 2024, and the recent 96th Oscars ceremony, following is a list of 26 women who have earned eight or more Oscar nominations. Scroll through our photo gallery below.

One area in which women have dominated Oscar nominations is writing. Going all the way back to the second ceremony, Josephine Lovett earned a bid for “Our Dancing Daughters,” while Bess Meredyth received two noms for “A Woman of Affairs” and “Wonder of Women.” The next year, Frances Marion became the first woman to triumph in a non-gendered category,...

“Women Talking”? More like women (are) winning. Sarah Polley took home the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar on Sunday, making her one of the category’s few female winners and giving the category back-to-back female champs for the first time.

With Polley’s victory, Best Adapted Screenplay has now gone to women nine times — and twice to the same person, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who triumphed for 1986’s “A Room with a View” and 1992’s “Howards End.” Polley joins Jhabvala as one of four women who’ve won as solo writers. The others are Emma Thompson (1995’s “Sense and Sensibility”) and last year’s winner, Sian Heder (“Coda”).

The category’s other female winners prevailed as part of writing teams. Sarah Y. Mason was the first woman to win adapted screenplay for co-writing 1933’s “Little Women” with her husband Victor Heerman. Claudine West shared her award for 1942’s “Mrs. Miniver” with George Froeschel,...

It’s been a rocky road for “Women Talking,” having underperformed or been overlooked completely at various precursors, but it managed to earn two Oscar nominations: Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sarah Polley. The latter category has long been predicted to be the one that the drama could win and it is currently out in front with 16/5 odds. If Polley does pull through, she’ll join a short list of not just female winners in the category but an even shorter list of female writers who’ve won individually.

As is the case with most non-gendered categories, female champs are rather infrequent in Best Adapted Screenplay. In the 94-year history of the Oscars, the award has gone to women just eight times — and twice to the same person, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who prevailed for 1986’s “A Room with a View” and 1992’s “Howards End.” Jhabvala is one of...

Sian Heder‘s Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar win for “Coda” earlier this year marked the first time in 17 years that the award went to woman. But we may not have to wait that long for the next one. Sarah Polley currently leads the Best Adapted Screenplay odds for her adaptation of Miriam Toews‘ 2018 novel “Women Talking.” If she prevails, it’ll be the ninth time a woman has won and the first time the category has seen back-to-back female winners.

Even though the first woman to win adapted screenplay was Sarah Y. Mason for co-writing 1933’s “Little Women” with her husband Victor Heerman, it will not shock you to learn that, like most non-gendered categories, female winners are few and far in between here. There have been just eight instances total, with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala accounting for two of them. Jhabvala is also one of three women who’ve won as individuals,...

When Jennifer Aniston won a SAG Award Jan. 19, the mainstream media seized on one fact: She and her ex Brad Pitt were together in the winner’s circle. Woo-woo, hot stuff!

For gossip rags, that’s fun, but this angle misses the bigger picture. First, her award for “The Morning Show” was a nice validation for Apple TV Plus. Second, this was a project on which she and Reese Witherspoon are exec producers, meaning actor-producers have moved beyond the realm of “vanity productions,” as such deals used to be called for performers.

The 21st century has seen a sharp rise in actors with successful production companies. That list includes Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria and Nicole Kidman.

Though 2019 Oscar nominations inspired protests for lack of gender diversity among directors, the tallies in the best picture rank are better — not 50-50 yet, but getting there. Eight...

It certainly seems to be the year of the woman at the Academy Awards. Greta Gerwig became just the fifth woman to receive a Best Director Oscar nomination for “Lady Bird.” For the first time in the academy’s 90-year history, a woman, AFI Conservancy alum Rachel Morrison, has been nominated for Best Cinematography for “Mudbound.” And the drama’s director Dee Rees made history as the first black woman to receive a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The film’s star Mary J. Blige not only received a supporting actress nomination, but she is also nominated for Best Original Song for “Mighty River” from the film, alongside co-writers Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson.

But it’s been baby steps for women behind the camera in terms of Oscar nominations, let alone wins.

Here is a look at some of the trailblazers:

See 2018 Oscar nominations: Full list of Academy Awards...

Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...

That Night In Rio

Directed by Irving Cummings

Written by George Seaton, Bess Meredyth, and Hal Long

Starring Don Ameche, Alice Faye, and Carmen Miranda

USA, 91 min.

Romance and harmless conflict run amuck in Irving Cummings’s That Night In Rio. The film follows American entertainer, Larry Martin (Don Ameche), as he impersonates his doppelganger, Baron Manuel Duarte. Once Manuel’s wife, Baroness Cecilia Duarte (Alice Faye) discovers the impersonation, she begins to want her husband to be as loving as the one portrayed by Larry. That Night In Rio also features several song and dance numbers from Carmen Miranda, at the time deemed “The Brazilian Bombshell.”

That Night In Rio is part of Twentieth Century Fox’s musicals set in Latin countries (like another Miranda film, Down Argentine Way). Like other Latin lover musicals of the era, That Night In Rio has a stereotypical depiction of Latin culture. This...

Ramon Novarro is Ben-Hur: The Naked and Famous in first big-budget Hollywood movie saved by the international market (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro: Silent Movie Star.") Turner Classic Movies’ Ramon Novarro Day continues with The Son-Daughter (1933), on TCM right now. Both Novarro and Helen Hayes play Chinese characters in San Francisco’s Chinatown — in the sort of story that had worked back in 1919, when D.W. Griffith made Broken Blossoms with Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess. By 1933, however, the drab-looking, slow-moving The Son-Daughter felt all wrong. (Photo: Naked Ramon Novarro in Ben-Hur.) Directed by the renowned Clarence Brown (who guided Greta Garbo in some of her biggest hits), The Son-Daughter turned out to be a well-intentioned mess, eventually bombing at the box office. And that goes to show that Louis B. Mayer and/or Irving G. Thalberg didn’t always know what the hell they were doing with their stars and properties.

Screenwriter Frederica Sagor Dead at 111: Wrote Movies for Norma Shearer (photo), Clara Bow, Louise Brooks Now, whether Frederica Sagor's Hollywood Babylon-like tales bear any resemblance to what actually happened at studio parties and private soirees, I can't tell. But on the professional side, one problem with the information found in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim is that studios invariably used numerous writers, whether male or female, in their projects. Usually, in those pre-Writers Guild days, only two or three contributors received final credit, not because of the uncredited writer's gender but in large part because the final product oftentimes had little — if anything — in common with the original source. While doing research for my Ramon Novarro biography, I went through various drafts, written by various hands, of his movies. A Certain Young Man, for instance, went through so many changes (including director, cast, and title), that the final film...