On Sunday, March 15, the 98th Academy Awards were held in the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, California. In honor of a historic 33% of nominees being women, according to NPR’s list of Oscar winners, these are ten of many incredibly memorable and historic moments in women’s Oscar history.
1940: Hattie McDaniel
At the 1940 Oscar Awards, Hattie McDaniel was named Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind. Fay Bainter, best known for her supporting role in Jezebel, presented McDaniel with her Oscar, and Bainter made a point to recognize the significance of this award: “To me, it seems more than just a plaque of gold. It opens the doors of this room… and enables us to embrace the whole of America.” McDaniel was the first ever Black actress to be awarded an Oscar and in her speech said that she would “always hold it as a beacon for anything that [she] may be able to do in the future,” and that she hopes it could “be a credit to [her] race, and to the motion picture industry.” She was the first of many other firsts, a star who deserved to be proud of each step she took for others to follow.
1973: Sacheen Littlefeather
When Marlon Brando won the Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather, Sacheen Littlefeather rejected the award on his behalf. Brando’s protest was against the mistreatment and misinterpretation of Indigenous Americans in the film industry at the time, as they were often presented to audiences as violent and barbarian. It has more recently been revealed by family members, after Littlefeather’s death in 2022, that she was not in fact Apache as she had claimed to be on stage in 1973. However, the message she gave in the 60 seconds allotted to her – as opposed to the five-minute speech standard of the time – should not be discounted. She spoke eloquently through the boos or cheers of the divided crowd, and while she may have been a misrepresentation of Indigenous people herself, she made a plea for the “hearts and understandings” of American audiences to be met with “love and generosity” in the future of Indigenous representation on screen.
1974: Tatum O’Neal
At just 10 years old, actress Tatum O’Neal became the youngest competitive Oscar winner for her role as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon. This was O’Neal’s first acting role, performed alongside her father Ryan O’Neal. Accepting her award dressed in a sharp suit and bow tie, O’Neal proclaimed: “All I really want to thank is my director, Peter Bogdanovich, and my father. Thank you.” Her speech was as short and sweet as she was, though her career since has been quite the opposite: her Rotten Tomatoes page lists over twenty different films she has been credited in.
1969: Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn
For their roles in The Lion in Winter and Funny Girl, Katherine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand, respectively, tied for Best Actress. Hepburn was not at the ceremony to accept her award, though she had broken the record of most nominations that year. Streisand opened her speech with a “hello, gorgeous,” cradling and admiring the award. This was her first Oscar nomination and win, so being in “such magnificent company as Katherine Hepburn” was an honor.
2002: Halle Berry
Halle Berry made history at the 2002 Oscars as the first Black woman to win Best Actress: “This moment is so much bigger than me.” Berry won the award for her role as Leticia Musgrove in Monster’s Ball, a commentary on racism and prejudice. She was understandably emotional as she took the stage to accept her award, receiving a standing ovation as she did. She dedicated the Oscar to “every nameless, faceless, woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.” Her four-minute acceptance speech and myriad of thanks to those who contributed to her career held the audience’s attention because, in her words, “This is 74 years here, I’ve got to take this time!”
2010: Kathryn Bigelow
As Barbra Streisand said as presenter for Best Director, “among the five gifted nominees tonight, the winner could be, for the first time, a woman.” The nominations for the award included the possibility for the first woman to win, as well as the first Black director, and the director of one of the most successful movies ever made and the highest grossing movie of the year: Avatar, directed by James Cameron. Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, took home that Oscar and became the first woman to win the category. “This is the moment of a lifetime,” Bigelow said in her speech. She verbally dedicated the award to those serving in the military during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as her film was about the atrocities those serving in Iraq faced in the heart of combat.
2015: Patricia Arquette
For her performance as Olivia Evans in Boyhood, Patricia Arquette won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. While her win may not have broken a record, her statements about the wage gap between actors and actresses was incredibly impactful: “To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” The camera then cut to Meryl Streep — the woman who holds the record for most Academy Award nominations of any actor or actress — enthusiastically cheering her on.
2021: Chloé Zhao
When nominees for Best Directing at the 2021 Oscars were asked how they would explain the experience of being a director, Chloé Zhao said it was like “shedding the skin” of who one perceives themselves to be and taking on the role of another, embodying the project one was trying to complete. Zhao won the Oscar for her film Nomadland, a story following a “modern-day nomad” as she navigates life after losing everything she owned in the Great Recession. She was the first woman of Asian descent and woman of color to win an Oscar in the category. In her acceptance speech, Zhao recalled memorizing and reciting classical Chinese stories and poetry with her father when times got hard. Her favorite phrase, “people at birth are inherently good,” was a much needed reminder for the Oscars crowd during the pandemic, during a time where community felt foreign. “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves … in each other.”
2023: Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh has been in the film industry since 1985; she began making movies in Hong Kong before she was a Hollywood actress, with a myriad of experience in action movies. Yeoh’s first Oscar nomination and win was for her role Evelyn Quan Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once. She is the first Asian woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress: “For all the little boys and girls who look like me, watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof … that dreams do come true.” Yeoh also acknowledged that she won her first Oscar at 60 years old, reminding women to never believe anyone who tells them that they are “past their prime.” She dedicated her award to her mother, and every mother, who she called the “superheroes” that allowed her and everyone else to be where they are now, and to achieve what they have.
2026: Autumn Durald Arkapaw
The award for Best Cinematography this past weekend went to Autumn Durald Arkapaw for her work in Sinners. She is the first woman and first person of color to win in this Oscars category, and this was also her first nomination and win. Arkapaw most notably worked on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever alongside director Ryan Coogler, who celebrated their Sinners win as her director and collaborator. She asked all of the women in the room to stand up during her speech because she felt like “I don’t get here without you guys. I really, really, truly mean that.” As the women in the audience stood, it became apparent and powerful that they made up the majority of those in attendance.